Mutinous Christmas Respite: Lest We Forget

"On earth peace, good will toward men." Luke 2:14b (KJV)   

  

     A full century ago in a world where progress seemed inevitable, war seemed quick and glorious, and men were able to acknowledge their enemies as humans, a strange, unrepeated event occurred throughout the bloody, muddy, frozen trench lines of the Western Front of the War to End All Wars. The Christmas truce of 1914 has long been a tale of wonder, disbelief, and hope that enemies embittered and bloodied by war could reconcile differences under the universal joy of shared humanity. Due to staggering losses in the early, mobile stages of the WWI, many of the soldiers in the trench by the first winter were either reserve troops or volunteers. In December 1914 six inches of rain fell in Northern France and drenched a shocked, bloodied frame of the remaining regular troops. Percy Jones of the Queen's Westerminster Rifles wrote of the 1st Royal Fusiliers leaving the trenches after only four days on 23 December that they were, "tattered, worn, struggling, footsore, weary, and looking generally broken to pieces. Hairy, unshaved, dirty-faced . . ." These were men who were worn from living, not from fighting, in the trenches.
     The alien conditions of a stagnated war where most regular enlisted men were already buried under the shell-torn land combined and torrential rain made the newly-disturbed earthen trenches swamps of precipitous mud established an unspoken agreement from both sides to adopt a "live and let live" policy that allowed certain activities and locations to go unmolested by the constant aggression of the war.
     Charles Sorley, a British officer and poet wrote, "During the night a little excitement is provided by patrolling the enemy's wire. Our chief enemy is nettles and mosquitoes. All patrols - English and German - are much averse to the death and glory principle; so, on running up against one another . . . both pretend that they are Levites and the other is a good Samaritan - and pass by on the other side, no word spoken. For either side to bomb the other would be a useless violation of the unwritten laws that govern the relations of combatants permanently within a hundred yards of each other, who have found out that to provide discomfort for the other is but a roundabout way of providing it for themselves."

     This close proximity led to units bantering back and forth with jests, insults, and songs. The same miserable conditions between enemy regiments over several months laid the foundation for one of the most remarkable events of the war. The Germans held Christmas Eve as the most important day of Christmas festivities and erected Christmas trees embellished with candles along the trench lines against official orders. The lights initially confused British and French forces, but the singing of "Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night)" cemented the tidings of the season. On Christmas day, wines, cakes, and trinkets were exchanged by both sides and, possibly,  impromptu games of football took place over parts of No Man's Land not pocketed with shell craters. The Christmas surplus issued by governments to their enlisted men provided the perfect establishment for a barter-like Christmas celebration.
     Not all regions of the trenches saw the joviality of comradery, but for the segments still entangled by the bitterness and death of war, Christmas day passed relatively quietly as each side was left to celebrate more or less on its own. Overall, the truce seems to have been quite extensive although unofficial and against the orders of high command. The Christmas truce of 1914 was inconsistent with a widely varying involvements and fraternization, but for most combatants, Christmas was a peaceful day, for many the week to New Years was quiet, and for a lucky few the unofficial holiday celebrations continued well into January.
     Hundreds of stories, recorded in letters to home, tell of interactions between British and German, German and French, and to a lesser extent Russian and German, and Austrian and Russian forces. In 1915 attempts were again made by both sides to initiate an unofficial truce, but explicit, enforced orders by superior officers and localized artillery barrages redacted any widespread involvement.
     Post-WWI the West has become bitter, cynical, narcissistic, and disillusioned, but these men did not live in our world. They lived in a world that had seen national movements unite entire peoples in Germany and Italy. In a world that had seen the world transform by industrialization, where progress seemed inevitable, and where hope could reside in the most despondent of places. Christmas is a time of remembering and celebration. This year, let us remember. Lest We Forget.

 __    
Agatha Tyche

A United People Remain Estranged

     The modern country of Germany has long had a history of division with unification often seemingly beyond reach. As the Germanic Kingdom, titled the Holy Roman Empire, gradually weakened, the ties of the Germanic tribes dissolved to the point of hostility. The Protestant Reformation nearly obliterated these internal connections altogether with small kingdoms establishing themselves based on religious preference, alliance, and ruling family.
     Eventually, one of these kingdoms built itself into a formidable power. Prussia gained the military strength to assert itself on other Germanic states and defend itself from elite European powers while successfully developing a competitive economy that attracted weaker factions in the surrounding lands. Though the rise of Prussia did not proceed without hindrance or opposition, the nationalist movements in the mid-nineteenth century converted the issue of German unification into into greater Germanic social relations. Prussia began a series of consolidating wars to protect its borders, expand trade, and enhance its power with the intent of German unification. Led by Otto von Bismarck, Prussia used manipulation of international politics and German nationalism to unite itself.
     The first of Bismarck's three wars involved extracting Schleswig and Holstein, independent duchies, from the Danish crown. Both areas had large German populations that outnumbered the Danes. The results of a short war saw an Prussian-Austrian alliance gain control of the region
     The second war pitted a small, mobile Prussian military against the large, outdated Austrian army for control over the northern Germanic states. Winning the war in just seven weeks, Prussia formed the North German Confederation and excluded Austrian influence in this seedling empire. The defeat lost Austria land to Italy in the south, influence in German peoples to the north, and created internal divisions that later forced a more representative government in an Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Despite his victory, Bismarck campaigned for the North German Confederation to exclude Austria.

     Although Austria contained a significant German population, its borders included many non-Germanic peoples that today represent many of the Baltic and Eastern European nations. Otto von Bismarck, a master statesman who caused Europe to dance to his fiddle for nearly thirty years, had many motives for negating Austrian influence within a newly formed German alliance.

     1.) For centuries, Germans states had been splintered into small holdings that gave allegiance to a larger power for trade and military defense. Prussia had once been a minor player but had political ambitions that necessitated command over ever-growing geographic boundaries. As Prussia's power grew to match Austria's the two nations competed for smaller states' support. By disassociating Austrian influence in Germany, Prussia could proudly declare the new empire's strength to be from her establishments.
     2.) The Zollverein, the German Customs Union, gave Prussia a huge economic advantage over Austria. By minimizing or removing tariffs, trade between Prussia and the German states flourished exponentially as industrialization took hold. Austria's initial disinterest in the union undermined its ability to economically support its allied states while giving Prussia consolidated control over a large portion of the Germanic peoples. 
     3.) Despite defeating Austrian, many of the German duchies still favored Austrian's less militaristic governance. Prussia refused to risk losing a German confederation so recently secured. 
     4.) To avoid hypocrisy and to retain integrity abroad, Bismarck's Prussia defended its initial political reasons for the war. If Prussia had allowed its recent enemy occupancy within its new empire, negative public perception could have incited a second war with Austria.
     5.) After the Concert of Europe in 1815 and the agreement for the balance of power among Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, a full union of Austria and Prussia would have incited a full scale European war to protect the power balance. A decade before the Northern German Confederation, Britain and France warred with Russia over its expansionist policies in the Black Sea. Russia, Britain, and France feared that a united Austria-Prussia would be an unstoppable force on the continent. To send a clear signal that Prussia was content with its new station, Bismarck sent a clear signal to the other major powers that a united Germany would not include Austria.
     6.) Lastly, Bismarck, Wilhelm, and von Moltke, all saw Prussia and the larger German state as purely German. Austria was a large, encompassing empire with significant minorities that did not fit Prussian ideals. Nationalism and the great German dream of unification began with Napoleon's invasion in the early nineteenth century. The division of power between Austria and Prussia remained the most significant reason for continued division in the 1850-60s. With Prussia's clear dominance over Austria and unification in sight, many Germans enthusiastically supported Prussia as full consolidation of the German state occurred in 1871.

