Should We Call It?

I never thought I would see the fall

Do you think the Romans knew about their impending fall?

How did the Incans feel during their demise? 

Did a citizen of the Persian empire realize what was happening?

The Mayans, the Greeks, the Han Dynasty…

The United States of America? 

As children in history class, it can feel like the entire timeline of humanity is marked by these great empires. These great hulking beasts of systems, bureaucracy and civilization feel so grand and so far away. They rise, sometimes last for a good few centuries, and inevitably - they fall. 

The Pandyan Empire in Southern India lasted for 1850 years. The Byzantine empire spread throughout Europe and the Middle East and lasted 1123 years. Even the Romans lasted almost 500 years. 

And here we are in America - couldn’t even hold it together for 300. 

History class never focuses on the fall. History class teaches us about how great leaders grew their great empires, and the extraordinary things those empires achieved. Their demise is usually a tiny paragraph at the end of the chapter. Some generic fluff about infighting and overexpansion usually. There is no detail. No exploration. And more importantly - no lesson. 

We spend ages on the nuances of Alexander the Great’s battle tactics, or the management style of the Persian empire. Even for America, we spend an excruciating amount of time dissecting every tiny thing about how we ‘won’ our independence.

But we do not learn about humanity’s failures in history class. We touch on some comically obvious ones - slavery=bad, nazis=bad. But we don’t examine how small shifts in society and governments compound, and ultimately lead to massive societal collapse. Ugh so depressing right? Let’s just skip on over to the next empire. 

But now, I wish we had covered history’s greatest demises more than anything else. I wish somebody had told me what it was like to watch the civilization you’re a part of collapse. I wish someone had told me how I should have prepared. I wish someone had told me what I was supposed to feel. I wish someone had told me if any of the average citizens got to go on and live perfectly happy lives. 

But no - here in America we don’t have failures, we have ‘temporary setbacks’. So why bother getting bogged down in those? We will be back to normal in no time. 

Excuse my cynicism, but what if we don’t?

What if this is the beginning of a shift much bigger than we could imagine? 

What if this results in an ending where America as we know it no longer exists? 

It might not be a bad thing, but the possibility seems to grow more and more likely with each passing day.

I may never witness the birth of an empire, but it sure feels like I may get to see the fall of one.