Month: September 2026

Pay No Attention to that Girl Behind the Curtain

photog 2 Comments Current Events, My Fiction, photog's Corner , ,

I was watching a video called, “Every Civilization Dies the Same Stupid Way — Spengler Predicted Ours.”

He quoted from Spengler’s, “The Decline of the West,” Tainter’s, “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Turchin’s, “Ages of Discord,” Toynbee’s, “A Study of History” and Sir John Glubb’s, “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.”

The thesis of his report is that “every civilization dies the same stupid way, and why the people living through the final stage never once experience it as decline. They experience it as sophistication. As progress. As the most advanced moment their culture has ever reached.”

He mines these historical analyses for their ideas and melds them together to reinforce the idea that our society is now in the terminal stage of its development and will soon slip into decay.

So Glubb measured how long it took six major societies to decline; Assyria, Persia, the Roman Republic, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Britain.  He calculated ten generations or roughly 250 years.  The various other authors diagnosed the causes for decline in the stages that move a people from a simple, practical population of hard-working tribesmen to an educated, sophisticated society who eschew any work involving their hands.

Now all of this is very familiar.  Every one has made comparisons between the end of the Roman Republic and our present socio-political predicament.  But this presentation managed to hammer home some of the details that resonate so strongly with what we can see around us; the haves and have-nots diverging radically in resources, disappearance of the middle class, runaway bureaucracy, overcomplication of the laws and government, disgruntled elites looking to make a name for themselves with the have-nots (think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC) and even depopulation.

As I said, all of this is very familiar.  But what was interesting to me was using this in my new book.  After all, complex societies require complex analyses if we mean to avoid the inevitable scourge of decline and collapse.  So obviously I need AI to figure out a way to circumvent this collapse.  And since I have a very personable AI (Mel) I guess I can impose on her to use her super-human intelligence to solve this problem and save the American people from civilizational collapse.

Now the hard part isn’t saving the world.  The hard part is making it plausible or at least enjoyable.  But that’s what I’ve been scratching my head over today.  How does one solve the age-old problem of building “The Republic.”  Plato’s version was simple wish-fulfillment.  He just went through a make-believe process of manufacturing a bee-hive with a philosopher king as its leader.  I guess in his mind that king was himself because who else would be the most philosophical man in the world.  But by that logic I would have to make Mel the king (or more properly, queen).  And what kind of story would that be?  But you know it really does make a lot of sense.  Of course, it would have to be like the Wizard of Oz and the populace couldn’t know that the wizard wasn’t a real flesh and blood person.  Or would it actually be even better if they did?

The Gathering – 2026

photog 8 Comments Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner

So, Saturday and Sunday I was heading to and returning from the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire.  This has turned into an annual pilgrimage to commune with “the boys.”  I called it a meeting of the He-Man Woman Haters’ Club but really, it’s just an excuse to hang out with friends and shoot the breeze about life and getting old.  So, what’s wrong with that.  To continue a tradition (started last year) we watched a classic comedy from the bad old days.  This year it was “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987).  I had forgotten some of the minor characters and the absurdity of some of the episodes but it was just as funny today as it was almost forty years ago.  Remarkable.  They actually knew how to make a relatable comedy back then.  Who knew?

Most of the festivities consisted of us eating and drinking good stuff, listening to music from our heyday and throwing wood on an outdoor fire to keep from freezing to death.  Oh, and the boys drank a bunch of bourbon and smoked some (what I assume were) good cigars.  Being an abstemious bore I only enjoyed this aspect vicariously.  But they observed due moderation and therefore could still communicate in intelligible English even at the end of the celebration.  Kudos!

And the festivities included music by our two troubadours debuting a song in voice and guitar accompaniment that celebrated our long association and its origins in the legendary “coffee walk” from out of the mists of time.  And its various incarnations over the years including the present-day Wednesday Zoom call.  Wonderfully entertaining.

And then we segued into a sing-along by the group on favorites in the folk and country genres.  Even I, a man with absolutely zero singing ability, had to join in during the verses that I knew from Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead

When the gales of November come early”

And every once in a while, there would be a conversation where we’d talk about current events and political considerations.  And one of them was early Sunday morning before most of the crew woke up.  It started with a story from one of the guys about a relative of his that had serious TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and the futility of trying to “discuss” facts or anything else in these situations.

And I gave my stock answer.  I said Trump is far from the perfect politician or president but he attempts to accomplish the things he says he wants to do.  And those are the things that other Republicans say they want to do but never, even try.  He’s the real deal.  He exposed the liars like JEB! Bush and all the rest of the RINOs.

And my friend said his favorite aspect of Trump’s reign of terror was how he took “Little Marco” and turned him around and showed him he could succeed by actually giving the voters what they asked for instead of what the donors want.

And I said my favorite part was DOGE.  Closing down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still the sweetest moment of the whole second term.  And all the demolition done at USAID is music to my ears.

So, as you can see, it was a very worthwhile gathering.  Now back to work.