--- #TODO - **Hunnic incursions into Rome:** From the eastern step into Eastern Europe and ultimately Italy, the Huns pressured and fragmented the late Roman world—just as the Germanic “spawn points” of Denmark/Sweden (Tacitus’s “womb of nations”) fed the collapse of Rome’s western half. - **Frontier as anti-civilizational generator:** The same geography that produced the Huns also gave rise to the medieval Baltic barbarians (Goths, Vandals, Lombards), exemplifying how frontier zones consistently “call and response” the great empires. - **Maritime channels vs. open plains:** Europe’s fractured coasts and rivers built feudal castles, while the steppes’ boundless horizons empowered horse-archer confederacies to raid and compel tribute from every emerging medieval order. - **Frontier polities as anti-state spawns:** Denmark’s Baltic estuary “womb of nations” birthed Goths and Vandals just as the Pontic grasslands bred Scythians and Huns—geographic gateways that perpetually spawn “anti-civilization” challengers. - **Fortresses as patchwork response** (McNeil, _Europe’s Steppe Frontier_) John McNeil demonstrates that between 1500 and 1800, fortified lines—Hadrian’s Wall, China’s Great Wall, Russia’s Oka Line—were all reactive measures to steppe raids, echoing earlier medieval bulwarks from the 6th–10th centuries. - **Christianization of steppe elites** (Frankopan; Weatherford) Frankopan and Jack Weatherford show how Khazar elites adopted Judaism, Bulgars flirted with Islam, and Tatar princes took Orthodox Christianity—each faith adoption a strategic maneuver in the great cultural marketplace of the frontier. Massive palpable shift after fall of rome, later division into Latin-Europe and Germanic-Europe, both derivations of roman empire, but with latin-europe's religion, language, legal code all direct derivations of rome, whereas germanic isn't. Western roman empire was aristocratic command economy, rotten with some of the largest wealth inequality, to the point where they couldn't raise army of their ~30m "citizens" and had to hire "barbarian mercenaries." Which, after realizing how dysfunctional the western empire was, conquered it and for once, average living standard actually began to rise. (400-600AD) three sources of social power filled the vacuum and gradually formed a single elite that became western civilization. The influence of the germanic barbarians varied a lot depending on region in some areas like england or the rhineland they depopulated much of the native population and became the majority culture. However in most of western europe there weren't enough of the barbarians to really have a huge effect. For a comparison something like two hundred thousand anglo-saxons probably migrated to england, a country whose population was knocked back to somewhere over half a million due to plague, while only 3 000 visigots went to spain a region with a population of 5 million. It's no surprise that england became a practical extension of scandinavia losing christianity and the latin alphabet while spain remained practically latin. What occurred in the more heavily populated parts of western europe like spain, france, and italy was that the barbarians quickly intermarried with the pre-existing ruling elite. Taxes were so bad in the late roman empire that wealthy romans actively immigrated to the countryside and became lords on massive estates where the tax collectors couldn't get them. Keep in mind, before the fall, there hadn't been a major non-civil war for 400 years, meaning a culture of degradation and pacifism, with most of the roman elite entering the church, whereas the germanic tribes actively cultivated a warrior elite. The dominant power of these ex-roman kingdoms was the frankish empire. The only one that actively pursued a policy of working with the catholic church and the native aristocracy. This is also considering that the frankish empire at its inception was the weakest of the major barbarian kingdoms. The church was the sole functioning international literate organization in the west. It was also the only fully meritocratic organization so the smartest people went into the church. This meant that money and talent flooded into the church making it the most important cultural organization in western europe and the glue holding the broader society together. The shifts that created modern western civilization occurred in this era. Starting with the germanic barbarians the west got a warlike ruling class. In most of the world civilizations like the arab world, hindus, and china, the ruling class were respectively merchants priests and bureaucrats. What occurred in those other asian civilizations was that since the native ruling classes couldn't fight bloodthirsty nomadic tribes that could seized power who horrifically repressed the civilizations and led them to decay. one of the great mysteries of western civilization's history is that the peasantries never become pacified. In the asian civilizations in the roman empire the central provinces of the empire became useless fighters while the armies were recruited from barbarians on the edges of the frontier. This never occurred in the west with the english, germans, and french remaining military fighters while never having to recruit let's say the scots and swiss to fight for them. This allowed the core western nations to keep expanding while most of the other great empires would have resulted in stagnation. Possible reasons for the West's heartland not being pacified. - Higher Indo-Aryan ancestry of any other major civilization. - The Indo-Aryans were super aggressive. - Higher percentage infantry armies due to smaller borderlands and fighting against