At the risk of venturing too far into a field about which I know very little, there are two schools of thought about the collapse of the Roman Empire. One is that the Empire was a thoroughly rotten edifice by the late 4th century, and any little breeze would’ve sufficed to tip it over — pick any one of the events of the 4th century to designated as the tipping point, and everything else seems to be the collapse playing out. The other school, associated with Peter Heather — a very very badthinker, apparently — is that for all its problems the Empire could’ve staggered on pretty much indefinitely, had it not been hit with several overwhelming crises simultaneously … and even then, a lot more of the “Empire” survived than we generally credit, and that’s not including the Byzantines (who kept on keepin’ on for another thousand years).
Again, my knowledge of the topic is pretty weak, but y’all know that in general I believe inertia is one of the strongest forces in human affairs (just behind accident and error). What can’t continue, won’t … eventually, but there’s a lot of give in “can’t”. The “collapse” of the 5th century looked an awful lot like the “crisis” of the 3rd century, and not only did the Empire survive the third century crisis, in many ways it came back stronger than ever (one wonders what golden age might’ve been born had Aurelian lived).
It certainly does seem like we’re heading into a major crisis (yeah yeah, I know, thanks Nostradamus). Is it The End, or “merely” the Third Century Crisis? One wonders how it’s going down there in Brazil, and if there are any cagey young officers in the AINO Imperial Garrisons taking notes. The guys who grabbed the purple in the Third Century Crisis were called “the barracks emperors” for a reason, and we know (from the comments yesterday) that there are cabals of perverts alive and well in the officer corps.
2023 is shaping up to be really interesting. Ace of Grillers has done some reporting on the fossil fuel-intensive “Green” private jet flights of our beloved Transportation Secretary, Anal Pete. AOG thinks this is pretty obviously the butt bandit announcing his 2024 presidential run, and it’s hard to argue against it. Frankly I’m amazed Brandon has survived this long — is Dr. Jill that canny a political infighter, or is it just dumb luck that no one has felt the need to finish him off? — but it’s hard to see him making it too far into 2024. Veep Throat is of course running; we have yet to see Z Man’s predicted replacement of her with Gavin Hairgel, but I’m sure he’s in, too …
Frankly, I’m rooting for the Russians. You really want the wheels to come off, then start cheering for a big winter offensive from Ivan. Provided AINO doesn’t start cracking off nukes — a big, big IF — nothing would force the crisis like our “victory or death!” Juggalos getting their asses handed to them in the Donbas. The Z Man thinks they’ll pull a Ngo Dinh Diem on the Jewish Comedian here before too long; I wonder if they’ll even get the chance, or if it would matter if they did. I’m pretty sure Vlad’s done talking, if for no other reason than that he knows whatever faction of Juggalos he cuts a deal with will be betrayed by some other Juggalo faction. Unless the AINO peace proposals come written in the still-hot blood of a shitload of Kagans, he has zero reason to negotiate. And since The Media is still all in on their “total Ukrainian victory is just around the corner!” narrative …
Severian, “Friday Mailbag”, Founding Questions, 2022-12-16.
March 19, 2023
QotD: Are we re-enacting the “Crisis of the Third Century” or “Fall of the Roman Empire” this time?
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