     Prussia successfully united Germany through politics, economics, and social ideology, and its exclusion of its greatest competing threat allowed antagonized areas to quickly accept a unified Germany. This new empire became the most powerful military in the world in a few short decades and gave the world a scapegoat for the two deadliest wars in history. After World War II, Russia, Britain, and the United States attempted to remove the Prussian military history from the German people's minds to avoid another world war. They achieved this by dividing Germany again. A new, modern, reunited Germany is now the largest economy in Europe. The effects of Germany's unification have been profound, and the projection of that nation is much easier to grasp when a portion of its past is revealed. No country must conform to its trajectory because Germany has become a respected global leader with a generous government, green economy, and retained the enthusiastic society that has made Germany what it has been in every age.

 __    
Agatha Tyche

Reinterpreting Men who Died for Labor

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, ... It is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitue, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prison-"
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"Both very busy, sir."
"Those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many more would rather die."
         A Christmas Carol. 1843. Charles Dickens.

     For just over two centuries, human society has transitioned into the Industrial Age. Before that time, credited with beginning in England at the end of the eighteenth century, the points and purposes of work were to sustain oneself and one's family, provide for those that could not provide for themselves, and save for future times of need. Machinery simplifies repetitive tasks and speeds up the means of production; thus, mass production not only led to a consumerist culture since more goods were manufactured than needed but also led to a population boom that created a frontier-style mentality of humankind, that is, that humans were an expendable resource that could easily be replaced. While modern industrialized countries now have steady or declining birth rates and bulk at the wanton waste of human life in developing nations, throughout the nineteenth century, Europe had a mindset that human death or disfigurement for capital gain was acceptable, even virtuous.
     As the Age of Industrialization has progressed, work has been made easier and with less exploitation of common works for the gains of the rich. Labor unionization, largely in the twentieth century, enabled the workforce to unite for gain, recognition, and protection. This mentality aided in popularizing socialist ideals throughout Europe through the current day. Work was not always a mindlessly repetitive affair accomplished by machines because skilled artisans used to be responsible for the means of production.
     The Luddites were a loosely organized group of artisans that armed in resistance to wage decreases brought on unskilled workers running machines for lower wages than artisans who had no other support for their livelihood. Luddites did not fear technology, machinery, or the transition into an age of mass production. Their fear was a loss of labor to unskilled workers for reduced wages. For acting out on that fear, hundreds were killed or exiled.

     These industrious, intelligent, skillful men expressed their anger by destroying the cause of their destruction: the machines that replaced them. Often they posted letters attributing the destruction of machines by the order of King Ludd or General Ludd who was rumored to live in Sherwood Forest, home of the fabled Robin Hood. This mascot, a fictitious figure gave the Luddite Cause momentum, mystique, and an unconquerable hope. In 1812, 12,000 British troops were deployed to quell civil uprising and protect factories in north-central England. This force outnumbered the one that occupied the Iberian Peninsula to fight Napoleon. 

     Meeting the concerns of the people with force and legal punishments of execution or penal exilement to Australia led to an impassioned plea of a Romantic sympathizer in the House of Lords in 1812 before the passage of the Frame Breaking Act. On February 27, 1812, Lord Byron pleaded:

During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence, and on that day, I left the county I was informed that forty Frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection. Such was the state of our country, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, I cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress.
The perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and their community. They were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employment preoccupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject to surprise.
 As the sword is the worst agruement that can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been the first, but providentially as yet only the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighted and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquility to the country.

     The crimes of the Luddites were not often the destruction of factories or the murder of factory owners. With some exceptions, attacks were carried out at night against machine-based factories whose owners had opted to fire and displace a large worker base. The anger of the common man was not against machine but against the abuse of his fellow man.
     While the term "Luddite" has come to mean a backward-minded, fear-mongering, simpled-headed individual too scared or stupid to accept change, the true motivation of the men two centuries dead was a fear of becoming obsolete and taken for granted. This is true of many societies today whether industrializing from manpower to machine or as machines expand to encompass and control more industries.
     The protest at the beginning of the Industrial Age did not go unheard; it went misinterpreted. As always, those who do not know, understand, or forget history must suffer the repetition of its lessons Let us keep our sledgehammers in hand, ever prepared to resist the avarice of those who do not value community or quality, only the wealth gained through exploitation.

 __    

Agatha Tyche

Mugwumps

     The Twentieth Century, known as the American Century, elevated the United States' reach expand with unprecedented power economically, militarily, and influentially around the world. That century saw the United States involved in interventionists wars in every decade on nearly every continent. The path to American Imperialism did not rise unprotested from the world; indeed, a full decade of debate in American politics fought against the militaristic domination of the mighty the American economy.
     Anti-expansionist isolationists began cries of alarm in the 1860s with American's consideration of annexing several Pacific islands. As American foreign relations swelled, these isolationists, referred to as Mugwumps, joined forces with a large number of Republicans to create a considerable anti-imperialist political movement in the 1890s.
     The Spanish-American War allegedly fought over humanitarian issues on the Caribbean Island of Cuba was the first American interventionist war and foreshadowed the entire twenty-first century. Despite the humanitarian declaration that incited U.S. intervention, after the war the island of Cuba was ruled through an American military state some years. Since war proponents had encouraged removal of Spanish influence to protect American interests, anti-imperialists feared further annexation of territories abroad to defend American economic intersts. With this logic, William Sumner argued that “the U.S. would have to dominate the entire world to feel safe in any part of it.”¹ The Mugwumps’ protest intensified.

1 William Sumner. “The Predominant Issue,” War and Other Essays. Edited by Albert Keller. (New Haven,

Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1919), 351.

     The Mugwumps as a whole were older members of society that refused to accepted the industrial changes throughout America and sought to return to the agrarianism espoused by President Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. Several of their strongest reasons for opposing American imperialism rested on the statements of that president and of the views of many of the Founding Fathers.

