Thread by @NormalDenizen

The centralization of Western culture. A story of a wonderful culture, and its ongoing childhood disease.

There is a charming theory of why Northern Europe benefited more from the enlightenment than southern Europe. It starts with Martin Luther.

Once his detachment from the catholic church was a fact, he got to work translating the bible. He even had to invent a complete german grammar to do it.

Luther saw literacy as a religious duty, since it was the only way to get a personal connection to the word of God.

The theory says that protestant Europe would thus, 200 years later, have a pool of literate farmers from which they could build efficient bureaucracies. This is similar to Weber's theory of the protestant work ethic, though maybe more specific.

Alas, it's probably not true.

If the farmers were literate, they had no books or apetite for them. Historical research seems to indicate literacy was marginally better than in catholic Europe, but not meaningfully so.

But Luther did set off a series of events that, be it indirectly, caused great harm.

The 30 years war was pretty much a direct consequence of the protestant reformation, and it absolutely wrecked the german territories.

Maybe none so much as Brandenburg-Prussia, where Frederick William came to power at the tail of the war. He got to work securing his borders.

And both he and his successors did an admirable job.

A standing, highly disciplined army, funded by the central authority's tax income. Over time, the militaristic logic came to dominate all areas of policy. The bureacracy and schools were also built on the same principles.

The industriousness of Prussia was impressive. Successive rulers were not afraid of reforms, and they kept fiddling around with laws and regulations, guided by a few principles:

Centralization, discipline, security, conservatism and duty.

By the time Frederick the great, who was a man of the enlightenment through and through, took the throne, it was said of Prussia that it was an army with a state. Military expenditure was around 70% of the budget.

And now began the disaster of the west.

Under Frederick the great, a great rationalization took place, among them the establishment of the prussian school system that we have all been exposed to.

But his patronage of the arts made Prussia seem cultured in a way it had not before, causing admiration across the world.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that at this period of time, being a reform-horny absolutist militaristic enlightenment kingdom, REALLY paid off.

Prussia mustered its efficient system to industrialize more rapidly than any other territory. Enormous wealth and leverage ensued.

One could say that while Britain explored, Prussia exploited, though that is probably a wild oversimplification.
But in broad strokes, it captures the essence of it. Prussia reaped the rewards of britain's risky tinkering.

Fast forward to 1871. The french long standing strategy of keeping the german states fractured had finally failed, and the two great continental powers were at war.

People expected the Franco-Prussian war to last for many years. It didn't even last one. Prussia was superior.

And pretty soon, what had been called Prussian institutions and culture were German institutions and culture. And admired.

Japan, who was in a hurry to modernize, had imported British, French and prussian experts during the 1860's and 70's, but promptly switched to all Prussian

The world went Prussian.

The military logic of a traumatized small dutchy became an indistinguishable part of the West.

Today, people assume that the prussian system is the cause of western success, though it is more accurately described as a parasite on it.

The tradeoff is subtle, but recognizable all around us.

Germany continued to excel in most areas - science, technology, culture - for many decades after unification. But the military logic at the heart of it exerted its own gravitational pull on the rest of the system.

The importance of control meant that political choices tended to go in the direction of more centralization, more formalization, standardization... you know the drill by now.

Turning around, opting for more freedom, less control, seemed like opposition to the entire system.

The abandonment of the gold standard in 1913, from this perspective, was just another domino falling.

The irony is that Germany could have saved itself both world wars. They had already won the most important battle of all, the battle for the soul of the West.

I think most of the trouble we're seeing today is a result of that very same Prussian militarism. Or call it exploitation mode. Or controlmaxxing.

We need to exorcise that logic from Western culture, root and stem, and rediscover the value of decentralized playful discovery.

How do we get there? That is the topic of my next thread, but for now:

The first step in solving a problem is to formulate it, which I have done. Please help me spread the word.

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