Art as Prophecy

doily as a mask

In my search for how to re-purpose doilies (granny’s armchair covers) I came across the this photo  by Giacumo Favilla. It wasn’t too long ago when this photographic masterpiece would have been funny or at least mildly amusing. Nowadays this type of apparatus is a requirement to stop the spread of the plague. A doily seems far more convenient than the beak mask popularized by Nostradamus and the advantage to a doily is that many of them have at least one stain that persists through the wash cycle thereby rendering it a viable political statement.

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Decadence

Put a fork in it. We’re done. Webster’s defines decadence as a state of decay; deterioration; garden forkretrogression. In the Fate of Empires by Sir John Glubb (link to free pdf below) empires have a lifespan of 200 to 250 years. At 223 years, America is now in the territory of diminishing returns on every level of existence. Due to decades of propaganda promoting the 7 deadly sins of pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth we find the only way to go forward is to start over. Can we build a new empire out of the ashes of the old and do we even want to? It would seem that only a small segment of the population can not only survive but thrive without being ruled by some “elected” official that is supposedly deemed to be the smartest person in the room. Daily we see evidence that the rulers/kings/elites are nothing more than dimwits!

The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be:

The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

The Age of Conquests

The Age of Commerce

The Age of Affluence

The Age of Intellect

The Age of Decadence…marked by defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, frivolity, an influx of foreigners, The Welfare State, a weakening of religion.

Decadence is due to: Too long a period of wealth and power, selfishness, love of money and the loss of a sense of duty.

Here’s the pdf (26 pages) The Fate of Empires and Search For Survival.