     A republic is composed of free citizens; an empire has subjects. The Constitution does not prohibit control over non-citizens, but to control small islands around the world, the United States would have to force itself onto those people and rule through oppression as the European Empires did at the time. American isolationists argued that a republic cannot govern without consent of the govern. Pro-expansionists defended their stance that occupational force was a necessary evil and would allow the U.S. to defend native islanders against any future invaders.

   Bourke Cockran, a Tammany Hall leader, spoke out against Republican expansionist policies because, “it is cowardly to invade the rights of the weak while respecting those of the strong; because it would divorce the American flag from the American Constitution . . . because it is a policy of inconceivable folly from a material point of view, and a policy of unspeakable infamy from a moral point of view.” These reservations against invasions did not sway its opposition because they believed that the growing might of U.S. economy needed military and trade bases to aid in dispersal of American goods.

    The domestic social unrest of late nineteenth century America's adjustment to industrialization complicated the issue further by having to adjust to the assimilation of ten million freed slaves after the Civil War's end in 1865. Isolationists feared that the incorporation of Pacific Islanders into American society would further disintegrate American society and that the the cost of providing governing laws and a military presence abroad would outweigh any economic benefit.

     One of the last arguments by Mugwumps and isolationist-Republicans held on to the American colonial fear of a large standing army and a subsequent, substantial national debt limiting the freedoms of Americans and necessitating the federal government retracting upon its own anti-colonial history. George Hoar, a Republican senator for Massachusetts, equated expansionist principles with “forsak[ing] the Declaration of Independence, Washington’s Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine, and the nation’s traditional distrust of a standing army.”² These reservations did not successfully counter the dogmatic, imperialist viewpoints of the pro-expansionist movement and American became a colonial power by the close of the nineteenth century.
 2Robert Beisner. Twelve Against the Empire: The Anti-Imperialists 1898-1900. (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill 

Book Company, 1971),

     The fundamental purpose of the anti-expansionists was to defend the United States on Constitutional grounds. Anti-imperialism failed because of advanced age of many of its leaders, inability to connect with the new industrial population, and the negative approach to the isolationist arguments.

     Despite their political defeat by McKinley, Roosevelt, and other Republican expansionists by 1900, the anti-imperialists were fairly accurate in their predictions. The Philippine Islands’ rebellion cost thousands of American lives. American treatment of the Filipino population was the same or worse than the previous Spanish overseers. American military expenditures did increase causing greater taxes with the formation of the Federal Income Tax. Imperialism inextricably involved America in European political affairs.

     With the abandonment of its isolationist policies, America lost her innocence and transformed into an imperial country. Expansionist government changed the social, economic, and constitutional perceptions of Americans and colonies alike. “The traditional consensus persisted: America has a unique set of values, way of life, and form of government to offer the world . . . the consensus then divided, as it always had, between those who believed those goods were best spread benignly, by example, or assertively, by force.”³ With the collapse of the anti-imperialist movement at the close of the nineteenth century, America entered the new era with a new purpose: to destroy those who oppress and to liberate the weak.

3  Walter Nugent. Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion. (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 315.

 __    
Agatha Tyche

Round about to the New World

     Humans live in a wide variety of habitats around the world from the ice-covered Arctic Circle and high altitude valleys of the Himalayas to warm, tropic jungles and vast, intercontinental deserts. Aside from Antarctica, human history covers the world. The major continental division created by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has effectively separated the two major land groupings between Old and New Worlds. While Christopher Columbus, a fifteenth-century Spanish-sponsored sailor, is recognized as the discoverer that brought knowledge of the New World into the collective conscious of the European world, he was not the first one to find this huge land mass in the Western Hemisphere.
     When Columbus's crew arrived, native peoples already lived throughout North and South America with well-developed agricultural systems, impressive architecture, and powerful empires. Obviously people lived in the Americas long before their "discovery" by Columbus, but was there any other historical knowledge of this land aside from its inhabitants?
     In 1961 archaeologists discovered evidence of a Norse settlement along the Canadian coast. This proved that medieval sailors had the sailing capacity to reach across the Atlantic with stops at the settlements of Iceland and Greenland. The Icelandic Annals report the birth of a child in the settlement before war with the native "Skraelings" drove the settlement back to Greenland.
     This Norse settlement is the only widely accepted, documented, and evidenced proof of interaction between Old and New Worlds within the last several thousand years. Propositions of Phonecian sailors, medieval European sailors, Mali-nese sailors, and the Chinese sailor Zheng He all base claims on circumstantial evidence or on evidence that could have been fabricated anachronistically.
     Despite these contested findings of settlements and trade routes in the Pre-Columbian world, people did colonize the Americas before their discovery by Europeans in 1492. The most famous of the theories of American settlement is the overland migration over the Berring Strait during lower ocean levels. Theories involving Polynesian island hopping and even island hopping from Japan along the Berring land bridge. Both of these claims are based on archaeological, linguistic, and genetic evidence although methods, dating, and migrant numbers are debated.

     Regardless of the accuracy of any of these theories, several things stand out. First, the Americas were indeed colonized long ago largely by Asiatic and Micronesian peoples. Second, Columbus initiated continuous contact of Europe and the Old World to a previously isolated land mass. Lastly, modern historian methodology closely mirrors scientific mentality in process, methodology, and peer-reviewed claims.
     The globalization of the modern era continues to benefit many people through agriculture, knowledge, and economics, but the founding process for intercontinental contact was long, difficult, controversial, and tentative. Despite the dangers of invasive species, trade imbalance, and pollution, let us enjoy the ever-widening distribution of health, food, and promise around the world in an era of peace.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

Failure

     Throughout history empires have expanded, consolidated, and collapsed while leaving lasting imprints on culture, geography, and a huge variety of human efforts. Few of those grand imperial machines lasted more than a few generations, but most contributed to molding the world either through their efforts or by creating spite in their enemies as motivation to achieve greatness. Through all this, it becomes evident that the size and momentary power of man's greatest orchestrations cannot last and must decay.
     Success is achievement. Variations of that definition occur in fields and cultural specific agendas, but the accomplishment of a desired aim is the root meaning of success. If success is achievement, what is failure?
     Failure is surrender of motivation to defeat.
     Great generals are known for their strategic maneuvers, charisma, and ambition. Good leaders are inspirational, innovative, and stalwart, and triumphant generals often possess those characteristics. As firepower has exponentially increased over the centuries, generals have retreated from the front lines and now command troops from relative safety. This alteration in the tactical separation of command and troop deployment leaves the last few decades seemingly bare of awe-inspiring figures. Now people look to the past to see the actions of great men played out in all their glory.
    As France convulsed in the turmoil of its revolution in the last decade of the eighteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte ascended through the military ranks because of his courage, connections, and performance. Clever and manipulative, Napoleon gained effective dictatorial control over France by 1799 and was entitled emperor by Pope Pious VII in 1804.
     Napoleon ruled France as emperor for ten years and conquered much of Europe. While not a perfect leader, he maintained solid support at home and amazing love in the troops he traveled alongside. Despite repeated defeats from the Russian invasion in the winter of 1812 and the significant loss at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, Napoleon continued to lead through strength of character to inspire his hundreds of thousands of troops. In 1814 the marshalls of his army mutinied against him and surrendered France's emperor to its enemies.
     When the foreign powers gained control over France, they banished Napoleon to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean where he acted as Emperor over the 12,000 inhabitants. While sparing his life and allowing retention of his title was generous of the victorious European leaders, Napoleon remained ambitiously unsatisfied and escaped to return to France within a year.
     For one hundred days Napoleon raised support, readied the army, and reconsolidated his power. With this new army, Napoleon marched north to attack the British. After repeated onslaughts did not dislodge the British army from its position, the Prussian army arrived to attack Napoleon's right flank and decimate his remaining troops. With huge losses at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon retreated to Paris where the government's and people's support of him had soured. He abdicated to his son, fled Paris, and continued to flee from capture until seeking asylum with the British one month later

