Why do we live in the Age of Jester (part 3 of 6)

11 min readAug 8, 2021

The latest concept in futurology.

Too modern Antiquity

After I learned about the rampant mysticism in the XIX century, it turned out to be a matter of technique to scatter the Pearson’s archetypes among other historical epochs. Moreover, I had the most important marker: it is no secret that the first century AD is suspiciously similar to the modern era. Let’s fast forward mentally to that time.

Half of Europe is united, as it is now. Not to the European Union, but to the Roman Empire. At the opposite end of the Eurasian continent, a similar Chinese giant emerged — the Han Empire. These countries maintain trade relations, which was facilitated by the conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30 BC. The West was mainly interested in international trade, “hooked” on Chinese steel and silk, as well as Indian spices.

Why steel? Because the Chinese have high-quality alloys. Why spices? History textbooks say that in ancient times there were no refrigerators, and spices helped to preserve food in a hot climate due to some of their bactericidal properties. Perhaps. But the list of spices is not limited to pepper, vanilla and cinnamon. Moreover, cinnamon belongs to the laurel family, and the noble laurel grows quite well in the Mediterranean. Therefore, it seems to me that the conversation about the reasons for the high demand for spices will not be complete if you do not ask the question about the regions in which opium poppies were bred in ancient times.

Finally, why silk? Because the sexual revolution: at the end of BC, a simplified form of marriage (sine manu) was spreading in Rome, cohabitation (concubination) was legalized. So about silk: it was of great importance for the sexual revolution. Thanks to him, the female body is formally covered with clothes, but at the same time the silk fabric is translucent.

The benefits for the West are clear, but what can it offer in return? And exactly the same as today: Europe exports its (Hellenistic) culture to the East; the classical image of the Buddha is based on the image of… Apollo. Nevertheless, the trade balance was in favor of Asia. Moreover, the Chinese, for example, adhered to the policy of protectionism — just like now.

The West had to cover the foreign trade deficit with gold and silver. Every year, 100 million sesterces in bullion were spent in the Asian direction; according to R. McLaughlin’s calculations, this is a tenth of the budget of the Roman Empire. Maintaining a balance in international settlements required a certain art; one of the techniques was devaluation. In antiquity, it was carried out by reducing the content of precious metals in the coin. Under Octavian Augustus, the share of silver in the Roman denarius was 95 %, and a hundred years later it was already 85 %. Does this not remind you, reader, of the creeping devaluation of the American currency in modern times?

More about the economy. According to A. Maddison, slaves made up only 10 % of the population of the Roman Empire. However, their work was so effective that large oligarchic estates based on slave labor began to prevail in agriculture (and this was the main branch of the economy). Large corporations, as we would call them now. Thanks to high labor productivity, the economy now did not need as many workers as before. Therefore, ordinary farmers go bankrupt and leave the village, settling in cities — and they grow in response. Naturally, many people tend to live closer to the capital, because the per capita income on the Apennine Peninsula was on average two-thirds higher than in the provinces.

There is also practically no work for former peasants in the city. However, it is easier to live there, thanks to the ancient welfare (frumentary laws, congiaries), which is to some extent similar to an Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). And also the citizens are offered entertainment: the expression “bread and circuses!” refers just to that period. Stadiums are being actively built. Athletes earn good money. The chariot racer Gaius Appuleius Diocles, a kind of ancient Schumacher, still leads the ranking of the highest-paid athletes in history; Cristiano Ronaldo was not even close in terms of income.

Antiquity has its own New Age: temples of the eastern goddesses Isis and Cybele are opening, soldiers believe in the Indo-Iranian deity Mithra, traditional Western gods have begun to be forgotten. Manilius writes the first ancient Roman text on astrology. Why this is important: astrology is incompatible with the heliocentric system of the world, which Plutarch still remembers. But the layman is no longer interested in the scientific point of view.

There is unrest in the Middle East: two Jewish wars break out, the main rival of the Europeans for influence in the region is Iran. If there is a war, then Europe will definitely be flooded with migrants. Moreover, the birth rate in Rome fell catastrophically, and therefore the emperor Octavian allowed to acquire citizenship in exchange for service in the army (auxilia).