nations rather than barbarians - Higher meat consumption that forced peasants to be armed to kill their animals. - Less irrigation farming, which gives peasants terrible diseases and makes them easier to oppress. - Less centralized government power, which disenfranchised local leadership. - Permanent war inside the West's heartland. I put forward my own proposition, that it had to do with culture. Specifically peasant culture allotted a considerable amount of agency to the peasant farmer class, yes they had to pay their taxes, yes they had to be conscripted at times, but if they disagreed, they could also leave. Perhaps this itself is a result of their more aggressive nature, born from their historical context, but with anything, this mix of factors led to the outcomes we see. For the other main contribution the germans gave western civilization was the obsession with legal rights and the origin of democracy. We generally have the idea that modern western democracy came from the greeks and the romans but this really wasn't the case. By the time the roman empire fell it was an authoritarian theocratic mess with no democracy at all. However the germanic tribes belief that every member of the warband had Frijaz or freedoms conferred in him as a man. These included legal freedoms and the right to elect the next king and leader of the war band. These rights stayed with the nobility who jealously guarded them throughout the middle ages. Something we often forget is that medieval europe wasn't absolute kings ruling on a whim. Practically every kingdom in medieval europe had a parliament. It was with the invention of gunpowder and cannons that could knock down the nobility's castles, that kings gained power over the nobilities and created absolute monarchies. The two states that didn't do this, and in which the parliaments won out, britain and the netherlands followed eventually by the united states were so successful people started to imitate them. Germanic moots or things, their terms for parliaments, had very complex representative systems for different social classes. As we'll see, this system was reinforced by the West's later history and evolved into personal and property rights, and this is a big reason why the Germanic countries are so wealthy now. The Catholic Church at the same time was doing what amounted to massive social engineering. One of the biggest things the Catholic Church accomplished in this era was the creation of the individual. For most of history, people lived inside clans. This makes sense in a scary world—not having family to protect and support you is terrifying. In a competitive world, the bigger the family, the better. Also, fun fact: we're genetically predisposed to breed with our third cousin since that's the perfect balance between breeding with someone similar to us so our genes are more likely to survive, indifferent enough so that kids won't have deformities. Thus, the vast majority of marriages in history have been between certain degrees of cousins, also so that wealth and influence could stay inside the clan. However, the Catholic Church banned cousin marriage, and this quickly resulted in the destruction of clans as with each generation people left the clan. With the clan gone, the nuclear family became the center of life, and the individual the most important component of society. This sense of individualism resulted in the West taking a very different moral framework from the rest of the world. In a lot of cultural psychology, it's a general truism that there's the world, and then the West is a freakish aberration. Of the West, America is normally the most aberrant, and Japan and Indonesia are normally the exact opposite of America on most metrics. The West became a guilt-based culture in which one's sense of morality was a personally driven practical relationship with God or one's personal sense of morality. In the West, one was a bad person for not personally living up to moral standards like not having enough faith, not doing the right thing when alone, etc. The Western God is always watching you. The other Eurasian civilizations, as a rule, are generally shame-based, where you try to uphold the community's values. Thus, losing face is a horrific thing in China since you're letting your whole clan down. In Afghanistan or Pakistan, honor killings, in which a male family member kills a girl for transgressing against some social norm, makes sense since killing her brings honor back to the family. In East Asia, your internal beliefs really don't matter that much; following the proper Confucian rituals in public does. This sense of individualism also resulted in the West abolishing slavery very early inside Europe, being the only major civilization besides Zoroastrian Persia and Confucian China to do so. The Catholic Church abolished slavery, often working with local kings, in the 11th century. Western Christianity has always been deeply uncomfortable with slavery, even though it has done some really horrific slavery in its time. However, when you compare it to a place like Islam, for example, who practiced the largest slave trade in history until the early 20th century when the West forced them to end it and still in real terms practices it in a lot of areas, and Christianity and Islam theologically aren't that different. Christianity is in a lot of ways a woman's religion. A big reason it became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire was that it appealed to women. Similarly, Western Christendom was the only major Eurasian civilization to not treat women horrifically starting in the early Middle Ages. In Islam, Hindu, and Chinese civilization, upper-class women were