The United States of America will turn 239 years old in a month.

Ancient Greece, during the Hellenistic period, had an empire that was built on many of the same ideals as America’s. Their empire lasted around 225 years.

The Ottomans and British both dominated the world scene for about 250 years. The Russian Romanov Empire experienced 234 years of prosperity. Even the Roman Empire during its most dominant period, only lasted for roughly 207 years.

“Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart…” – Marilyn Monroe

The other day I was surfing Instagram and came across a short video that (at the time) had over 10,000 “likes” and close to 1,000 comments. Who knows how many it has now.

It was no mystery as to why it was so popular, though. Videos like this one always get lots of attention… It was of a young woman bouncing her ass up and down to hip-hop music.

And that’s it.

15 seconds of a skirt covered ass bouncing up and down (in slow motion actually, you could really see the “shake”). 10,000 likes. 1,000 comments.

On top of this, what I saw wasn’t even the original post. It was actually a “regram” by another account and still had that many likes. It was probably reposted dozens of times.

The girl’s own account had many similar pictures and videos. She had somewhere in the range of 15,000 followers and most of her posts are “liked” by thousands of these audience members.

That’s progress?

“You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption.” – Noam Chomsky

The average, healthy three-year-old should know about 1,000 words and they are typically capable of creating 3-4 word sentences.

For American three-year-olds, however, 100 of the words that they know are brand names. One of the most common words spoken by American children is “Starbucks”, another is “Wal-Mart”. Which really aren’t words at all.

Can’t use them in Scrabble can you?

Additionally, the majority of the sentences American babies construct are just the constantly repeated (and repeated) slogans they hear, completely devoid of any meaning other than “buy our product”.

Now, wait … Let’s think about this for a second. Words are pretty freaking important (SMH, u gotta kno words).

If American children have the same biological capabilities as any other three-year-old on the planet but 100 of the words that our kids learn aren’t even real, then doesn’t that mean our three-year-olds only know 900 real words?

It does.

It seems that it’s not only a terrible education system causing our children to fall behind the rest of world in math, science and reading, but American kids are just dumber when they actually get to school. They have less capacity to comprehend new and abstract ideas because their vocabulary is more limited than their international peers.

“Happy Meal” is never mentioned in Oliver Twist.

And we’re supposed to be more advanced now than we ever have been?

“We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilizing ourselves with over-consumption…” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Americans represent roughly 5% of the earth’s population, yet consume 75% of all anti-depressant medication manufactured in the world today.

The average cost of one can of Red Bull in a Las Vegas nightclub is $50 while the city itself will only have access to a steady water supply for about 20 more years (and that’s a high estimate).

Most people have heard the figure that about 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce. What’s not as well known is that 75% of these once divorced Americans will remarry … and 65% of those second marriages also end in divorce. That equates to 78 million Americans (or roughly a quarter of our population) that cannot find sustained happiness in another.

More than a third of all American adults are clinically obese. This percentage will only grow as childhood obesity has more than quadrupled in the last 30 years.

One in five American kids under the age of 18 cut themselves. Most say they do it, “to actually feel something.”

Male youth suicides in our country have more than tripled since 1980.

And this is the greatest country in the world?

“History, with all her volumes vast, hath but one page” – George Gordon Byron

Sir John Glubb, a British military officer, scholar and author, once posited that empires generally don’t last longer than 250 years. This article’s opening examples are certainly evidence for his idea, as well as several other empires.

According to Glubb, there are distinct phases or ages of intellectual development that they each go through. These ages are common across all empires, no matter which one you pick. Some spend more time in certain ages than others, but it typically takes around 250 years to complete the cycle and then they collapse.

He theorized that during their lifespans, empires will experience: (1) the age of outburst, (2) the age of conquest, (3) the age of commerce, (4) the age of affluence, (5) the age of intellect, (6) the age of decadence, and (7) the age of decline and fall.

Each age helps to lead to the next as values morph over time. Military, political, economic, and religious developments all influence beliefs and actions as collective thought works through the process.

For example, here is how Greece during the Hellenistic period tracked through Glubb’s cycle:

Outburst Alexander the Great cleared the way in Greece’s surrounding areas. Hellenistic Greeks saw this as an opportunity to establish their own kingdoms in these vulnerable lands.

