On Empires

What forces are truly driving us forward? Can we predict where we are going? Can we influence the direction so we end up in the right place?

One can look at Empires as a valuable unit of measure for how humans behave as a race and what they can be expected to do in the future. While our data on Empires is still limited, there are some interesting patterns emerging.

At the highest level, Empires separate into two:

1.Cosmic Empires

• This group are focused on the higher order and understanding the universe. They are characterized by a cultural focus on scientific progress and understanding what is happening above in the observable heavens.
• They last about 3,000 years
• Most notable examples: Egypt, the Mayas
• Social Stratification Drivers: degrees of access to knowledge
• Leaders: priests and scholars 

2. Land-grabbing Empires

• The second are focused on Earthly gains. They value property and wealth and are typically commercial and militaristic powers.
• They last about 1,000 years
• Most notable examples: Rome, Athens, China, Venice
• Social Stratification Driver: Money
• Leaders: Merchants and Soldiers

It is worth noting that the great spiritual transformations were often led by leaders of Land-grabbing Empires who, having obtained everything, chose to walk away from the material path and focus on the higher order.

• Buddha was a prince.
• Jesus was believed by many to be the Son of King David.
• Marcus Aurelius was Emperor.

The Cosmos is not as present in our lives as it once was. It is less present physically. The invention of electricity and the illumination of the night have had many positive benefits, including the acceleration of scientific progress. However, electricity has dramatically diminished the role and the presence of the night sky, the stars and the planets in our lives.

One could have expected that Space travel and exploration would shift the balance of our attention back towards the Cosmic Mindset. But, in the short term, it is fueling a spirit of conquest of near-Earth Space, a rush to grab the opportunity before anyone else. This looks more like the Land-grabbing Empire expansionist, material mindset.

Money evolved as a fundamental tool for governing the social hierarchy in Land-grabbing Empires. Its equivalent in the Cosmic Empires would have been access to knowledge. Reading and writing were reserved to a very select few. Priests with knowledge of the movement of the stars and the ability to conduct entrancing rituals had near-godlike status, and the leaders themselves were considered gods. While the longer duration of Cosmic Empires suggests greater social stability one should not assume this equated with greater equality or even happiness. It is likely that the gap between the elite and the people was greater in the Cosmic Empires than it was in the Earthly Empires, including power over life and death.  

We would naturally interpret shifting focus from the higher order of things to self-gratification as devolution. While counterintuitive, the shift towards a more materialistic mindset is largely due to the democratization of education and knowledge which in and of itself is considered significant evolution.  

Two thousand years ago, the Catholic church attempted to reestablish “the higher order” as the core focus of society. Rome had descended into a period of brutality and decadence. Children, slaves were readily abused. Newly minted roads allowed people to spread rapidly, uncontrolled, across the Empire. Ideas, stories, magic, drugs all were used to ensnare, control, and trick others for gain.  

The Catholic Church standardized the Christian doctrine by selecting what were the “Official” texts and compiling them in what became the New Testament. At its core it was the most riveting account of a massive cosmic battle being raged above between Good and Evil. These were the greatest storytellers of their time and manuscripts with illustrations were the most innovative form of communication, the Spheres, the mobile phones of their epoch. Jesus was not just a hero, he was the Son of God.

The Catholic church was deliberate in cementing its authority so it could drive its agenda. It instituted a form of spiritual hierarchy establishing the legitimacy of its priests through the fact that they could trace a direct connection back to the Apostles and Jesus himself. This supported that priests had access to special knowledge and power. It gave their bishops legitimacy to rule over their initiates.  

The Church succeeded at first, but it almost collapsed when the next big innovation in Communication came around, the printing press. Martin Luther’s written words almost destroyed it. The Church gathered at the Council of Sienna and was able to reboot itself. The plan they enacted was essentially to hire the top artists across all the top forms of communication of the times to restore the glory of the church. Colossal structures, Gold. Majestic art. It worked for a while. However, in essence, they were embracing material stimuli to try and maintain their grasp on the population.  

Communication has experienced another period of rapid evolution in the last 150 years. The mass sharing of information publicly exposed the widespread abusive behavior of priests. Any claims to being driven by special knowledge received directly from the son of god became hard to believe. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the Catholic church failed in restoring “the higher order”, ethics, and moral behavior as the core of society.

So is the move from a Cosmic to a Materialistic focus devolution or is it actually evolution? Would rekindling a focus on the cosmos be a good thing? Is it inevitable? What will it look like? Will it fuse with the more materialistic mindset and provoke a new social order? What new communications tools and pieces will the digital media spawn to capture our imaginations, curiosities and fears; to stimulate our desires, tickle our senses and trigger our urges? And, how will they ultimately satisfy our spiritual needs?