By the way, after the downright standard ruler in the person of Augustus, such strange people as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero appear on the imperial throne. One wanted to make his horse a senator, the other found time to play the lyre during the great fire of Rome. Historians say that these wonderful emperors were slandered. But we, who found Yeltsin, Trump and some other political figures, understand that not everything is so clear.

Synchronous civilizations

I am not the first to wonder why the period of the first century AD is so suspiciously similar to the modern era. Therefore, humanity has already managed to come up with some answers.

The answers with variations on the topic of civilizational theory look the most convincing. They say that the European civilization is only living through the same stage of development that the civilization of antiquity had at that time.

However, there are general planetary events that do not fit into the civilizational theory. The most famous is the crisis of the late Middle Ages (XIV century — the first quarter of the XVI century). During this period, all the most influential medieval political structures are collapsing or experiencing decline.

Take Europe: there is a decline in the Genoese and Venetian republics, the fall of the Florentine and Novgorod republics, an acute crisis in the Holy Roman Empire, the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, the Great Western Schism in the Roman Catholic Church, an unprecedented German Peasants’ War.

Or take Asia, there were also many interesting things at that time: the collapse of the Mongol Empire (including the fall of the Yuan Empire in China, the Hulaguid state in Iran, as well as the Golden Horde), the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the fall of the Delhi Sultanate.

It looks like a coincidence, but in America, the Aztec and Inca empires were defeated by a bunch of Spaniards at that time (Cortez had 508 soldiers, Pizarro had 244). If the civilizational theory were right, these events would not occur synchronously.

However, why wander through the old days, if modernity gives illustrative examples? Do you know, reader, a civilization or at least a state that now lives outside the rules of the Jester archetype?

I would like to answer that China. But no. Continuing to melt tons of steel by inertia, lay cubic meters of concrete and prepare a person for landing on the moon, as the XX century bequeathed, mentally China is still approaching Jester. Although it lags behind the West, but still. Please remind me in which country the service called TikTok was invented? Or in which country are ghost towns being built? In which country did they spend $200 billion in 2015 to save the stock market just to make sure that it was useless? In my opinion, China is not an option.

Japan and South Korea are even more involved in postmodernity. It seems that China is just lagging behind, that its tomorrow will repeat today’s Land of the Rising Sun.

Maybe Iran is an exception? Maybe.

But we should not forget, firstly, that the Islamic Revolution was a response to the attempt of accelerated Westernization of the country under the Shah. After all, before the revolution, Tehran was called the second Paris in terms of freedom of morals. And in those Muslim countries where the topic of Westernization was not pedaled, the demand for it gradually arises by itself. This is how I would assess the development of the UAE in recent decades or the initiatives of Prince Mohammed bin Salman to build a post-industrial “city of the future” in Saudi Arabia.

Secondly, even in the country of the victorious Islamic Revolution, life takes its toll. Periodically, photos of young Iranians (the generation of “children of the revolution”) who are rehearsing rock get into the Internet, although rock music is banned in the country. And there is also rap (“Iranian hip-hop”). And fashion models. And Kish Island, where the “golden youth” is resting. And the latter, it seems, does not really strive to meet all the requirements of Sharia. And, as one of the founders of Soviet planning S.G. Strumilin said, to find out the future of the middle class, it is enough to look at the present day of the affluent class.

Thirdly, after Jester archetype comes the archetype Idealist. It is quite logical that the elements of the future way of life should be present in the germinal form in the current era. I consider the Islamic renaissance to be one of such elements belonging to the next epoch — the Age of Idealist archetype. More on this later. In the meantime, the conclusion suggests itself that the Islamic Revolution is the very exception that, oddly enough, confirms the rule. In what resulted from it, you can see the symbiosis of the current Age of Jester and tomorrow.

In total, there is probably still no civilization that the postmodern has passed. So, in explaining historical parallels, the civilizational theory does not help us. Then how to explain the similarity of the main events of the first century with the twenty-first century?

Phenomena of the collective psyche

I am inclined to the idea that we underestimate the influence of collective mental phenomena. Still, they remember how Yeltsin said: “I’m tired, I’m leaving”? This is an example of a collective psychic phenomenon, namely, a mass illusion. Because Yeltsin said differently: “I have made a decision, I am leaving.”

