I think the phrase “again and again and again” captures the core of the issue. These types of swings are cyclical. As the great societies age, the asabiya that fired local strength and vigor wanes. The bloody borders that terrified the young society and unified its elites and smallholders are pushed back. With no common threats, the elites fray from and eventually turn on the smallholders. The cosmopolitan wins out over the local and rural. But in time the cosmopolitan consumes itself, and new cultures emerge from the pressure cookers of medieval interregnums.

It is probably no surprise that the North Atlantic West is simultaneously tearing itself to shreds thirty years – one long generation – after the successful conclusion of its great existential struggle. For the Roman parallel – in 340 BC, Publius Decius Mus devoted himself to the gods and rode to his death to grant his smallholder men victory. Three hundred and nine years later, such an act would have been inconceivable madness to Octavian, as he wrapped up his self-aggrandizing victory at Actium.

The peoples precipitate out of the background mass called population, and in time the peoples dissolve back into that background mass. The mature and curatorial existential empires suppress the peoples, but immanentize on Earth the closest possible simulacra of Augustine’s City of God that humans can achieve. And the humans who live in the cosmopolitan societies of the World Cities pronounce such regimes to be good. For as long as they last, which is not forever.

Eventually Ibn Khaldun’s raiders emerge from the deserts or the steppe and slaughter the rich and emasculated cities. At which point the great game begins again. New societies are born, grow, and will eventually die.

And Felix – infotech has not changed Dunbar’s Number. Beyond Dunbar’s Number, bureaucracy is necessary to rule and organize large masses of people. IT provides databases and wonderful new ways for elites to censor deplorables, but I have yet to see it organize a state fundamentally more efficient than Fredrick the Great’s Prussia.

That’s what I hoped. Comments here are not threaded, so sometimes they misleadingly appear to refer to the comment just above them.

Note: The growing group of people I referred might be modeled by Christians or Muslims (and other religions?) at various times. Or the Catholic church. This growing group is geno+geo dispersed, mono-culturish. They are unlike, say, Jews or overseas Chinese, both of whom are mono-geno+culture, geo-dispersed groups.

I say “mono-culturish”. This growing group is clearly *still* building their culture. Specifically, I don’t see what you must chip in to join the group. No painful hazing ritual. Not much in the way of a totally berserk belief you must adopt in public. That sort of thing. (Feel free to disagree on the “totally berserk…” :) )

Before a mono-culture is settled, this group may get too big to sustain anything like a consistent culture. Does anyone know what cultural group size limit modern communications tech can support?

Notably, the idea has not worked out real well for the Jews in Europe, or the Chinese in Southeast Asia, but if you think you can make it work, feel free. Don’t be real surprised when your neighbors band together and decide to do what they do best, and your nearest friends/allies are on the other side of the ocean from you, though…

Transnationalism founders on the facts of life, which are that you have to live somewhere, and if you aren’t at one with your neighbors, you’re not going to be very well-liked, and you’ll be the first to get the blame when things go wrong. Also, it’s all too easy to loot your property, rape you women, and erase your existence when you don’t have the power of numbers on your side. Which, by definition, you’ll never have locally, as a transnational idealist.

“Community of Man”, my ass. This has never worked, anywhere, at any time, for anyone.

I’m grateful to the Internet for helping me connect with people who don’t happen to live close to me. It gives me more possible human interactions to choose from. Am I global? Yes, but not globalist. A nomad is not necessarily a citizen of the world.

Wherever I happen to be, I make a point of getting to know and understand the locals. A globalist wouldn’t bother. I believe in situation awareness. The thing about wherever you happen to be is, you’re there in the midst of it

Don’t see that working out too well, for anyone involved. What you’re advocating for is delusion.

Raw fact is, there is no “global” anything. Try appealing to the globe the next time you’re in a foreign country, and someone decides you are the enemy. Push comes to shove, you’d better either be “one of them”, willing to join with them, or have some external big brother willing to come rescue you, because otherwise, you’re so much dead meat.

Humans developed the nation-state for a reason; those reasons are still with us, to this day. No matter how much pie-in-the-sky transnational globalism you espouse, or how much of a true believer you are in the ideal, you still have to live somewhere. And, if you’re not “one of them” with your neighbors, then you are “the other”, and will be treated as such.

This crap is the fallacy of the age, along with socialism. The people espousing for it truly do not grasp what they’re really asking for, or what they will actually get. The Jews and Chinese were transnationalists before there were transnational ideals, and look where that got them: Persecuted and dead. There’s a reason for that, and apparently you’re too smart to see where that idea falls apart.

This is one of those “genius” ideas that dumbass college kids throw around the student lounge, never grasping the real implications of their smart-arse ideas, or how things will work out in the real world. The real world? You’re a citizen of the world, and an enemy of your neighbor who you see little in common with, what do you suppose happens when that neighbor figures you out? D’you really think he’s going to let an avowed enemy live next door, or do you suppose he’s going to deal directly with what he can get at? Which would be, surprise, you.

You may not feel much feeling for that working-class schlub next door, but if you don’t want to recapitulate the experiences of the Jews in Eastern Europe, you might want to recast your elitist feelings and develop a bit of humility.

Or, not. Too many of these sorts have the common sense of ground squirrels, and the survival chances that go with that.

“the passport holders pay a disproportionate amount of the taxes”

is not true?

It seems to me a key question of the modern world is: How do the world’s people organize themselves when their bitterest competition lives across the street and their cooperative colleagues live 6000 miles away?

Because that geographical arrangement is growing as we speak. Consider the telecommunications field. Or computers. Or cars. Or drugs. All of those fields are quite global. And those global fields live in a world where most power structures are nation states, geographical entities built to protect farm land.

Just like any other profession, parasites need to be good at what they do. If you are going to suck blood, suck blood well and ably.

The thing about yuppies is they don’t even rise to the level of evil. They don’t have the imagination to aspire to malice. Many of them even do productive work, purely by chance. But they know nothing outside their bubble. They don’t even know or care where their bubble comes from or what sustains it. They are froth beings.

None of those elites ran their nations to benefit anyone other than themselves. So, how did they get away with it? Why did the natives let them?