kept in seclusion from society and given practically no legal rights. Horrific stuff like foot binding occurred in China, while genital mutilation did in northeastern Africa, and widow-burning in India. In Latin Europe meanwhile, women could own property, rule kingdoms, become religious leaders, and important writers. Another important shift was that the Catholic Church banned polygamy, which again was acceptable in the other major Eurasian civilizations, as well as divorce. Both of these raised the value of upper-class women who had a monopoly on the family's reproductive success. Polygamy is also a perfect correlation with violence. Remember, for every girl that becomes a rich guy's fourth bride, there's more sexually frustrated young males who will commit more crimes and start a revolution. To be honest, polygamy wasn't widespread enough in the other Eurasian civilizations, normally being confined to the very upper classes, to have these sort of deleterious effects. For that sort of thing, you have to turn to places like Bantu Africa and some Native American tribes. ## The Crisis and Forging of Christendom The main survivor of the barbarian kingdoms was the Frankish Empire. However, the Frankish Empire had no bureaucratic structure, and so once it stopped having god-tier kings like Charlemagne, it collapsed. This opened up the West to attacks from all sides, namely Hungarians, Vikings, Muslims, and Slavs. The West faced several centuries of these depredations and generally became the anvil from which a powerful offensive West was formed. To start with, the Muslim control of the Mediterranean from around 700 to 1000 was important because it split the Mediterranean in three. If the Muslim conquest never happened, you might have seen the center of the West remain around Italy and the Mediterranean. North Africa was very rich; had the Muslim conquest never happened, it could have become a powerful center of Western society. Instead, Muslim pirates forced the center of Western civilization to move to the area around France, southern England, northern Italy, and the Rhineland. Similarly, it also cut the West off from the Eastern Roman Empire, thus accentuating the difference between Orthodox and Western civilization. The nations of the modern West formed to fight off these outside invaders. Spain and Portugal were frontier nations against the Muslims. France, England, and Scotland all formed on the frontier to fight against the Vikings. Germany formed to fight off the Hungarian attacks, and the parts of Germany that turned out to be important were those in the Hungarian frontier, or Austria, and the Slavic, or Prussia. The pressure resulted in the West forming feudalism and knights, since the central authority was so weak and the raiders were normally so fast, people turned to local leadership. These knights caged the peasantry and turned them into serfs under most circumstances. Each knight would build his own castle, which further accentuated the weakening of the central power system. However, and we often forget this today, feudalism was extremely effective. It protected the peasants and allowed economic and population growth, and the knights were the most effective warriors in the world, barring nomadic tribes like the Mongols. This allowed Western civilization to expand to a massive degree in the years between 1000 and 1300. Western knight feudalism conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy, the Balkans, the Levantine coast, eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. Interestingly enough, the nations of Eastern Europe generally formed as the frontier against the expansion of knight feudalism, as Poland, the Scandinavian countries, Czechia, and the Baltics were formed either by German colonization or resisting German colonization. Another very important factor is the merchants in northern Europe were originally pirates who gradually shifted to peaceful trading. This is really big because the importance of capitalism in Western civilization stems from it. Western merchants were well armed and could demand concessions from the governments they traded with, which couldn't occur in any other part of the world. Before 1000 AD, there really weren't plows that could farm northern Europe effectively. However, a heavier plow developed that could turn northern Europe into the most productive farmland of the western parts of Eurasia. This, combined with the warmer climate, technological influence from the Middle East and Byzantium, allowed massive population growth in the West, to rise from a dark age backwater that it was in 1000 to practically the equal of any of the other Eurasian civilizations by 1250. In general, the West is very interesting in that it started at a very low and downright barbaric position around 1000 A.D. but has faced what amounts to staggering, nearly continued growth for the thousand years after that. This isn't the case for most civilizations, who have a golden age, then stagnate for a couple centuries, then barbarians kill a lot of people, and the cycle restarts. Why is that? ## Why was the West so Successful? The West's success was so ridiculously massive that it really begs the question of how. This has been one of those questions where there's lots of popular answers, but none of the popular ones are really good in my opinion. You've got the Guns, Germs, and Steel thesis about Eurasia having a higher concentration of certain kinds of plants and animals and being a horizontal continent rather than a vertical one. However, this theory doesn't explain why the West was so much more successful than places like India, Islam, or China, all of which have the same geographic