June 26, 2012 at 6:35 am, by Carl

Well, the fall of Rome serves to remind us that complex societies can, and do, break down. There is rarely one reason. Rather, there are multiple causes that come together in a perfect storm, as they did around 400AD.

But in time society recovers, for societies after all are made by people, and one guesses that the ones that recover quickest are the ones which are most adaptive, and perhaps too the ones with the strongest sense of identity and history – the strongest sense of “group feeling”.

 So ends a brilliant article written for the BBC News last month highlighting the similarities between our time now, especially it seems in Europe, and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 350-400 A.D. period.  I’ve been sharing excerpts from my latest book demonstrating how Western Society has, for the past 500+ years moved through a very clear pattern over 80 years.  At the end of the 80-ish years, the last phase is the Great Crisis period which we are into now.  Within the period, there is the ACTUAL Great Crisis, and my book is demonstrating the pattern and how to better prepare for the change to come.

The strongest point that I tried to make was not some “Doom and Gloom” concept, but rather the notion that after the Crisis, a significant change will be coming.  I base that fact on the reality that such change as ALWAYS happened.   And, you might be on the losing, or suffering, side of the crisis, so better to get your head wrapped around that change now.  Yes, it is possible that something else could happen–as a Christian I would love for Jesus to come back and move us to a new situation, but I think as a responsible Christian, I have to also to prepare for Him not coming now.  Thus….?

This question is an aspect that the writers for the BBC approach, appealing to historians of the Roman period.  They demonstrate correctly that many factors led to the collapse, and as such, Rome’s story is very closely becoming ours.  Take a look at these ideas from the article:

  • Some towns survived – Carlisle for example still had a town council and a working aqueduct in the 7th Century – but in most of them, with the rubbish piled up in the streets and the civic buildings left to decay, eventually the people left.  The British went back to an Iron Age rural farming economy. The population declined from its four million peak to maybe only a million, devastated by the great plagues, famines and climate crises of the 500s.
  • First [major reason for decline] was the widening gulf between the social classes, rich and poor. When rich and poor start to live completely different lives this leads (then as now) to the poor opting out of the state.
  • That in turn led as it has today to a “credibility gap” between ordinary people and the bureaucrats and rich people at the top.
  • Other strands in the collapse of the Roman West are more difficult to quantify, but they centre on “group feeling”, the glue that keeps society working together towards common goals.  The British historian Gildas (c 500-570) in his diatribe against contemporary rulers in the early 500s, looking back over the story of the Fall of Roman Britain, lists the military failures, but behind them he speaks bitterly of a loss of nerve and direction, a failure of “group feeling”.

We are certainly into the beginning of crisis, of that I have no doubt. What kind of crisis still remains to be seen, and might not clearly be identified till years after the fact. Still, understanding that this is not a new thing is helpful.  We can learn from the previous experience, not only of the collapse of the Roman Empire (a massive change in history) but also from our more smaller Great Crises that were not quite as massive in scope.

How does one survive? I explain this in greater detail in the book, but the bottom line is that community survives. Start today to build deep relationships and invest in those, no matter what. Get to know your neighbors, and become more aware of whom you can trust. The writers of the article, based on historians, know the same information as I:

But in time society recovers, for societies after all are made by people, and one guesses that the ones that recover quickest are the ones which are most adaptive, and perhaps too the ones with the strongest sense of identity and history – the strongest sense of “group feeling”.