     Suffering incredible losses in the failed Russian campaign, losing more in the Battle of Lepzig, and being banished to a small, rural island did not diminish the dreams, ambition, or charisma of Napoleon. He returned, garnered more strength, and repeated efforts to subdue all of Europe. Napoleon did not truly lose until he surrendered his will, not on the battlefield, but his life on the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A determined, inspired man, Napoleon did not allow distance, odds, technology, or coalitions to alter his dreams. After Waterloo and the rejection of his beloved France, Napoleon was beaten down internally and morally and never recovered. Suffering deep depression and completely unable to escape to return to France a second time, Napoleon Bonaparte became a failure because he surrendered his ambition to depression.
     Regardless of the definition, defeat is nearly impossible to achieve for some men that are self-driven to greatness. Using skill to rise through the ranks of a tumultuously governed France, Napoleon became an emperor, an emperor who was never defeated by anyone but himself when he accepted failure.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

Theonolism

     Individuals, religions, institutions, and political parties all have views that dictates their interpretations of the world around them, that explains their actions, justifies their goals, and accounts for abnormalities in their understanding of new information. A culture usually consists of several of these worldviews varying from a close-knit society with minimal discrepancies to a multicultural society with acknowledged disagreements. A nation state can consist of one or many cultures, people groups, and religions. The worldview of a nation combines the disparate views of its constituents and averages them, polishing the edges yet retaining strength from the fervor of the population.
     The worldview of a nation state, for this article, is theonolism.

Etymology

• The Greek word/derivative for god is "theo." In human mythologies, gods are the most powerful entities in existence from which everything is derived and is accountable to.
• The Greek word/derivative for idea or an area of study is "ol." Examination and refinement is essential to economics, military strategy, and political alliances. The "n" is added as a carry-over from nationalism, a sense of pride that one's nation is unquestionably better than all others.
• The Greek word/derivative for belief is "ism." Belief justifies action, inspires passion, and secures conformity within its converts. 

Components
     Theonolism is a union of culture, religious values, purposes of the state, and international intentions of the state.
     The purposes of the state are the intentions and goals that the governed population desires for the government to achieve. One of the most often used examples of the purpose of government is protection of its citizens. The citizens then must allow the government enablement of that purpose, usually through taxation, but occasionally through war drafts. Once the nation has the support of its population, it can extend itself into the wider world to interact with other countries that have their own theonolisms. Countries with similar beliefs group together and often form alliances that combine their powers throughout the world stage. The stronger a nation is militarily and economically the greater its projection of its theonolism on the world.
     Traditionally, the projection of a nation is termed as its sphere of influence. This sphere depends upon a number of economic, militaristic, geographical, and technological factors, and the result is the ability of a country to alter results within that sphere to best suit its own interests. A nation's theonolism is the values that contribute to decisions within the sphere of influence.

     The theonolism of the United States is roughly summed up by "capitalism" since money governs the United States's actions and interests, but America presents a softer, kinder, humanitarian front as its seeks wealth from other nations. As a democratic-republic the United States allows its citizens to choose the leaders that represent the theonolism of the people which is then projected through its sphere of influence. Many election-based countries have similar mechanisms. The results of this electoral system can create a rapid change in theonolism after an election period because new elected officials use their power to achieve different aims.
     Certain nations have a historical theonolism of expansion such as Russia, the United States, and many European powers. Other nations offer a historical theonolism of containment either because of isolationism or an inability to project such as North Korea, the Middle East, and many African nations. While these trends aid in presenting a cohesive interpretation of a nation's theonolism, theonolism can change if a country gets previously unknown amounts of power or when positioned to obliterate a weakened enemy.
     When theonolisms conflict, the ideological tension can lead to war or trade isolation through sanctions. If two major theonolisms are present in a single nation-state, a by-product culture blends extremes internationally because of division domestically. In the cases of the Ukraine Crisis or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a region fights between two theonolisms to determine its dominate theonolism because the status quo negotiation is unacceptable. This conflict sparks many civil wars though the divisive issue can vary widely in scope, impact, and context.
     The new idea that is portrayed in this article is not a word, not a regurgitated analysis of spheres of influence, not a project of philosophical exercise. The idea emphasis of this post is to bring attention to the fact that the mindset, worldview, ideology of a nation is a component of its people's projections on the world. The major components of this are beliefs (assumptions about the world), convictions (desires to keep or alter facets of the world), and empowerment (the ability to enact beliefs and convictions on the world).
     Where in the past, a nation could be represented by a monarch, today's modern elections change the face of leaders too often for them to holistically represent a country's desires. However, since most nations remain on steady courses, the underlying drive of that goal is not a single leader but the collective worldview of the people.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

Nast vs Boss Tweed: A Real Life Cartoon

     The written word has enabled a proliferation of knowledge, communication, and understanding since its induction to human society several thousands of years ago. Before writing, mankind drew pictures, some of which are still evidenced on cave walls around the world. It is pictures that can convey a plethora of complex thoughts in an instant, and Thomas Nast, a nineteenth century political cartoonist, demonstrated the influence that images can have.
     Thomas Nast (1840-1902) became a cartoonist for New York's Harper's Weekly in 1859 and retained that position until 1886. Although he briefly attended school, he never proved adept. His skill was in his pen.
His first published drawing for Harper's Weekly involved the corruption of a police scandal and set the tone, purpose, and politics of most of his career.
     The many accomplishments of Nast include the popularization of iconic portrayals of the Democratic Party's donkey, Uncle Sam, and Lady Columbia as well as the modern depiction of Santa Claus as a cheery, fat man with reindeer. He is credited with inventing the Republican Party's elephant. His largest impacts on history, however, are through the influence he had on the presidential elections from 1864-1884. Because a large number of Americans could not read, the political drawings enabled voters to stay informed. Nast was instrumental in electing Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 and 1872 elections, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and he is credited with winning Grover Cleveland the small margin by which he won the presidency in 1884.
     Of all of these accomplishments, Nast is perhaps most famed for the take down of William "Boss" M. Tweed and the Tammany Hall Ring of New York City by publishing dozens of images depicting the corruption of the elected officials. Tweed so feared Nast's works that he offered a bribe of $100,000 that increased to $500,000 which Nast refused.

