Memories of the 28th Century

Feudalism had been dropping in popularity for several centuries, but recently it has been making a rebound (see link below), but this isn’t the only way that feudalism has been recovering. Several years ago I was shocked to discover that a philosophical movement that is somewhat popular among academics was said by one of its adherents to want to undo the Enlightenment. I was too shocked at the time to interrogate the person, who said that, so it remains hearsay, but in less direct ways it has been confirmed by others, and academics are major contributors.

The most glaring examples of the attempt to undo the Enlightenment can be seen in opinions that are presented as truths by academics. Remember that in feudalism clergy ranked higher than the lords, so an edict from a high church-person had the force of law as much as a royal edict.

There isn't much difference between feudalism and the present political/economic system here in the U.S.A. We have a President who likes to ignore the Constitutional limits on power trying to rule over a fractious population. We have oligarchs who try to control the monarch and to lord over the serfs, and we have academics of various flavors who think that their opinions should be treated as Truths. And this system is trying to spread to other lands where other religions are trying to retain their local primacy or even to spread. Yes, it's much like the Twelfth Century CE with computers and motorized transportation and automatic weapons. The merchant class is creating new ways to foil the royal tax collectors to the bane of the serfs, who have to take up the slack. There are even bandit gangs that try to survive outside the law.

The Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries were the height of feudalism in Western Europe, and Russia was conquered by the Mongols during that period, so Russia ceased to develop culturally for some time (That's my opinion). And there were crusades to send extra sons and the discontented to. Without external forces and greater wealth that came in the Fourteenth century, that society might have continued for quite a while. But the serfs became too wealthy, and the Black Plague hit, so things changed. The discontented became necessary, and there were no extra sons, because the labor supply shrank so much.

That period also was the beginning of the end for feudalism and the power of organized religion; although it took a couple hundred more years before the power of organized religion was finally broken. Now there are forces on several sides that are trying to bring back those old days. There is a new caliphate that makes threats and slaughters people for religious reasons. The population far exceeds what is sustainable. A new clergy is trying to have its power ooze and seep into every nook and cranny of society. We just need a goodly pandemic and a fresh invasion, maybe space barbarians this time.

If someone hadn't suggested recreating the Knights Templars, I wouldn't have thought of it myself, because it would be a horrible idea, but I have been thinking of mercenary company to conqueror a small country for myself, so monastic knights might not be such a bad idea. By themselves monastic knights might be a fine way to get troublesome and violent people out of the way, but the problems are with the other institutions that their existence would imply, especially a powerful clergy.

I really had hoped that the struggles that led to the Enlightenment were finished, and that would imply that feudalism was well and thoroughly in the past, but hope is being dashed not just by religious fundamentalists but by people who sometimes even call themselves liberal. Freedom of thought is one of the freedoms that are encompassed by liberalism, but many people would prefer if you kept your thoughts to what they like. There are some aspects of pre-Enlightenment society that I would favor, especially if I were a high lord, say a duke or emperor with the wealth and power that that would imply.

Let’s us pray to Athena, the Goddess of wisdom, and to Epiphron, the God of prudence, shrewdness, thoughtfulness, carefulness, and sagacity, for assistance in restoring the ideals of the Enlightenment to practice.



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/knight...fb_ref=Default