And here is another example of a collective mental phenomenon: mental epidemics. The famous Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger has a painting called “The Dance Procession of St. John, Molenbeek”. It is believed that it is redrawn from the lost work of his father, depicting the outbreak of such a variety of mental epidemics as “the St. John’s Dance (or St. Vitus’ Dance)”. What kind of dance is this?

Pieter Brueghel the Younger “The Dance Procession of St. John, Molenbeek”.

Imagine that a group of people suddenly starts dancing. Imagined? But the difference between a mental epidemic and a disco is that the dancers can’t stop. Looking at them, others join the flash mob. The dance fever in Strasbourg in 1518 covered 400 people. And these people dance without rest for several days, eventually dying from loss of strength.

Mental epidemics are the most striking type of collective mental phenomena. You can tirelessly deny the existence of a collective psyche — as long as you do not encounter the phenomenon of mental epidemics. That’s why we’re talking about them.

These were actively studied in the late XIX — early XX centuries. True, there were no dance fevers at that time, but on the other hand, there were epidemics of spirit possession on the agenda. This is already when people begin to speak en masse on behalf of some spirits, give prophecies on their behalf, etc. Therefore, more or less detailed information about mental epidemics can be found mainly in the books of old authors: Heinrich Heger, Paul Regnard, Vladimir Bekhterev.

I have often come across a legend that Bekhterev’s essay on mass psychoses revealed some very terrible secret about the role of manipulation in the management of society. Therefore, the soviet bureaucrats hid it from the people. As a result, nobody after Bekhterev wrote on this topic. The legend seems implausible to me, and here’s why.

In fact, Bekhterev did not reveal any terrible secrets. He found the era of mass fascination with hypnosis, which I have already mentioned. Therefore, it is logical that the doctor tried to find the cause of mass psychoses in suggestion. The further decline in interest in the topic can also be explained by the events of the turn of the century, without involving conspiracy theory. Namely: at that moment, the psychoanalytic theory of Pierre Janet was gaining popularity. He said that the more awareness a person has, the less he is influenced by the unconscious (including hypnosis). And if so, then as society progresses and becomes more civilized, it will be less and less concerned about mental epidemics. Therefore, what is the point of studying them?

There is a reason for this thought: indeed, our contemporaries do not seem to dance to exhaustion (I’m not talking about TikTok now) and have no spirit possession. But does this mean that mental epidemics have disappeared? But in this matter, Bekhterev’s work is extremely important. For he distinguished such a variety of mass psychoses as speculative epidemics. And he referred to them, for example, the famous “Tulip Fever” in Holland.

And this means… This means that the ICO boom in 2017, Bekhterev would call a mental epidemic. Then, in order not to get up twice, the explosion of the popularity of Pokemon Go a year earlier should also be attributed to this kind of epidemic.

And then what about outbreaks of mass violence? I am referring to the Jacobin terror, the red and white terror during the Russian Civil War, 1937 in the Soviet Union, German Nazism, the wars on the ruins of Yugoslavia and in the sunny outskirts of the former USSR in the 1990s. Don’t these events have signs of mental epidemics? It turns out that this phenomenon has not disappeared anywhere.

On the other hand, if we consider suggestion as the cause of mass psychosis, as Bekhterev believed, then who inspired whom to make these events take place? Maybe Hitler inspired the Germans that it was necessary to burn Jews? Then why didn’t he inspire the Soviet soldiers that they should surrender Moscow and Stalingrad? Or why didn’t he inspire at least one Stalin, not all the soldiers? Using such a simple example, we see that the concept of suggestion defended by Bekhterev hangs in the air.

It turns out that civilization is a civilization, and the influence of the unconscious on the behavior of large masses of people remains quite strong. But the mechanism is unknown; hypnosis as the cause of mental epidemics does not stand up to the test of practice. That is, we do not fully understand what kind of animal this unconscious is. We can’t even agree on the terminology yet. Thus, Carl Gustav Jung believed that if we are talking about the collective psyche, then the unconscious should also be called collective. But Jacob Moreno said “group co-unconscious”. And Erich Fromm used the term “social unconscious”.

In my opinion, the mechanism of the archetype’s influence on history should be somewhat similar to the mechanism of mental epidemics. However, this phenomenon can be explained in a more mundane way. Even quite materialistically. About what another time.