situation. A big issue with the geographic determinist argument, or that geography dictates everything, is that there were eras in history in which places like the Middle East, India, or China were super advanced while Europe was a backwater, and both areas still have the exact same geography. Similarly, the argument that Europe got rich by exploiting its colonial empires is laughable. First of all, Western Europe, before it started colonizing, was already the richest area in the world in GDP per capita. Similarly, once Europe gave up its colonial empires, it had massive economic surges, while the former colonies mostly saw decline in standard of living. I'm not going to go through all the details here, but you really can't find a correlation that you can run between economic success and colonialism. Massive colonial empires like Spain, Portugal, the Ottomans, and Mughals were generally poorer than the smaller, better developed states with no colonial empire like the Germans and Scandinavia. This theory, however, has got a fanatical fan base who base their entire world view on it and are very difficult to change their mind about it, so I'm not going to get bogged down in this argument. The answer I've come to is far less sexy. It's that Europe's social and political structure allowed competitivity, which forced Western society to continually compete to become better. On a political basis, this is pretty easy to see and generally a well-accepted theory. Europe never united into big empires like the Ming, Ottomans, or Mughals, and instead had warring states like France, Austria, Spain, etc. This endless military competition forced an arms race that resulted in massive technological and social progress. We can all see how the military competition resulted in technological progress, but social progress was also equally important. A good example of this can be found in the Indian Ocean, where the Portuguese were the first people to arrive, but they were legendarily corrupt, with the viceroy often living like a king with the sailors starving on the boats. Meanwhile, the Dutch replaced them, and the Dutch worked terribly with the native population, however, and were very widely hated, and so they in turn were replaced by the British, who were the best empire of the three by far. In most of the world, however, the Portuguese never faced that competition. The second major thing that allowed the West to be so successful is a divided social structure. In the other Eurasian civilizations, a single social class controlled the whole society. In China, that was the bureaucrats; in India, the priests; and in Islam, an alliance of priests and warriors. That meant that the main flaw of that social group was able to manifest across the whole society. Broadly, the Indian priests and Chinese bureaucrats distrusted the military and so were continually crushed by nomadic tribes, while the Islamic warriors and priests basically made a deal to crush science and capitalism. We sort of have a myth that the kings of medieval Europe could rule like despots, with having their will be law. This isn't entirely true. Medieval Europe had a really divided power structure, with the church, towns, nobility, and kings all trying to gain power from the others. This meant that a strong balance of power took place that kept all of these groups in check in turn. Rule of law is really important since it prevents social superiors from just stealing their lesser's work. In a place like 18th century Guatemala, you wouldn't work hard because it would just get stolen by your landlord. In a place like 18th century New Jersey, that would never happen. This became really critical for industrialization since you need to have large investment to build something big like a factory. The West between 1000 and World War One is really particular in that it was the only era ever in which money was more powerful than authority. In most of history, authority was really what mattered. If the Chinese emperor could order you to do something without pay or inflate the currency to buy something silly, he could do it, and it would only catch up with him in his dynasty after a couple generations. However, for most of Western history, the market was more powerful than the state. When Spain tried to do what I described above, their currency tanked, as did their trade, which collapsed against international gold. The states that did successfully in the West were those that played with the market rather than against it. This was very liberating in that society became less structured around authority and class and more around ability across Western history. Another really big reason the West was successful was that in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church came to the conclusion that in order to find God, one should study the outside world since God made the world, and so by looking at it, one could understand God. This very easily led to modern science. However, when we look at the other main civilizations, they considered reading ancient texts above looking at the empirical outside world. In Islam, that was the Koran; in China, Confucius; the classical world, Plato and Aristotle, etc. These all resulted in logical rabbit holes without actually doing anything real, while the West was studying the real world. --- - **Endogamous and authoritarian fusion:**  Feudal Europe’s manorial system combined **clan loyalty** (endogamous villages) under **divine-right lords**.  In parallel, Tang–Song China embedded Confucian-legal clan hierarchies into imperial bureaucracy.  