Embracing the Decline

On the metaphysical level, one of the hardest things about living in a declining civilization can be simply coming to terms with it. If I were to splice Bill Wilson's 12-step program for recovering alcoholics with John Michael Greer's analysis of problems vs. predicaments, I would advocate that the first step for recovering progress-aholics is to admit that you have a predicament. Now, problems have solutions, but predicaments do not; the situation is unavoidable, whether you accept it or not, but you are free to respond and adapt to it in your own way.

This applies at a macrocosmic scale as well, which is why we often talk about these issues in terms of national and international politics. The thinking goes that if only we could get these people in charge of the institutions of business and government, instead of these idiots, then we could sort this mess out in no time. However, this is an unfortunate abdication of responsibility, because ultimately the very edifice on which these institutions are built is rotten; even if it wasn't always as spiritually corrupt as it is now, its structural integrity is beginning to fail.

Attempting to provoke any kind of intelligent response from these institutions will be about as fruitful as going hunting for griffins. A more imaginative approach is required, but the very nature of the schooling system and the professional world for which it is intended to prepare us is designed in such a way as to destroy any buds of imagination.

As an example, a recently-launched website called Inflamer ran an article entitled Britain 2050: Rogue Nation. The website's founder, Jack Anderton, was featured on GB News to talk about its launch, an impressive head-start for a young blogger appearing out of nowhere. In any case, the vision for an “alternative British future” presented in ‘Britain 2050’ is simply a rehash of ideas that are going on for a century old now. Even the article's heading illustration depicts a Hugh Ferriss-inspired modernist metropolis of skyscrapers and old-fashioned biplanes. Aside from the hyper-Thatcherism and nationalistic immigration policy, the vision is not terribly dissimilar to the WEF's endlessly parodied “you vill own nothing, and you vill be happy” vision of 2030. Both take the modern ideology of Progress utterly for granted; technologies that have been promised for a century or more as 'just around the corner' have finally materialised, bringing limitless supplies of free energy, an end to all forms of disease, and the colonization of space. Much like the WEF's '2030', Inflamer's vision of 2050 also veers into self-parody:

“Healthcare has also been revolutionised with the invention of British medical pods in the mid-2040s that enable an individual to lie down in the pod and be scanned for any illness, disease or ailment and be automatically cured or fixed.”

This is a Saturday morning cartoon vision of the future; The Jetsons scripted by Enoch Powell. The fact that a writer who is clearly articulate and intelligent can come up with something like this, and be taken seriously, is a concerning indicator as to how drained of ideas we are on a collective level. In contemporary online slang, this piece can be described an example of copium, a conceptual sedative anaesthetizing one to the visceral experience of an uncomfortable reality: in this case, the slow, interminable decline of our civilization.

On a more local level, this means that Anglofuturist daydreams of reviving the British Empire but this time in SPACE!! are not likely to be particularly helpful. On the macro level, you have the ongoing contraction of industrial civilization to contend with; the economic viability of terraformed off-world colonies and nuclear fusion energy is questionable, to say the least, so I'd say putting your eggs in those baskets is a bit of a gamble. On the slightly-less-macro level, Britain itself is a nation entering its autumn years; Americans still use the old-fashioned term fall, which is even more appropriate. Whether you think the British Empire was a Good Thing or not, whether you support the monarchy or want to see them deposed, whether you want open or closed borders; none of it changes the fact that our country is in decline, and there isn't a hell of a lot any of us can do about it, except adapt as best we can.

In that process, it has to be said, it is good and right to take as many steps as possible to preserve what it is valuable about our culture for the sake of posterity. This is where I return to the wisdom of the yew tree, almost certainly originally one of the most important trees in indigenous European medicine and religious practice. As I suggest in my previous piece The Trees That Hold the Cosmos Together, the yew offers a potent metaphor for cultural regeneration in the way that it 'rebirths' itself by shooting stems into the ground, which take root, and subsequently become new trees that grow through the middle of the old. The yew does not undergo a midlife crisis, and attempt to regain its lost youth by wearing inappropriate clothing, buying a motorcycle, or behaving like a teenager; it can be reborn because it accepts its the inevitability of its own death, and takes the appropriate action.

The symbol of the regenerating yew tree is just that – a symbol – and therefore must be understood intuitively. Rationalizing it will only drain it of power. In any case, the future remains uncertain, making specific recommendations difficult. Will the climate get warmer, or colder? Will Europe be conquered by the Caliphate, or Neo-Imperialist Russia, or Project Bluebeam alien holograms led by Space Jesus? How badly will the Covid-19 'vaccines' damage the population? Will other manmade plagues beset us?

We can make guesses based on extrapolations of current data, or even prophetic visions if you are that way inclined, but we can't know for certain. What is quite apparent to me is overall decline. If your culture can't bring itself to age gracefully, then you have to make up for it in your own life. In the words of fellow Substacker Barbaric Disciple, in his review of Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West: “You can choose to meet that end kicking and screaming, or you can choose to meet it with honor. Either way, it comes.”

In other words, keep your dignity, and embrace the decline.

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I intend to unpack this notion over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here is Market Garden's riotously pessimistic, heart-wrenchingly comic World Cup (Dying in the Street).