     A few years before Nast's popularity, William Tweed was an elected official from 1858-71 and is credited with the establishment of a criminal organization of New York City officials. The Ring was solid, ensured high payments of its constituents on city jobs, and was influential throughout the courts, legislature, treasury, and ballot box. The Tammany Ring consisted of close friends of Tweed and was highly organized and profitable through money laundering for all involved with estimates from $25-200 million stolen from the City of New York.
     Tweed's success depended on the power of immigrant Irish voters and the city elite's trust in his keeping this portion of the population controlled. During the Orange Riot of 1871, Irish Catholics attacked a Protestant parade where sixty people were killed. This event weakened his interactions with the city elite, but his downfall came from the newspapers. Nast's images were such a problem that Tweed said, "Stop them pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them pictures!" Although investigations had been undertaken prior to the riots, Tweed successfully bought off all accusers. When Tweed's friend and bookkeeper died, the books ended up in the hands of the New York Times which published accusatory findings in July 1871.
     In 1873 Tweed was arrested for fraud but escaped in 1875 and fled to Spain. He he was arrested because of his depictions in Nast's drawings.
     Thomas Nast and William Tweed both represented the hope of America to the rest of the world: that hard work could bring wealth, success, and recognition. Nast achieved his wealth and fame through excellent artwork, skillful insight, and artistic talent. Tweed gained influence, power, and riches through scheming, corruption, and gangs. Though neither man died well off, Nast remained respected throughout his life while Tweed has become Nast's caricature: the very image of corrupt corporate wealth.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

Holy, Roman, and an Empire

     The actions of emperors of long gone empires still impact modern life. July and August have thirty-one days to make them among the longest days of the year. Originally with thirty days, February was robbed of two days to make these adjustments possible. The Roman emperors and Roman laws have some of the longest and farthest reaching impacts of history. Rome directly birthed both the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the fifteenth century, and Europe. Europe went on to influence and dominate the world, especially in the nineteenth century, and it is appropriate for a topic that deals with a mixture of both Rome and Europe to begin with Rome.
     Living in an age of absolute monarchs, Voltaire, the famous French philosopher of the eighteenth century, famously stated, "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." When this was said, the Holy Roman Empire had less than a century of existence left, and it was another Frenchman, Napoleon Bonaparte, that dismembered the nine-hundred year old empire.
     The Holy Roman Empire was never a simple state governed by one monarch. While the power of the emperor increased for several centuries, the size and terrain, hindered by the Alps, limited absolute control over the territory. The diversity of culture and history throughout the region further complicated assertions of control and led to a constant, internal fracturing of provinces throughout the centuries; these many narratives complicate a single explanation or agenda of the empire throughout its nine-hundred year existence. Thus, due to the complicated, constantly shifting power structure, fluid borders, and variant personalities of the monarchs, an uneven presentation of the power of the empire through the centuries must look at distinct people and periods since the world greatly changed from establishment to abolishment.
     A reflection of this unpredictable nature, the name itself changed multiple times as the purpose and peoples of the empire shifted. The most famous, longest lasting, and most recognized name is the one that will be explained and defended based, not off of the empire of Voltaire's day but, on history.
Roman
     Otto the Great became king of German-based East Francia in 936, stabilized his rule, and successfully conquered Northern Italy and Rome in 951. In 962 Pope John XII crowned him as Emperor over the German and Roman Empires. Because of the regional overlap and an understanding passed down from the Merovingian and Carolingian rulers, Otto assumed translatio imperii which placed him as the inheritor of Charlemagne's and the Western Rome Empires.
     Further legitimizing claims of reestablishing the Roman Empire, Otto the Great was the only emperor to have marital ties with the Byzantine Empire, the inheritor of the Eastern Roman Empire. While this success is notable, it was short lived since the son born from this marriage had a short reign and never had children.
    Although there was some overlap, the Holy Roman Empire's power base around Saxony Germany was never ruled by the Roman Empire. Rome never succeeded in expanding as far northeast as Otto's land claims, but with the control of the city of Rome, the conveyance of power and authority succeeded in legitimizing the claims in the new emperors.

Holy
     Control over Rome and Northern Italy allowed the emperor to control the pope and through him Western Christendom that extended to the rest of Europe. Frederick I Barbarossa solidified this strategy and expended great efforts to ascertain imperial influences throughout Italy. Under his reign the empire adopted the title of "holy" to demonstrate this desire to dominate the papacy. Interestingly, this power struggle reinforced the Investiture Controversy which pitted the powers of pope versus the powers of the king.
     One of the largest obstacles in justifying the title of "holy," notably after the Investiture Controversy, is that as the power of the empire waned, Rome became independent and the justification for the title faded away. In an attempt to renegotiate its name, the 1512 Diet of Cologne changed the official name to "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" since controls over Italian lands had disappeared.
Empire
     The Confederation of Germanic tribes, governance over dozens of modern nation states, and successful passage of inheritance rights through several generations attest to the strength and endurance of the empire. Even in its last years, the empire ruled over an assortment of Germanic states, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and portions of other modern countries.
     The most significant opposition to the declaration of empire comes from imperial coronation by the pope. Harkening back to Charlemagne and Otto I, many rulers only took the title of "emperor" after official papal recognition. From 1493 to 1806, only Charles V (1530) was crowned as emperor. The languishing power of the kings lasted three hundred years until a truly powerful emperor put the millennium-old state out of its misery.

     Undoubtedly names hold power. Even today oppressive, authoritarian, and tyrannical regimes often rule in countries titled "Republic of the People of" around the world. While a title may not longer the strength it intends, its creation is backed by the pages of history and the irreversible presses of the times.

  __    
Agatha Tyche

Pilgrimage

     Early Medieval Europe was not especially significant on the world stage with China, India, Byzantium, and the Islamic Caliphates controlling and interacting in large scale conquests and discoveries. That does not mean that the Europeans did not document odd bits of information about the world as they became aware. Mappa mundi, medieval world maps, offer interesting insights as to how the European view of the world changed over the course of centuries.
     Several format variations existed that focused interest differently, similar to how online maps today can show either roads, satellite imagery, or street views. The purpose of the maps was often schematic or instructional instead of navigable since local, regional maps would be more useful for traveling. Location sizes varied with historical and religious importance without regard to actual size or distance. Although a grid map based on latitude and longitude did not fit in medieval worldview, Roger Bacon did propose one in the thirteenth century.
     Until the fourteenth century, most European maps were oriented East, not North. East is the direction of the sunrise, beginnings, and the location of the Garden of Eden, the Biblical earthly paradise. The Pillars of Hercules, the Strait of Gibraltar, regularly marked the westward edge of the map for centuries even as ships began to sail beyond them.
     After the Crusades focused much of Europe's religious zeal on Jerusalem, maps began focusing the city as the center of the map, but more written descriptions of Jerusalem depict the city at the center of the world than maps.