The transcript’s depiction of Islam’s endogamous clan network, upheld by councils of elders (ulama), finds its analogue in medieval madrasas and cathedral schools: spiritual law enforced by community elders. **The Complexity and Sophistication of "Oriental Despotism"** (Refuting the misconception of Middle Eastern empires as monolithic, brutal entities) - **Misconception Addressed:** States from the Middle East are often viewed as a "big red blob" characterized by despotic rule, human wave attacks, and inherent antagonism towards Europe (e.g., battles of Salamis, Vienna, Constantinople, Tours). - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** Many Middle Eastern empires were nuanced, tolerant, and highly developed, sometimes surpassing contemporary European societies. - **Supporting Claims and Reasoning:** - **The Achaemenid Persian Empire:** - Contrary to its portrayal as the antagonist to the Greeks, it was a "very tolerant, wealthy, well-run developed state." - By every metric except "intellectual ferment," Persia was "first world" and the Greeks a "second world backwater." - **Other Humane Middle Eastern Regimes:** Examples include the Abbasids, Umayyads, and Parthians. - **The Ottoman Empire (16th Century):** Arguably "the best place in the world to live," characterized as prosperous, "fairly tolerant, relatively free, and vast." - This contrasts with contemporary Western Europe, which was experiencing "internal strife, religious war, and witch burnings." - **Islamic Golden Age:** In the early Middle Ages, the Islamic world was the "most technologically advanced area in the world." - Despite a "much less scientific world view than the West," it maintained rough technological parity until around 1700. - **Dynamic Nature:** These empires were not "static blobs" but dynamic entities. **Understanding Past Peoples' Morality and Intelligence within Context** (Refuting the implicit assumption: "People in the Past were stupid and immoral") - **Misconception Addressed:** An implicit societal assumption that people in the past were "dumb" for their beliefs (e.g., demons) or "cruel" for their practices (e.g., brutal public punishments), and judging historical figures by current moral standards. - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** Past beliefs and behaviors were often rational adaptations to their technological, social, and environmental contexts. - **Supporting Claims and Reasoning:** - **Belief in Evil Spirits/Demons:** - Ancient peoples believed evil spirits could infect food and nature, weakening mind or body. - Realizing cooking fruit could "get evil spirits out" demonstrates a society "struggling to understand disease without the technology to see germs." - In the absence of effective medicine, the placebo effect of "magical medicine does actually statistically help." - **Brutal Public Punishments:** - Medieval societies had high crime/murder rates, limited resources for jails, and scarce law enforcement. - Brutal punishments for those caught served as a strong deterrent. - **Pre-Modern Inequality, Sexism, Class Divisions, Bondage (Slavery/Serfdom):** - These systems were present in "every single advanced society in pre-modern times to a differing degree." - This suggests they were "probably necessary for them to function." - **Reasoning based on low productivity:** When average individual productivity is "super low," oppressing many people is necessary to accomplish important tasks. - **Reasoning based on power source:** In a world where muscle is the only power, slavery/serfdom is the way to accomplish "necessary yet unpleasant tasks." - **Conceptual Framework:** This line of thinking is a "rabbit hole." - **Book Recommendation:** Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels as a good summary of this perspective. **Re-evaluating the "Dark Ages" in Western Europe** (Refuting the misconception: "The Dark Ages were Terrible") - **Misconception Addressed:** The fall of Rome is treated as an inherently bad event, leading to a terrible "Dark Ages." - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** The late Roman Empire was a "parasitic authoritarian organization." In some regions, the standard of living and quality of goods improved after its fall, and individuals experienced more freedom, despite a decline in collective civilizational progress. - **Supporting Claims and Reasoning:** - **Improved Conditions in Some Regions:** In North Africa, England, and France, the standard of living and quality of goods "actually rose under the barbarians." - **Urban Collapse as a Rational Adjustment:** - The Roman Empire tried to support an urban civilization with insufficient agricultural productivity in Western Europe. - When Roman administrative/social incentives for cities disappeared, "they just went away." - This was "actually better for the average peasant," who no longer had an absentee landlord imposing demands and taxes. - **Individual Well-being:** - People in the centuries after Rome's fall were the "healthiest and tallest," and "probably the freest" in Europe between the birth of Christ and the Industrial Revolution. - In per capita income, even in the worst years of the Dark Ages, the average Western European was only 7% poorer than a Chinese individual (China being the wealthiest civilization then). - **Constraints on Collective Progress:** - Good plows for Northern European soil were not yet invented. - This resulted in tiny population density in Western Europe. - "So for individuals it was pretty good but the collective european civilization did not progress much." --- **The Dynamic and Inventive Nature of the Middle Ages** (Refuting the misconception: "The Middle Ages were Primitive") - **Misconception Addressed:** The Middle Ages are often viewed as a "horrifying