The Mindless Tenacity of Barbarism

The Mindless Tenacity of Barbarism

As I have pointed out in numerous essays before, one can easily differentiate between Civilized and Barbarian Institutions simply by applying one objective criteria -- Population, that is, Civilized Institutions allow and provide for high levels of population and population density, while Barbaric Institutions favor depopulation and only thrive when the population densities are relatively low.

What we see in History is a series of Cycles… Cycles composed of Spirals to be more exact… in which Civilizations rise up and Populations grow until they increase beyond a certain point where its Civilized Institutions can no longer manage all of the complexities and requirements involved in housing and feeding so many People. Then the disintegrative and destructive Institutions of Barbarism come into play, reducing the overall population factors to a level where Barbarians can stretch out and again be thoroughly comfortable.

It may appear that I am being over-simplistic, but from the Civilized standpoint anyway, Civilized Institutions can be equated to Goodness and Light, while Barbarism, of course, is Evil – the veritable Reign of Darkness.

It is a terrible moment in any society’s history – the point where Individual Survival is advanced more through Evil than through Good. At that point in time when suddenly a Civilization exceeds its grasp and the advantage goes to Barbarism, then Goodness becomes a liability. Evil rises up wearing two races – first, those best suited to murder and mayhem will be the Big Winners as Civilization collapses. They are cold-blooded demonic thugs, but they call themselves “Warriors”. The other Face of Barbarism makes the best use of its Feet – these are the swiftest and fleetest Refugees – those who can turn their back on their Old Society the quickest and most rapidly abandon their Fellow and Family – these are the Survivors who live to repopulate the Post-Civilized World.

So it is that everybody’s Family Tree takes root in a manure heap.

History shows us that there is not really much of a moral difference between Barbarism’s Murderous Thugs and the Refugees. We have often seen that large Demographic Movements of ‘refugees’ pushed out of one region by overwhelming force, well, that they in turn become the ‘Murderous Thugs’ that push another Group out down the line. You see, once it becomes embedded in a Society’s “Moral View” that “Other People Do Not Matter” and that there is some kind of equivalent ‘Moral Imperative” that Personal Advantage should supersede all else, then it is just as likely that the person, the Refugee, who runs away from his responsibilities, will also not hesitate to kill someone else for their wallet… giving himself a promotion to “Warrior”.

One would expect that the Refugee’s great suffering would purge him of evil and leave him in a state of Purity. But no… Suffering gives way to Vengeance and the character of a Refugee People becomes vindictive. Such victims only swear to never be made such victims again, and then they do their best to become exactly like the Marauders who had victimized them in the first place. Attila the Hun had been a Refugee.

Of course a certain practical ‘leaven’ for Civilization is embedded within Barbarian Societies, and that is simply that the largest band of Thugs generally wins when it comes to violent contests for Territory or Resources. Big Gangs defeat small gangs. It moves up the scale until we are talking about entire Armies. To put that many people together without causing more self-destruction than practical benefit, we would have to have the resurrection of some basic rules, agreements, contracts, and particularly the psychological seed-sprout that a Cooperating Society is more powerful than any group of individuals standing alone. The first ‘virtue’ in any wholly Barbarian Society is Loyalty.

Indeed, the more ‘Civilized’ a Barbarian Society manages to become, the more successful it will actually be… which of course gives us the Rise of our ‘Civilizations’. So we would expect that Civilizations would rise up quickly, no?

Well, yes and no. Civilizations do arise, but there are problems.

Remember how we agreed that Barbarism favors and enjoys low levels of Population. Well, in the worst and most absolute collapses of a Civilization – not just the bottom of one of the ‘Spirals’ as things get worse, but the bottoming of the entire Cycle – the De-population is so extreme that the individual surviving Barbarians have really no effective competition for Land or Resources after the ‘dust settles’, so to speak. After a Deep and Final Collapse of a Civilization, with Population Levels dropping by 80 or 90% in just one or two generations, then Life becomes a veritable ‘Free For All’. Survivors can pick between any two or three Estates or Plantations to move into and take over as uncontested personal property. Food becomes plentiful and cheap. But, most importantly to our point, nobody needs to owe anybody anything – not a single virtue is required to get by well in any Golden Age of Barbarism. But even this total absence of Virtue can be made out to seem like a virtue. Thus it is that Barbarians at their absolute lowest will create a quasi-virtue – really the absence of all real virtue, and they will call it Freedom. Or they will be brazen about it and defy every true model of Morality with such slogans as “Greed is Good”. At such periods in History it is the Antichrist who reigns on Earth.



So it is that Barbarians will enshrine Freedom as the source of all their Wealth and Happiness. But actually looking at the facts, as we have, we see that they only enjoyed such Prosperity and Plenty because everyone else had died. So it is that the Doctrines of Freedom followed closely on the heals of any Black Plague or Major Famine, and of course enjoy a re-invigorating echo after any particularly grisly War. A Few Survivors get to keep what is left behind by the Dead Many. And then The Scheming Beggar who moves into a Palace pretends to his children that he was the one who built it in the first place. Freedom is the Right every pillager claims to keep what he has stolen.


So it is that Barbaric Societies, as they enjoy the Lowest Population Levels immediately after any Major Depopulating Collapse, will hone their doctrines and political theories to justify selfishness and division. As population levels naturally increase, and competition again begins to rise, then we will have practical benefits again accruing to the Communities that can best manage to suppress the Demonic Call to Freedom so that they can multiply their powers through Cooperation. But with Selfishness and Freedom so intrinsically a part of each Society’s kind of “Core Folk Religion”, any institutions built around Cooperation will be qualified and compromised. Civilization will grow up with the original stain of Barbarism, and the more pronounced that stain, then the sooner it will undergo the Next Collapse, where its half-hearted Institutions of Civilization cannot provide for even a moderately high level of Population.