Conquest Years of unrest made other, neighboring areas easy to take. The conquest process became repeatable and there was a shift in military approach; for the first time Greece had a professional army that took cities at will. Greek people and culture seeped in at each take.

Commerce Cities sprung up deep into Europe, Asia and Africa. Greek hubs like Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus and Rhodes were the most important cities in their parts of the world.

Affluence Prosperity in the Greek system was easily attainable and many young, ambitious Greeks made fortunes in these hubs. Once viewed as “barbaric”, the indigenous people of these new Hellenistic cities even reaped commercial benefits. This allowed for a melting-pot ruling class.

Intellect Exploration, literature, theater, architecture, mathematics, science and philosophy all progressed, perhaps even more than in Classical Greece. However, for the first time, proper Greeks took on the customs and thought of their indigenous countrymen. There was still a reverence for the past, however; of a pure Greece.

Decadence The whole idea of “Greece” began to splinter the population. For the newly enlightened, common citizens (of mostly mixed heritage) “Greece” was very different than what Athens said it was. The ruling elite still needed those “pure Greece” ideals, though. Endless possibilities in their cities helped justify expansion, but the possibilities were in actuality only endless for the elite. There was never a direct removal of other cultures, but a slow process of assimilation (that historians now call “Hellenization”). Hellenization, a manufactured identity, had the reverse effect and no one actually felt like they were anything at all; especially not Greek.

Decline and Fall Fed up with expansion, the now quasi-assimilated – but more confused – population began to realize they were no longer benefiting from “Greece”. They felt they bore costs of expansion that provided little economic or cultural benefit. In fact, most were worse off than they were before and it was the intellect they gained when Greece prospered that led them to this realization. Things fell apart from there.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

America’s empire status can certainly be debated on a number of levels. I mean, we don’t go to war to add new states, right? We just “spread democracy”.

Whether you believe we are out to conquer or not, America’s intellectual history still matches well with Glubb’s age of empire theory. Our thought development absolutely supports the idea that we are, in fact, an empire.

Outburst

It’s hard to say exactly when America’s empire started, it’s not like we signed the Constitution and became a super power. Glubb’s theory accounts for this, though, as there is no set number of years for each phase (just that empires go through them in order and eventually fall).

Greece conquered a weakened and pretty crowded part of the world, so their outburst and conquering ages did not take very long. They basically just had to take over an area militarily and didn’t have to spend as much time building infrastructure or populating their new territory.

The US, on-the-other-hand, had to cut down forests, dam rivers, construct buildings and procreate. It took quite a bit of time to burst out into the New World. And this was one of our longest lasting ages.

Conquest

Like our initial burst, conquering was also drawn out for us. External European and internal indigenous populations nagged us with a few wars. Mexico’s own expanding empire gave us problems. And, finally, a Civil War was needed to stabilize everything under one type of democratic empire.

After taking all that was possible (sans invading Canada or revisiting war with Mexico) and with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, our conquest age ended and our mindset shifted again.

Commerce

Business and growth skyrocketed in the US and we became the world leaders in almost every enterprise. People from all corners of the planet came here to tap into our seemingly endless commercial opportunities.

This, of course, resulted in some of the highest levels of individual wealth the world has ever known. The likes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan and Edison all came out of our age of commerce.

Affluence

In the early 20th century seemingly everyone in the United States could find success. More importantly, they could attain luxuries.

By the time the Roaring Twenties came around, people did not just live in homes and ride in cars, they ate exotic food, listened to Jazz, went to movies and drove on highways. Americans could do things no other civilization in human history could do.

The success and affluence in America, was put together on the assembly lines of the Industrial Revolution and hardened during World War II. We were proud of the collective America and we were conscious of what we could do as a whole. Being part of something larger than ourselves was special to us.

The age of affluence ended abruptly for the US, though. In fact, we can cite the exact date: August 6th, 1945 (the day we dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan).

Intellect

As the 5’8” and lifelong bully target Harry Truman pranced around the USS Augusta asking everyone, “Did ya see that?” and stated “Wow-ee, look at that cloud. We got those Japs…” every other American experienced an immediate psychological shift.