primitive shit_hole_" and confused with the Dark Ages, seen as a stagnant period of regression. - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** The Middle Ages (distinct from the Dark Ages) were a period of immense development and creativity, potentially making Europe the most developed area in the world by 1336. - **Supporting Claims and Reasoning:** - **Distinction from Dark Ages:** Around 700 AD (Dark Ages), Europe was a backwater. By 1336 (Black Death, High Middle Ages), it "might have been the most developed area in the world." (Contrast: "wooden huts" vs. "gothic cathedrals"). - **Modern Features Present in the Middle Ages:** - Banking system, governmental fiscal policies, paper checks, universities, intellectual debate, stock market, government bureaucracies, publishing industry, historians, flying machines, public atheism. - **Exceptional Inventiveness (Medieval Christendom, 1100-1300):** - "One of the most inventive societies ever." - Immense advances in naval, military, medical, literary, political, philosophic, mechanical, demographic, and architectural fields. - Creativity comparable to any civilization except the modern West. - **Shifting Church Attitudes (Pre-Black Death vs. Renaissance):** - Before the Black Death, the Catholic Church taught that bathing was healthy and daily, and belief in witchcraft was a foolish superstition. - "Funnily as europe left the middle ages and entered the renaissance bathing declined a belief in witchcraft grew." --- **The Roman Empire Was a Bastion of Progress** - **Common Misconception:** The Roman Empire was a source of significant technological advancement, and its continuation would have led to faster technological progress. - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** With the exception of some architecture (largely derived from Etruscans), the Roman Empire invented "nothing" substantial technologically during its thousand-year span (500 BC - 500 AD). - **Roman Attitude Towards Innovation:** - Romans distrusted anything new; the Latin word "novus" (new) also meant "weird and creepy." - They valued education but shared the Greek view that practical application was "ungentlemanly." - **Lack of Agricultural Improvement:** - No improvements to agricultural productivity, despite knowing methods like seed drilling or clover cultivation for soil improvement. - The imperial system favored inefficient slave-based agriculture (latifundia), turning much of the Mediterranean into "massive slave ranches," which contributed to the long-term issues in Southern Italy and Greece. - **Critique of the "Higher Standard of Living" Argument:** - This was true for city dwellers, but the Empire was 90% rural. - For the average Egyptian peasant, Roman invasion changed little. - In many parts of Western Europe, the fall of Rome "actually resulted in improvements of quality of life and health." - **Critique of the Homogenized Image of the Roman Empire:** - The common image of "upper-class toga-wearing Italians" discounts the Empire's massive diversity. - In 180 AD, the average inhabitant was a "Celtic or Greek-speaking peasant." - The Empire often consisted of "little urban dots of Greek and Latin culture in a sea of rural native inhabitants." **The Medieval Catholic Church Was Regressive** - **Common Misconception:** The medieval Catholic Church was a purely regressive, oppressive, and anti-intellectual institution. - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** The medieval Catholic Church had numerous positive contributions to European civilization, including social reforms, preservation of knowledge, and fostering conditions for the scientific revolution. - **Social Reforms and Ethics:** - Ended slavery. - Created the first code of human war rights in 11th-century Europe. - Stood against witchcraft. - Advocated for bathing. - **Preservation and Dissemination of Knowledge:** - Kept Greek philosophical teachings alive in monasteries during the Dark Ages. - Helped spread literacy throughout much of Western Europe. - **Status of Women:** - Latin Christendom was the only major medieval Eurasian civilization that did not seclude upper-class women. - It offered the largest role for women of any major civilization before the Black Death. - **Development of Individualism:** - Banning cousin marriages dismantled previous clan structures, replacing them with individual nuclear families. - Church documents in Italy show a shift from referring to people as clan members to individuals around 600 AD, occurring only in Catholic, not Orthodox, areas. - **Role in the Scientific Revolution:** - Medieval Catholic philosophy held that searching for truth was finding God, as God made the world. This "started the path towards western science." - This contrasted with other major Eurasian civilizations that prioritized ancient textual documents (e.g., Sutras, Quran) over empirical observation for truth. - Before the Black Death, the Church was the biggest funder of individuals who would now be called scientists. - **Economic Influence:** - A "massive economic powerhouse." - Monastic groups (e.g., Cistercians) were "workhorses" dominating regions through hard work. - The Templars founded much of Europe's banking system. - **Challenging the "Prudish" Label:** - Medieval Europe was "far less prude[ish] than the modern world." - Examples: Families/friends having sex in front of each other; Henry V consummating his marriage to a French princess in front of finance ministers to validate a treaty; widespread sexual hospitality; families/friend groups sleeping naked in the same bed. - **Caveat:** The speaker acknowledges that the medieval Catholic Church was not perfect and had "absolutely disgusting excesses that aren't justifiable," but argues against painting it in a purely negative light. **The Tripartite Genesis of Western Civilization from Post-Roman Elements** - A. Primary Influential Components: Germanic, Roman, and Christian, with secondary influences from Slavic, Celtic, and (in the Americas) African sources. "Every part of western civilization is some varying degree of germanic roman or christian influence." - B. The Preceding Roman Context: The Degeneration of the Western Roman Empire. - 1. Characterization: By its end, the Western Roman Empire had "basically degenerated into a parasitic clusterfuck that was actively hurting the inhabitants involved." - 1. Socio-Political Structure: An "authoritarian aristocratic command economy with some of the worst inequality of any era in history," likened to "the imperium of mankind in warhammer 40k" (circa 380 AD). - 1. Systemic Failure: Political and economic sources of power were "completely non-functioning," exemplified by the empire's inability to raise armies from its 30 million people, resorting instead to hiring "barbarians." - 1. The "Barbarian" Takeover: These mercenary groups seized political power upon realizing the "rotten" internal organization. - 1. Consequence of Imperial Collapse: For the average peasant in Western Europe, health and quality of life "actually improved once the central government stopped working." - C. The Germanic Contribution: Warrior Elite and Proto-Democratic Legal Traditions. - 1. Variable Impact: - a. England, Rhineland: Germanic groups depopulated much of the native population, becoming the majority culture (e.g., Anglo-Saxons in England leading to temporary loss of Christianity and Latin alphabet). - b. Spain, France, Italy: Fewer barbarian numbers (e.g., 3,000 Visigoths in Spain vs. 200,000 Anglo-Saxons in England) led to intermarriage with the pre-existing Roman ruling elite. - 1. Fusion of Elites: The pre-existing Roman elite, having become pacified landowners due to 400 years without major non-civil war, often entered the Church, while Germanic incomers formed a warrior elite. These groups gradually merged. - 1. The Frankish Ascendancy: The Frankish Empire became dominant by actively pursuing a policy of cooperation with the Catholic Church and the native aristocracy, despite being initially weaker than other barbarian kingdoms. - 1. Key Germanic Legacies: - a. A Warlike Ruling Class: - i. Contrast: Unlike Arab (merchant), Hindu (priest), or Chinese (bureaucrat) ruling classes. - ii. Perceived Benefit: This martial orientation prevented Western civilizations from being easily repressed and led to decay by "bloodthirsty nomadic tribes," a fate argued to have befallen other Asian civilizations. - iii. Unresolved Mystery: The Western peasantries (e.g., English, Germans, French) "never become pacified," unlike in Asian civilizations or the core Roman provinces, allowing core Western nations to expand without relying on frontier mercenaries (e.g., Scots, Swiss). The speaker "honestly [doesn't] know which of the options... is the accurate one" for this phenomenon. - b. Obsession with Legal Rights and the Germanic Origin of Democracy: - i. Rejection of Greco-Roman Democratic Lineage: By its fall, the Roman Empire was an "authoritarian theocratic mess with no democracy at all." The idea of Western democracy from Greeks/Romans is a "post-ad hoc thing" by Enlightenment philosophers. - ii. Germanic Tribal Practice: The belief that every member of the warband had "fry act" (freedoms) including legal rights and the right to elect kings/leaders. - iii. Medieval Continuity: These rights were preserved by the nobility, who "jealously guarded them." Medieval Europe featured parliaments in "practically every kingdom," not absolute rule. - iv. Rise of Absolutism: Enabled by gunpowder and cannons that could destroy nobles' castles. - v. Democratic Survival: Britain and the Netherlands, where parliaments won out (eventually followed by the USA), became successful models. - vi. Germanic "Moots" (Parliaments): Possessed "very complex representative systems for different social classes," which reinforced later personal and property rights, contributing to the wealth of modern Germanic countries. - D. The Christian (Catholic Church) Contribution: Social Engineering and Moral Framework. - 1. Institutional Power: The Church was the "sole functioning international literate organization in the West" and "the only fully meritocratic organization," attracting talent and money, becoming the "most important cultural organization" and "glue holding the broader society together." - 1. Transformative Social Engineering: - a. Creation of the Individual: - i. Historical Norm: Humans lived in clans for protection, support, and resource consolidation. Marriage between third cousins was common (genetically optimal and kept wealth in clan). - ii. Church Intervention: Banned cousin marriage. - iii. Consequence: "Quickly resulted in the destruction of clans," leading to the nuclear family as the center of life and the individual as "the most important component of society." - b. Development of a Guilt-Based Moral Framework: - i. Cultural Psychology Framing: "The world and then the West is a freakish aberration," with America often "the most aberrant." - ii. Western Morality: A "personally driven practical relationship with God or one's personal sense of morality." One is "bad" for not personally living up to moral standards (e.g., insufficient faith, wrongdoing when alone). "The western god is always watching you." - iii. Contrast with Shame-Based Cultures: Other Eurasian civilizations are generally "shame-based," focused on upholding