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200 years is an eyeblink in world history.

Less so now that the tempo of history is faster. But you're looking at only one side - the shorter side - of the stick, which is the past and not the future.

The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in the history of the world - to this day - and it rose and fell in the space of less than 200 years at a time when history moved much more slowly than it does now. 200 years made the difference between Carthage becoming the most populated and powerful nation in the world and a heap of ruins and salt.

Consider that America will, in some form, endure from now to eternity. In two thousand years, our national history to this point will be less than a tenth of the big picture. Even less when you include the colonial era. So to make a judgement based on this narrow 200-year period betrays a fundamental failing of perspective.

The Romans of 300 AD, for example, were a very different people than the Romans of 100 BC. They were more similar to modern Italians than they were to the Romans we know from the history books. In the space of 400 years their entire culture changed completely - almost totally inverted - from what it was from 500 BC to 100 BC.

The same could happen to us, and there are many indications it may. In 2210, America could be much more different from what it is now than the present is from 1810. How will the emerging inequities and increasingly rigid social classes of American society, together with the breakdown of racial barriers, play out in the long run? By 2510, the people that people think of when they think of Americans could be as different as the Romans and Italians, or as different as the Turks and Mongols.

What happens in the here and now will determine how history plays out in the long run. It's a living process.

You can only get a real perspective when you stick to reading whole stories - not claiming that the here and now represents the summit and final truth of history.

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America is a good example, however, in that WWII proved to be self-destructive for us in the long run, in that it resulted in deindustrialization, hubris, and social and cultural decline. This isn't a new development. The Punic Wars turned out the same way for the Romans. The Peloponnesian War turned out the same way for the Spartans. The Conquest of the Americas turned out the same way for the Spanish. If we stuck to our niche as we had it before the World Wars, we'd be in a much better position today, just as the Swiss are.

Yes, China had changes of dynasty. What's wrong with that, how is that relevant? The dynasty dies, the culture survives. That is their history.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

the culture survives yes, but the chinese of today are drastically different from the chinese of 500 years ago, kinda like the romans you mentioned.

again, if winning a war brings defeat, how is china still intact, as you say?

No, they really aren't. Their culture, their language, their values, the way they think and do things, all that is pretty unchanged.



Because the Chinese have never sought to hegemonize other countries. They have always been extremely cautious in extending their power abroad. They never seriously tried to conquer Japan or Korea or Indochina even when they had overwhelming odds on their side.

As a result, they never developed bitter enemies nor standing armies that posed a threat to civilian leadership. They never had popular ambition as a destabilizing force in society. They never had to assimilate foreigners, or adapt to foreign invaders. This did have some tradeoffs in terms of their cultural, economic and technological development however, much of which is being made good by contact with their current relationship the West.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

China's never tried to expand? really? it's pretty big for a country that just popped into existence with those borders.

Chinese frontiers are defined mostly by geography. West is Tibet (impenetrable to civilized peoples), east is the Pacific Ocean, north is Siberia and south are the jungles of Thailand. Tibet and Thailand may not sound so bad until you realize how impossible it is to travel thousands of miles with no available food or water, or how dangerous malaria and dysentery are to people with no immunity.

In that sense, yeah, the Chinese were able to expand into a vacuum. But like I said, they have made only very limited attempts to expand their power even within what geography allows them. That's just their way.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.