It Doesn't Repeat but it Rhymes

The Fall of Rome: A Mirror to Our Times

The Roman Republic, and later the Empire, stood as a colossus astride the ancient world, its legions and aqueducts towering testaments to unmatched power and ingenuity. Yet, beneath the gleaming marble facades and triumphal arches, decay had begun to fester by the late Republic and early Imperial eras. The Roman elite, cloistered in opulent villas adorned with extravagant koi ponds, indulged in endless feasts and notorious orgies—grotesque spectacles where they gorged themselves to the point of vomiting, only to resume their excess. This decadence was more than mere indulgence; it revealed a growing detachment from the empire’s realities. Their mismanagement wasn’t simply incompetence—it was a profound betrayal of the very system they professed to sustain.

Our Elites’ Cultural Sabotage

One glaring issue was their reliance on immigrant slaves. By the 1st century BCE, slaves—many forcibly brought from conquered territories—outnumbered free citizens in parts of the empire, particularly in Italy. Historians estimate that slaves comprised up to 30-40% of the population in some regions, working the latifundia (massive estates) that enriched the aristocracy while small Roman farmers lost their land to foreclosure. This created an economic powder keg: a shrinking tax base, a resentful underclass, and a labour system that devalued free citizens. Social control tightened as a result, with laws and legions keeping the masses in line. Most of Rome’s inhabitants weren’t even considered “Roman” in the cultural sense—excluded from the pantheon of gods by bloodlines and status, they were locked out of the empire’s spiritual and civic identity.

Beneath this structural decay lay a deeper crisis: a failure to mature, both individually and collectively. This immaturity erupted as masculine and feminine hysteria—extreme, unbalanced expressions of archetypal energies that surface when societies stagnate. Immature masculinity revealed itself in Rome through an overreach of control, a desperate clutch at power via militaristic expansion and oppressive laws that choked freedom and innovation. This pattern echoes across history: when societies lean too heavily into masculine rigidity, they ossify, becoming sclerotic—rigid and bone-like. Ancient China exemplifies this starkly. It birthed the printing press, magnetic compass, gunpowder, and paper, yet left them dormant for centuries. These weren’t mere oversight; their societies didn't allow them to, it was against the rules.

This exact archetypal imbalance is why China (as well as other poor, agrarian societies (Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea etc…) have also had a long history of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (communism), it is in the immature masculine’s nature to over control or over-solve issues with one foul swoop (i.e. One-Child Policy, The Great Leap Forward etc...).

As above, so below—equal and opposite reaction, if the masculine falters, the feminine follows. Technically speaking, feminine energy does not survive outside a masculine container either. Immature femininity in China surfaced not in the elite but in the marginalized masses, a reactive clamour for meaning amid exclusion. While the masculine hoarded power, the feminine archetype—meant to embody the Lover’s empathy and connection—twisted into desperation and unrest. Consider the peasant rebellions that punctuated Chinese history, like the Yellow Turban uprising in 184 AD or the Red Eyebrows a generation earlier. These weren’t just economic revolts; they were cries from a populace denied agency, their emotional chaos a shadow to the elite’s detachment. The mature feminine, which nurtures community and adapts to change, was absent—replaced by a hysteria born of neglect. In Rome, too, this played out: the plebeians’ riots and the Bacchanalian scandals of 186 BC hinted at a frantic search for belonging in a society that offered none. These weren’t quirks but symptoms of civilizations stalled in adolescence, clinging to outdated patterns instead of consciously evolving toward psychological and spiritual maturity.

Then came a seismic shift. Into this fractured world stepped Jesus of Nazareth, a figure whose teachings—embodied in the Christ-like spirit of compassion and equality—upended the old Roman order. Christianity didn’t just offer hope to the meek, the poor, and the disabled; it declared them equal to kings in the eyes of a universal God (No surprise why it was popular). By the 4th century CE, under Constantine, it became the empire’s official religion, spreading like wildfire through a society desperate for meaning. It provided a corrective to the hysteria, a framework to integrate mature archetypes—leadership, wisdom, and love—so much so that we start time at this revelation. 2025 years from what?

Echoes in the Modern World

Fast forward to today, and the parallels are uncanny. We’re not swinging swords or toting amphorae, but the dynamics of elite mismanagement, population displacement, and social control feel eerily familiar. Instead of Roman senators, we have global institutions like the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Economic Forum (WEF)—bodies that, to many, embody a modern aristocracy. Their policies and rhetoric often carry a whiff of centralized power that critics label as Marxist or anti-human, prioritizing collective agendas over individual liberty.

Take the WEF’s “Great Reset” initiative, unveiled in 2020. It promises a reimagined global economy post-COVID, with slogans like “You’ll own nothing and be happy.” To its detractors, this signals a loss of personal sovereignty, a world where property, privacy, and agency are traded for a technocratic utopia dictated from above. The WHO’s pandemic treaties, meanwhile, spark fears of nations ceding control over their health policies to an unelected international body. And the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, while noble in intent, are seen by some as a Trojan horse for supranational governance, eroding borders and cultures in favour of a homogenized global order.

These organizations don’t wield legions, but their influence is vast, shaping everything from climate policy to public health mandates. Like Rome’s non-citizens, millions today feel excluded from the decision-making pantheon, their voices drowned out by a system that seems to suppress rather than uplift. Economic inequality mirrors the latifundia days—corporations and billionaires thrive while wages stagnate and small businesses falter. Immigration, too, stirs debate - and now war, with nations grappling with cultural integration and economic strain, reminiscent of Rome’s slave-citizen divide.

Here, too, we see the spectre of masculine and feminine hysteria. Masculine hysteria emerges in the technocratic overreach of global institutions, a hyper-rational obsession with control—data-driven solutions and top-down mandates—that disconnects from human needs, reflecting an immature Warrior without courage or a Magician without insight. We literally invented war gaming two centuries ago.

Feminine hysteria surfaces in the emotional intensity of cultural debates, where outrage and identity politics swing between nurturing and smothering, a sign of a society unmoored from mature structure. These imbalances stem from a modern failure to mature—psychologically and spiritually—leaving us stuck in adolescent patterns, unable to address deeper existential questions. The materialistic tendencies of today’s systems, often rejecting spiritual growth, exacerbate this stagnation, much as Rome’s elite clung to their koi ponds while the empire crumbled.

The mindset fueling this technocratic control, as I and others argue, is fundamentally anti-human, rooted in a profound shift in worldview. The decline of monotheistic thinking—centered on a single, unifying God—has given way to a modern paganism that venerates Gaia, mother, the Earth, as a deity. This ideology casts humans not as integral parts of the natural world, but as a blight upon it, disconnected and destructive. Such a perspective, which prioritizes the planet over humanity, underpins the hyper-rational strategies of global institutions, from wargaming simulations, top-down environmental mandates, and anti-natal social movements further alienating us from our own nature and agency. They do not consider humans to be apart of/created by our environment.

It’s a world view that sees people as data points to be managed, not souls to be nurtured. Diversity of thought is stifled—dissenting voices on climate, health, or economics are often branded as heretical, much like Rome’s outsiders were kept beyond the pale. We’re not at the fall yet, but the cracks are widening.

Think about it - Europe is literally one giant machine.