community values (e.g., "losing face" in China, honor killings in Afghanistan/Pakistan, public Confucian rituals in East Asia where internal beliefs matter less). - c. Abolition of Slavery within Europe: - i. Achievement: The Catholic Church, often with local kings, abolished slavery by the 11th century. - ii. Uniqueness: Western Christianity (alongside Zoroastrian Persia and Confucian China) was one of the few major civilizations to do so internally. - iii. Ambivalence: While Western Christianity has "always been deeply uncomfortable with slavery," it also engaged in "really horrific slavery." - iv. Contrast with Islam: Islam is cited as having "practiced the largest slave trade in history until the early 20th century when the west forced them to end it and still in real terms practices it in a lot of areas," despite theological similarities with Christianity. - d. Distinctive Treatment of Women: - i. Christianity's Appeal to Women: A significant reason for its dominance in the Roman Empire. - ii. Relative Status: Western Christendom was the "only major eurasian civilization to not treat women horrifically starting in the early middle ages." - iii. Contrast with Other Civilizations: Upper-class women in Islam, Hindu, and Chinese civilizations were often secluded with no legal rights, alongside practices like foot-binding (China), female genital mutilation (Northeastern Africa), and widow-burning (India). - iv. Western European Women: Could own property, rule kingdoms, become religious leaders and important writers. - v. Church Policies: Banned polygamy (acceptable in other major Eurasian civilizations) and divorce, raising the value of upper-class women by giving them a "monopoly on the family's reproductive success." - vi. Polygamy and Violence: A "perfect correlation" is asserted between polygamy and violence due to an increase in "sexually frustrated young males." However, the speaker notes polygamy was generally confined to upper classes in other Eurasian civilizations, unlike in "places like bantu africa and some native american tribes." **III. The Crucible of Christendom: Crisis, Formation, and Expansion (c. 700-1300 AD)** - A. The Frankish Decline and Subsequent Invasions: - 1. Frankish Empire's Weakness: Lack of bureaucratic structure led to its collapse after strong rulers like Charlemagne. - 1. Multi-Front Assault: The West faced centuries of "depredations" from Hungarians, Vikings, Muslims, and Slavs, becoming an "anvil from which a powerful offensive west was formed." - B. Impact of Muslim Mediterranean Control (c. 700-1000 AD): - 1. Geographical Shift: Split the Mediterranean, forcing the "center of western civilization to move to the area around france southern england northern italy and the rhineland." - 1. Hypothetical Loss: Had the Muslim conquest not occurred, Italy/Mediterranean might have remained the West's center, and a rich North Africa could have become a powerful Western societal hub. - 1. Civilizational Bifurcation: Cut the West off from the Eastern Roman Empire, "accentuating the difference between orthodox and western civilization." - C. Nation Formation on Frontiers: - 1. Iberia (Spain, Portugal): Frontier nations against Muslims. - 1. Northwest (France, England, Scotland): Formed on the frontier against Vikings. - 1. Central Europe (Germany): Formed to combat Hungarian attacks; key regions (Austria, Prussia) developed on Hungarian and Slavic frontiers, respectively. - D. The Rise and Effectiveness of Feudalism: - 1. Genesis: Weak central authority and fast-moving raiders led to reliance on local knightly leadership. - 1. Social Structure: Knights "caged the peasantry and turned them into serfs," building castles that further decentralized power. - 1. Military and Economic Success: Feudalism "was extremely effective," protecting peasants, enabling economic/population growth, and producing knights as "the most effective warriors in the world (barring nomadic tribes like the mongols)." - E. Western Expansion (1000-1300 AD): - 1. Engine: Western knight-based feudalism. - 1. Territories Conquered/Influenced: Most of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy, the Balkans, the Levantine coast, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. - 1. Eastern European Response: Nations like Poland, Scandinavian countries, Czechia, and the Baltics formed either through German colonization or in resistance to it. - F. The Role of Armed Merchant Class: - 1. Origins: Northern European merchants, originally pirates, transitioned to peaceful trade. - 1. Unique Power: "Western merchants were well armed and could demand concessions from the governments they traded with which couldn't occur in any other part of the world." This is linked to the "importance of capitalism in western civilization." - G. Agricultural Revolution and Demographic Boom: - 1. Technological Advance: Development of a heavier plow (post-1000 AD) made Northern European land highly productive. - 1. Contributing Factors: Warmer climate, technological influences from the Middle East and Byzantium. - 1. Outcome: "Massive population growth"; the West transformed from a "dark age backwater" (1000 AD) to "practically the equal of any of the other eurasian civilizations by 1250." - H. The West's Unique Pattern of Sustained Growth: - 1. Observation: From a "very low and downright barbaric position around 1000 a.d," the West experienced "staggering nearly continued growth for the thousand years after that." - 1. Contrast with Other Civilizations: Most civilizations follow a cycle of "golden age then stagnate for a couple centuries then barbarians kill a lot of people and the cycle restarts." - 1. Central Question: "Why is that?"