"Overall it seems likely that that the new emphasis is spiritual rather than physical. The loss of Jerusalem was a great source of grief and guilt to Western Christendom, and the real city seems to have been transformed in the imagination into a shimmering version of heavenly perfection, now out of reach. As the mappmundi tradition began to lose its hold on the European mind, later mapmakers, trying to represent the earth in a more physically accurate mode, felt called upon to explain the displacement of Jerusalem from the center of their maps."
         Edson, Evelyn. The World Map 1300-1492: The Persistence of Tradition and                                   Transformation. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University                                                       Press, 2007.

The loss of Jerusalem in 1244 seemed to spark the imagination of cartographers who quickly began placing the city at the center of their world maps. The Hereford Map, the largest existing mappa mundi, does an excellent job of defining the typical European map of the time. It is oriented to the East, depicts Eden, Jerusalem at the center, and treats a large portion of the world as fringe lands.
     Other depictions of the world remained significant until the European Renaissance. Several cartographic formats were used to display information to draw attention to different themes. One of these methods was altering or simplifying landmasses. The clover leaf map, a rendition of the T-O map, shows a round world split into three segments: Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Bunting Clover Leaf Map from 1581 in Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae places the world's continents around the focal point of Jerusalem. For this drawing, depictions of many Biblical stories were mapped out many of which branch out from or center upon the city Jerusalem. Referencing Ezekiel 5:5, "Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her" (KJV), Bunting's work also included Europe drawn as a queen with her face to the West and feet to the East as well as Asia drawn as Pegasus, a winged horse from Greek mythology.

     Throughout the centuries mapping became a detailed science. Britain's naval dominance led to thousands of voyages purposed only to map coastlines and isolated archipelagos. Cartographic symbolism has faded away as geographical accuracy has taken precedence and become the satellite and digital imagery that is prolific today. While the shape of the earth is well known today just as is the surface of the Moon and Mars, the organization of information presents challenges still just as it did to cartographers nearly a millenia ago.
     Focus and intent are more important than location, but the context of history is always helpful in knowing where the path leads.

  __    
Agatha Tyche

Shintoism

   The island of Japan essentially functioned in isolation for centuries before American naval expansion forced trade issues on the Japanese people. Despite the centuries of isolation and strict process of executing shipwrecked sailors that landed on their island, the Japanese proved remarkably successful in adapting the modernized industrial practices of nineteenth century Europe, and within fifty years, Japan, though still torn between the Samurai and farm dominated traditional lifestyle and new found industrial power, had successfully converted to a mechanized labor force and become the local East Asian power that successfully defeated Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.
     The European infiltration of the East was not the first attempt at ideological conscription the Japanese faced through history. Confucianism and Taoism both entered Japan from China; Buddhism spread into Japan over time as well. These religions never gained full strength within Japan and remained philosophical
or sociological theories and practices.
     The actual Japanese-based religion did not get named until other religions began to enter the islands. Shintoism is an unusual religion around the world because there is no historical founder that introduced the belief structure. This sets it apart from other Eastern religions that gained followers in Japan as well as the major world religions of Christianity's Jesus and Islam's Muhammad. Also peciliar to Shintoism is that the religion does not offer universal claims of acceptance or involvement for all people. Shintoism is the religion of and intended only for the people and culture of Japan.
     The religion is based on kami ("what is worshiped") which can be objects, people, events, or ideas with shrines dedicated for such things as mountains, war memorials, and successful harvests. Kami is used in specific contexts when referring to shrine dedications. Ancient documents declare that there are "eight million kami," but the large number merely indicates that kami are too numerous to count and that many things can be worshiped.
     The Japanese people attend shrines for various occasions to seek help, offer praise, or give celebration - of which the largest and most popular is the annual new year festival that many of the Japanese participate in.

     Despite the thousands of years of Shintoism in Japan, the reestablishment of the Japanese Emperor and the establishment of a more organized Shinto religion distressed Americans during the occupancy of Japan post-WWII. Although the emperor never explicitly called for a state-sponsored state religion, Americans unfamiliar with the Japanese saw the mass-involvement as evidence of state sponsored religion. By December 1945, Emperor Showa announced himself not eligible to be an object of worship and "denounced" the state sponsorship of Shintoism. As a result of the privatization of shrines, Shintoism has become a type of religious corporation in modern Japan.
     Regardless of modern influences, economic pressures, political renouncements, or cultural changes, Shintoism is what the Japanese believe as it has always been. Through two and a half millenia, the Shinto arches have stood in Japan as a symbol of the strength of the Japanese people and have outlasted emperors, wars, invasions, and natural destruction. Shintoism is not just the religion of Japan or the beliefs of its island people. Shintoism is Japan.

  __    
Agatha Tyche

Oppression

     Situated near the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa with strong religious ties to the Byzantine Empire and Greek Orthodoxy, Baltic Vikings, and the Asiatic Steppes, Russia is a land that merges East and West and is an anomaly of both. Some points of its history function as Eastern European while still others seem more Western Asiatic. Since Peter the Great's modernization of Russia in the eighteenth century, Russia has faced the West economically, militarily, and socially.
     Ivan the Terrible's reign became foundational  for Russia as it is today. His wars expanded the tsar's control along the entire Volga River and secured contacts with Central Asia. He also cemented power in the hands of the tsar, not the aristocratic boyars, by instituting land reforms, heavy taxes on the rich, and giving high governmental positions to lower class subjects. Perhaps the most famous examples of Ivan's fabled "terribleness" was the institution of the Oprichinina (1565-1572), the secret police, who answered directly to the king and could raid villages and kill nobility with impunity. These implementations stagnated the unadministered country and led to a period of significant instability following the death of Ivan the Terrible in 1584.
     By 1613 the Russian populace had rallied around a new tsar of the Romanov family and expelled all foreign rulers from their land. This stability lead to the expansion of bureaucratic rule that organized and controlled all governmental interests. A consequence of this increased state control greatly curtailed peasant migrations who, by 1649, were no longer allowed to leave their landlord or homeland.
     Despite this limitation on mobility on the serfs, Western influences grew through the acquisition of Ukraine and other western lands, and the ideological hold of the bureaucratic elite over the peasant class wavered. Peter the Great brought Russia into step with the great powers of Enlightened Europe during his reign in the early eighteenth century by political and scientific modernization.
     As the Russian empire expanded, so did the powers of the tsarist autocracy. Owning a much larger percentage of land and being in power over other religious leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church gave the emperor unequaled power within his realm. No popular resistance challenged the accumulation of the tsarist powers, and many famous Russians, including Dostoyevsky, and many Russians believed that the might of the Russian Empire depended solely on strength and power of the tsar. Political blunders and military disasters were often blamed on the aristocracy and bureaucracy of the empire.
     From at least the early 1800s, the segments of society that resisted the repressive power of the tsarist regime were sent to Siberia to join work camps and to isolate and reduce the possible spread of dissent. Nicholas I (1825-55) put down the Decembrist Revolt that sought to introduce a constitutional monarchy to the Russian Empire after the military's exposure to Western liberalism during the Napoleonic Wars. In place of a constitutional monarchy, Nicholas I implemented "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" as his governing ideology and sent secret police to enforce anti-monarchical censorship around the empire.

