Sunday, October 11, 2015

Völkerwanderung


From Thayer Watkins:
The disintegration of a civilization involves a time of troubles, such as a time of wars between the nations which are parts of the civilization. This time of troubles is followed by the establishment of a universal state, an empire. The existence of a universal state such as the Roman Empire is evidence that the civilization has broken down.

Ultimately the universal state collapses and there follows an interregnum in which the internal proletariat creates a universal religion and the external proletariat becomes involved in a Volkerwanderung, a migration of peoples.
 
From Nigel Raab:
Toynbee sought to establish a grand narrative that toured the world and explained the structure of societies around the planet.... He argued that societies could be "affiliated" or "apparented" over swaths of time if they had certain tokens in common. The prerequisite tokens were defined as "a universal state," "a universal church," and a Völkerwanderung ...
 
From Google:

 
From Peter Myers:
The re-established Syriac universal state had provided a political framework for the development and spread of a Syriac universal church in the shape of Islam. The subsequent decline of the Caliphate had been followed by a Volkerwanderung...

From at least half-way through the second millennium B.C. onwards, until the Mycenaean Civilization foundered, Minoan-Helladic-Mycenaean cultural influences had been playing on the coast of Syria with increasing intensity; and, after that, the Volkerwanderung of the 'Sea Peoples', which had been set in motion soon after the beginning of the twelfth century B.C. by the Mycenaean Civilization's last convulsions, had deposited two peoples from the Aegean or from its hinterlands, the Zakkaru (Teucrians) and the Philistines, along the southernmost stretch of the Syrian coast ...

'The Book of Judges makes it clear that it was not by defeating the Canaanites, but by defending them, that Israel obtained a dominant position in Palestine.' The common enemy in this chapter of history was the Nomad peoples who were now trying to force their way into Palestine at the Israelites' heels. In the period following the end of the Hebrew-Aramaean Volkerwanderung the Israelites were in danger of suffering the fate of being invaded and overrun that they had inflicted on the Canaanites ...
 
From The Wall Street Journal
The emergence of southeastern Europe as ground zero in the continent’s migration crisis is raising concerns that the region’s chaotic response to the influx is reawakening old tensions across the conflict-scarred Balkans.

Until the spring, the majority of migrants coming to Europe did so by making the treacherous passage across the Mediterranean to Italy via Libya. But as that crossing has become more difficult and more refugees are coming from Syria, many are traveling by way of Turkey to Greece and up through the Balkans—spurring countries along the way to clash over how to stem the influx.

Recent moves by EU members Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia to close parts of their borders have left transit countries in the Balkans—especially Serbia and Macedonia—struggling to cope with a flood of migrants seeking to continue north toward Germany and other more affluent countries.
 
From MSNBC:
Constructing an impassable wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would be a tall order — even for master real estate developer and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
 

3 comments:

greg said...

How tall? East Germany managed it, with a weaker economy and more primitive technology. A successful wall does have to be serious in intent, however, and the consequences for failure to get by the wall reasonably fatal.

So the real question is: Does the United States actually have the resolve?

JBTW: After peak population and upon entering the region of ecological collapse, in order to preserve any resources at all for the future, the nature of what constitutes moral behavior changes. We seem to be headed that way, although maybe we don't really want to. Barriers to immigration become an essential component of any policy to avoid this. As does stringent population control.

The Arthurian said...

"... the nature of what constitutes moral behavior changes."

Wow.

greg said...

So it is better to preempt ecological collapse.