[davidborkowski]

Hello Jason,

Thanks for answering my question. Your description of villages decimated during the war reminded me of the Boeotians that were destroyed at Plataea during the Peloponnesian war. It is my understanding that those particular people never recovered from just that particular battle, and that was millennia ago.

It brought me to another follow up question; do you know of any civilization that made a recovery after such a devastating experience? If so how long did it take to recover? It seems that western civilization made a dead cat bounce after the nightmarish 20th century internecine conflicts.

I can only think of China and India possibly recovery after being raped by the Mongols.

Thank you.

[Jason Jewell]

The damage the Mongols did to Asia was, on the whole, superficial. The number of Mongols was very small relative to the populations they conquered, and they were content to skim wealth off the top in most cases. Certainly some local areas were “made an example of,” and in those particular places it might have taken generations to come back.

In most cases the devastated civilization winds up getting replaced by something else, and the survivors assimilate themselves into the new order. Many observers see this on the horizon in Europe today as more immigrants and their descendants change the culture and system. I don’t think we can chalk all of that up to the world wars, but certainly they contributed to the process in the longer term.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a civilization that bounced back in essentially the same form after a really severe trauma like that. What comes next is always substantially different. There are degrees of continuity depending how much the trauma is internal and how much is external, though.

I hope this helps.

[davidborkowski]

That certainly helped, and I think your answer is spot on.

Interesting answer on the Mongols. I remember reading R.J. Rummel’s death by government and he listed mongol democide at 29,000,000 between 14-15th century! Do you think that number is overblown or exaggerated? While on topic what is your opinion on that book overall?

“Many observers see this on the horizon in Europe today as more immigrants and their descendants change the culture and system.”

This is certainly what I have been observing as well. Why is Europe’s birth rate at non-replacement levels? Is it nihilism and the abandonment of Christianity, eugenics, the cradle to grave welfare state?

Also there was a simultaneous continuity of agenda of all western countries to open up there borders and allow disastrous chain migration into their nation states in the 1960s and 70s. Germany for the Turks, England for Afro-Caribbean’s, Pakistanis, and Indians, France for north Africans, Italy for Africans (north and sub-Sahara), Australia for south east Asians, U.S. for central Americans, etc.

The collusion is undeniable, but why? Was it to elect another people and swamp the demographics of western nation states with a heritage and history of resisting tyranny? Are they suicidal and psychotically myopic with multiculturalism, egalitarianism and democratic socialism?

That is a lot of questions, sorry, please take your time in answering.

Thanks for your time and responses. Your wisdom and knowledge is extremely valuable.

[Jason Jewell]

Re: Europe’s birth rate, we could point to many individual factors, but the overall reason, I think, is a rising time preference in European society. Having and rearing children is, of course, a long-term project requiring many sacrifices of utility in the present, and Europeans increasingly are no longer willing to make those sacrifices.

I do think the welfare state is a big part of the equation here. It both makes it more difficult to pay for the rearing of children in the present because of higher taxes and makes the prospect of a childless old age seem more palatable. I also think the secularization of the society plays a role, as the incentives to childbearing found in Christian teaching ebb.

As for the opening of Europe to immigration, I think decolonization and guilt over the colonial past played a big role. The offer of immigrant status and eventual citizenship for residents of the former colonies was seen as a form of reparations. I don’t know that any proponents of the policy had really calculated the magnitude of the impact of those decisions in the 1960s, although I could be wrong.

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