     The nineteenth century revealed Russia's potential strength as during the Napoleonic wars but hinted at the flaws of stifled innovation as the nation was torn by revolts mid century. Aside from the top-down emancipation of the serfs in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II, few freedoms were granted to the populace compared to the much more liberal Western powers. Nonetheless, later in the nineteenth century, Alexander III returned to Nicholas I's autocratic policies and sought to isolate his empire to reverse the effects of the West in a process called Russification.
     The taste of reform and freedom that 1861 gave to the peasants coupled with reports of reforms going on throughout Europe led to political turmoil and social unrest that intensified throughout the nineteenth century, imposed reform in the 1905 revolution, and ultimately overthrew the tsarist government in 1917. As Lenin then Stalin instituted a communist state, control over dissidents, propaganda, and state confiscations led to the development of a powerful secret police. Dissenters and suspected dissenters of the government were sent to the now infamous work camps known as gulags scattered throughout Russia. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia became a federal state that has adjusted to the balance of its communist past with capitalist economic reforms.
     Despite the by-Western-standards oppressive history of the tsars and Secretary Generals of the last half-millennium, the Russian people remain energetic, passionate, and powerful. The Russian people slug through adversary and opposition with an ease that rival nations envy. Russia is resource rich, diverse, and fearsome in both its geography and its people.
     No other people in the world can maintain a multi-continental empire for five centuries through world wars, revolts, political collapse, economic flouderings, and the uncertainty of the modern age with the respectable success of the Russian people who will always outlast winter and persist in conquering.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

Packaged

     The British Commonwealth of Nations celebrates Boxing Day on December 26, the day after Christmas. There is no known origin for the holiday, but theories abound from the Roman-early Christian period to the Medieval to the Renaissance. It coincides with the feast of St. Stephen and also has religious undertones as the second day of Christmas. During the World Wars, Canada, Australia, and several other British colonies, protectorates, and sister nations sent supplies to England for the war effort.
     Begun as a day to give gifts to strangers, Boxing Day continues to be a day of giving to people with less, but recent decades have challenged this past. Canadian Boxing Day has become an enormous retail day similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States.
     There is another way to share surplus goods with strangers: actions, words, care.

     What is a box? Whatever you need a box to be. The box can be a mindset, a paradigm, a method, a worldview, a theory, a mood, a method or approach. It can be freedom, hope, exploration, discovery, happiness, desire, creativity, love, a dream, a goal. The box is anything, good or bad, that can be passed on to others. It can be lost, desperate, inevitable or definite, confident, enduring. Sometimes a box is only a weak, flimsy cardboard container that cannot withstand use, weather, or time. Sometimes a box is a secret place of gilded mahogany that secures the most valuable items in the world.
     Mankind is curious, creative, and ingenious. We create, alter, expand, and build like no other creature. Perspective is key. A box is more than something to transport, store, or hold items. A box can be permanent or temporary, plain or adorned.
     Think of a box from the view of a cat. Hide in it, hop on it, learn its crevices, and use it for a variety of purposes. Move forward with gifts; don't store your burdens up like curses. Be strategic, flexible, adaptable, caring, and selfless.
     It all depends on you see the box.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

"It is nothing."

     The causes of the Great War are both many and none. While the revenge the Austrian-Hungary Empire sought on Serbia for the assassination of its heir is noted as the catalyst of the incomprehensible violence of the World War I, the war was long in coming. The rivalries of the great European powers in the nineteenth century created festering wounds that eventually ripped Europe apart. Tensions between France and Prussia, Britain and Prussia, and Austria-Hungary and Russia all combined for tense diplomatic relations that definitively began the destruction of global European hegemony.

     On Saturday, June 28, 1914 at 4:00pm during a visit to Serbia, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and member of the House of Habsburg, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princep, a Serbian nationalist and member of the anarchist group the Black Hand. The death of one man became the death of millions in a four year war that broke the world.

     Despite several failed attempts on his life earlier that day, the archduke visited a hospital to see wounded from a bombing attempt on his life. When it seemed that the stress of the day was nearly over, the motorcade of Francis Ferdinand and his wife crossed paths with another assassination attempt, this one successful. Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, wife of Francis Ferdinand, died on the journey to the governor's house for medical treatment. The last words of the archduke were, " Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" then with a pause, "It is nothing." which was echoed several times.

     "It is nothing," perfectly sets up the cause for Europe's subsequent destruction. Slaughtering itself for nationalist pride above any logical reason, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand seemingly predicted the pointlessness of the next four years.

     Exactly a century after this pivotal moment, the pre-World War world seems naive, ostentatious, and proud. That reflection is through the eyes of cynicism, despair, and death that for decades characterized the thoughts of the West.The two most deadly wars in history began over nothing but ended in a ritualistic suicide of the old world order.

     Today, let us not celebrate death but somberly remember the pain, suffering, and pointless causes that wreak total war, total destruction, and total waste on the world. Let us do better.

 __    

Agatha Tyche.

Lepidoptera

     History is like a butterfly.
     Time is the body that directs the motions and holds the entity together. Its directions seem haphazard, but usually the destination is achieved with unpredicted ups and downs and being blown about in the wind.

     History itself is the wings. As a whole, it is a beautiful, complex image that both confuses and awes. History is somewhat symmetrical and repetitious which is expressed by identical wing patterns. However, altered experiences age time differently and create the tatters on the wings of history that reveal the diversity of the past. History repeats but is not repetitious; it merely echoes the reverberations of time gone by.
As a whole, the story of history is fascinating as are butterflies.. Looking more closely, history, like a butterfly's wings, is composed of smaller pieces. The scales of a butterfly's wings are the individual stories of history from the starving struggle of a beggar to a desperate last stand or how a storm of the century instigated political policies for generations.

Once the shimmering beauty of the scales is rubbed off, the original pattern becomes faint and hard to notice just like lost historical accounts cloud the past.

     The last similarity involves both external and internal influences. History is influenced by time just as the geography is by climate. While man is able to choose his own path, nature and precedent narrow his maneuver's possibilities. A butterfly is buffeted in the wind but can choose to land anywhere it likes while flitting about in the tempest's current.
     Beauty is all around from the big picture to graphic details. Triumph to tragedy, impoverished to impossible, and rare to repetitious, life and history inevitably march on.