[He actually said those things, by the way … It’s on record]

From high levels of government and smoke filled rooms to the child hiding under their desk during a nuclear bomb drill, everybody focused on emotions and intellect as soon as Little Boy dropped.

We coined phrases for types of thought; “Military Intelligence”, “Red Scare” and “National Security” all entered our lexicon.

Awareness and thought expanded to other areas from there and we contemplated things like equality, technology, exploring the cosmos and our human existence. Rock music came of age and the largest generation in the history of the United States (the Baby Boomers) were universally educated.

We were obsessed with thoughts and how we felt. We even created a Central “Intelligence” Agency.

Enter the hippies…

Err, the 1960’s counter-culture movement.

Say what you will about this weird group of people and rainbow colored time in US history, it was still the highest point in American intellect. Institutionalized racism, pollution, and many other injustices were all pondered and weakened by the Flower Children.

Most important, the hippies shifted the focus of our thought.

Before their movement our thought centered around America as a whole (and beating the Russians), and after we looked at the individual. Hedonism abounded during this time and there was a general attitude of “…freedom for all.”

Then, like the Greeks, Hellenization went into full effect.

Decadence

Following our intellectual shift – from the collective to the individual – marketers began shaping their new clay.

What was once perceived as a threat to business, was suddenly an opportunity to promote “America”. In America, one could truly be themselves. Freedoms and individual differences were celebrated here.

This played beautifully into corporate hands as the foundation of neo-classical economics is a free market where individuals make choices. Marketing reflected this and we were told to “Have it your way”, “Be all that you can be”, and to “Just do it.”

We even had a sweet, old President constantly reminding us how great it was to be free and wake up to “Morning in America.”

The “…freedom for all” hippies of the 1960s morphed into the “No one can stop me from what I want to do” yuppies of the 1980’s.

Hedonistic consumerism was now what abounded and we could Live, Laugh and Love in the land of the free.

At the same time, though, we continued to expand our empire, or at least subvert others from expanding.

Since the age of decadence began (let’s say when the last troops left Vietnam in 1975), we have entered into military conflict 102 different times. A few of these being multi-year engagements.

That means that during any given year during this age, we actively engage two to three other nations of people. During the Reagan years, which was the pinnacle of American decadence, we waged conflicts on 5 different continents and even tired to place weapons in outer space.

This does not include the assassinations or mysterious sudden deaths of dozens of world leaders (sorry, “dictators”) during this time that scream American involvement.

In order to maintain this expansion, there had to be some way to justify our constant war effort to the population. We were peace-loving yet fiercely independent people that had an understanding of the outside world; it was difficult to stand by what we were doing militarily.

Thus, we have Reagan’s other lasting legacy … his sense of “America” that was etched into our ethos during his presidency. Reagan’s lifestyle and red, white and blue views have lionized him in this country, but at-the-same-time instilled our own Hellenization process.

Or, “Americanization”.

Decline and Fall

It’s hard to say exactly where we sit in Glubb’s cycle now. We are either still holding on to a weakening wave of decadence or already starting the decline.

What’s clear though, is that like the Hellenistic Greeks, “Americanization” has made us all pretty confused at this point. And we don’t seem very happy…

We yearn for individuality but can only develop a manufactured sense of self. We are patchwork quilts of corporate branding.

In meeting new people, we don’t talk about who we are but level on things that were instead created by others. Our favorite movies, TV shows and how we make money all define who we are. We are intelligent fools that can count but can’t think.

Our appetites cannot be fed anymore and nothing seems to be good enough. We pop more pills, spend more money, have more divorces, eat more food and commit more suicide than anyone else in the world. The merchandizing of life has just worn us out.

If America isn’t falling, then it certainly seems like we are at least looking over the edge.

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” – Harold Wilson

We were once the jewel of the world, but so were a lot of other empires throughout history.

According to Glubb’s theory, it seems that we may be suffering the same fate as the Greeks, Romans and Romanov Russians.

But there is still time for us. We haven’t fallen just yet and can reverse the cycle.

That won’t happen, though, unless we rethink our imperial approach and loosen our grip on the world. Our empire is not just weakening abroad, but right here on the home front.

If we can’t relinquish our competitive desires, then American women bouncing their asses on Instagram and stupid children will be the least of our worries…

This whole thing will fall apart.