 __    
Agatha Tyche

The Pasts' Best Hopes

     The process of living is filled with change. Nothing remains the same, but all change is faced by opposition. Nature resists reconstruction of its surfaces, and in direct opposition to this reluctant transformation, humans constantly carve out, reshape, and innovate while striving to live the best possible life.
     Anthropological accomplishments pass on through history to motivate, inspire, and stand as a testament to the strength of humanity. These innovators of stable, prosperous, and painful change revolutionized their worlds and served to shape the world today both through their decisions as well as the inspiration of their legacies.
     The establishment of an empire is much easier than its consolidation and maintenance. Many ancient empires failed to live on past the second or third generation from the founder. Hammurabi understood the importance of governance in an empire and established the first known written law code. Even today his face decorates many courts because of his recognition that justice is instrumental to the foundation of any government.
     Russia is a geographically large nation, but being outside of the cultural centers of Western Europe and China, she has often struggled to stay with the leading technological edge despite her massive resources. Csar Peter the Great began the modernization of Russia's vast lands in the early eighteenth century. No man can live forever, and after his death, Russia began to slip from its perch near the forefront of the world. The modernization craze did not become recognizably complete until Stalin's efforts from the 1930s-1950s when he transformed the military and industry of a large but poor population into one of the greatest powerhouses in the world.

     Meji the Great transformed the Empire of Japan from a samurai ruled and agriculturally dependent island into the steel war machine that controlled Asia and dominated the Pacific by the mid-twentieth century after only a few decades of dramatic change. The industrial revolution sacrificed traditional Japanese culture in order to maintain self-governance, and with the incredible speed of this transformation, Meji saw Japan succeed in that goal.
     Frederick the Great established the Prussian military's high standards of performance, capable nobles, and cultural fluency. He sowed the seeds of union as Prussian lands, once scattered and unconnected, became a cohesive kingdom that called the German peoples to unite once again into a single, great nation.
     Otto von Bismarck used his talents in political maneuverings and Moltke's military organization to defeat several nations, promote economic growth, and consolidate centuries-divided kingdoms into a powerful Germany.
     Alfred the Great defended his English kingdom against the Vikings, Saladin staved off the Christian invaders of Jerusalem, Thutmose III expanded Egypt's boundaries to previously inconceivable extents, and Napoleon began the modern European age of nationalism, total war, and propaganda-fueled domestic support. Throughout time and place, great challenges have revealed the greatest of man's potential. Nothing stays stable, nothing is permanent, and nothing lasts forever, but as long as mankind is able to push forward, reach farther, and never surrender, he shall persist, thrive, and inspire.


  __    
Agatha Tyche

The End of the World

     Most religions have apocalyptic scenarios in their doctrines. None of the world empires of the past have existed at their zenith of influence and might forever and inevitably succumb to change whether internally, externally, or an alloy of those changes. An unique comparative analysis can be examined when comparing the eschatological hope-fears of the Christian Byzantium Empire and the enthusiastic vigor of the newer Islamic forces.
     An extension of the historical Roman Empire, Byzantium, with its capital of Constantinople, remained strong well into the tenth century if at only a shadow of its former power. The Judeo-Christian belief system upon which the Eastern Roman Empire was founded under Constantine took the promise of Jesus' return "soon" seriously and strove to set up a Christian world empire to begin Jesus' Millennial Reign on earth. This belief motivated the Byzantine's to expand and conquer, especially the areas around Jericho and the Holy Land.
     However, the quick rise of the fundamentally oppositional Islamic power immediately and dramatically reduced the dominating capabilities of the Byzantines. The Byzantine Empire was not unfamiliar with the tides of fortune having long weathered bankruptcy, civil unrest, plague, and military defeat. Initially, even as the empire's strength waned, hope burgeoned, especially in the outskirts of Constantinople's provinces. A variety of groups and belief systems viewed their Roman-founded empire as immortal as the phoenix that must suffer defeat to be renewed to full prominence again.

Overall there seemed to be a fairly popular train of thought that imperial redemption and renewal would start on the outskirts of the Byzantine Commonwealth and be consummated in Constantinople and/or Jerusalem. At least in part this tendency could be explained by the belief that the empire itself needed a renewal, its sacred vitality no longer strong enough to guarantee the empire's triumphant universalism. The power of renewal could no longer be found within Constantinople but outside of it. The shift of focus. of imperial sacred geography from the imperial center to the periphery sought to restore the vitality of mythical Byzantium through the inversion of established canons of imperial sacred space. In the situation in which the imperial center lost its strength, once-peripheral parts of the empire claimed this strength for themselves, positioning themselves as legitimate successors of Constantinople.¹

            1  Alexei Sivertsev. Judaism and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

               Press, 2011), 214.

     As the years wore on without providing a great return of Byzantine might, defeatism set into the culture, and the once proud armies of the Eastern Roman Empire called upon the Franks for military aid. The mighty Christian empire was set to fall.

     On the other side of the spectrum, the new Muslim armies expanded furiously with their own religious urgency in conquering the world because of the basic teaching's of Muhammad warning that the world would end and God would judge all.

What drove Muhammad and his armies to conquer is a subject of deepest controversy . . . it is clear that the common Late Antique themes of universalism and apocalypticism shaped both his message and his method. A significant portion of the Qur'an addresses the Apocalypse (the Last Day, the Overwhelming Event) when God the righteous judge would return and set the whole world to right. Believers were enjoined to a Holy War to prepare themselves and the world for the impending day of reckoning. Muhammad's last recorded speech admonished that 'Muslims should fight all men until they say "There is no god but God."' The goal seems to have been to build a universal righteous community - a melding of Late Antique monotheism with dynamics drawn from deep in the Age of Ancient Empires.²

           2 Eric Cline and Mark Graham. Ancient Empires: From Mesopotamia to the Rise of Islam (Cambridge, UK:
             Cambridge University Press, 2007), 330.

     Byzantium Christendom and the Islamic Empire had the end of the world to spur their conquests; thus, both sides of a centuries long war struggled to convert the world before the end. These two mighty empires used religion to mutual self-destruction.
     In the case of Byzantium, European Crusaders did as much to destroy Constantinople as the Islamic forces. Centuries of war, contraction of governed land by church officials, and reduced tax revenue wore out the Eastern Roman Empire. The Islamic armies fractured under diverging sects and local governors over their vast holdings. Essentially both empires crippled themselves enough for an outside force to have the final impact. The Arab-based Muslim world shifted as Asian Turks took the reigns of the empire, and the Byzantines eventually fell to these Islamic-modified Turks as well.
     In the end both regimes got what they long expected though perhaps neither side predicted the "apocalypse" to be of their empire, not the world. However and whenever man's world ends has been the focus of legends, tales, and religions for millenia. Since we can neither know the day of our own death nor the death of the world, strive to do all you can in the time given to consistently carry out your beliefs and improve upon the world that we do have for as long as we have it.


 __    
Agatha Tyche