I was recently asked where the various civilizations stacked up in terms of oppression, after I mentioned the relative humanity of the Persian Empire to modern forms. Well they did have the Persian Boat torture, so let’s not get too happy.
I rated each of the major civilizations which came to my mind, according to four categories. I have read numerous books [only 3 on the Assyrians] on all of these civilizations. However, I am not an expert on most of them.
1-10 ratings were awarded in each of the following categories, with 0 indicating an absence of deleterious effect on that aspect of human life by that form of government and a 10 indicating a comprehensive level of systemic intrusion on normal tribal, extended family and personal spheres of life:
1. Civil: Did this political entity target civilians as a prime wartime target, not as booty or captives, but as unresponsive combatants?
2. Culture: Did this polity target conquered cultures for eradication?
3. Slavery/Taxation: How comprehensive were this polity’s systems of bondage, moralized theft and overall collectivization?
4. Ethnocide: How many complete ethnocides [not genocides] did this polity commit? Note that a genocide, such as the slaughter of European Jewry/Gypsies from 1939-45, the Armenian genocide by the Young Turks and the Kulak genocide by Stalin did not result in total eradiation. These activities count per half point.
Finally, did this polity go so far beyond the normal levels of state force in this area as to earn a multiple, such as the Roman’s eradicating 20 plus distinct ethnicities [earning a X2 Ethnocide], which are admittedly tracked culturally, not genetically in the historical records I have used for my readings.
Overall more recent and more technologically advanced societies are effectively more oppressive and judged so as this list does not measure intent. Additionally, the European Middle Ages, as an age of faith, was not a time structured as states but according to faiths and is left out of this study. Arguably Christendom and the Lands in Submission to Allah are the two greatest systems of collective oppression to date. However, these were spiritual systems imposed on the temporal order and call for a deeper examination, which I am unqualified to initiate.
The 14 Most Evil Empires
Listed from least to most oppressive.
An arguable apex date is listed for each empire. Such dates will tend to be closer to the decline and fall of an empire than to its rise.
Mercantile empires such as the Athenian, British and American empires are included. My apologies to Mister Bentham.
Empires Civ-Cul-Sla-Ethno
14… Iroquois A.D. 1700: 10-0-5-1 = 16
13…Persian E. 500 B.C.: 10/0/0/10 = 20
12… Aztec Em. A.D. 1500: 10-0-2-9 = 21
11… Athenian 430 B.C.: 10-0-5-7 = 22
10… Assyrian 750 B.C.: 10-5-0-8 = 23
9…..Mongol A.D. 1250: 10-0-10-4 =24
8…Macedonian 324 B.C.: 10-0-10-9 = 29
7…Third Reich A.D. 1943: 20-4-0-7 = 31
6…Inca Empire A.D. 1500: 10-10-3-9 = 32
5...Great Britain A.D. 1775: 10-10-10-8 = 38
4…Imperial Japan A.D. 1940: 20-10-0-10 = 40
3…Soviet Union A.D. 1968: 30-20-0-4 = 54
2…Roman Imperium A.D. 120: 20-20-20-40 = 100
1….. United States A.D. 2004: 30-40-30-30 = 130
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Crackpot disclaimer: I want to live in a 100 million person world where the big bad wolf not only exists, but is organized in packs. So…
Individual Awards
Rome—no state ever went for ethnocide like Rome. They were the best.
America—has actually done more to eradicate cultural diversity than any other system of tax farming.
Soviet Union—really tried to kill more civilians, and definitely raped more, than their enemies and allies during the global war that was essentially fought to maintain that state, but they just weren’t efficient at anything. One wonders if the Brits and the Yanks worked so hard to prop up Uncle Joe’s asylum in order to have an incompetent enemy for their hate slaves to focus on.
Under the God of Things
Masculine Axis: A Meditation on Manhood and Heroism
We also need a Bonus Category.
"Take off 110 points if the Evil Empire would have Allowed you to get up in its Face, and in the Face of its Leaders, and shout for Months and Years about how horrible and evil it is to millions of people."
In an Evil Empire, you might live through the day; but not the night. By no means the night.
When the Lie is worshipped as truth there is no need to squash an ant that squeaks against it. The absurdity of the insect-like dissent buttresses the evil empire.
The U.S. gets a lot of points just because its tech level is so high that it has erased more culture and targeted more civilians than other empires.
“That perennial question ‘Does the End justify the Means?’ is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and has always been, “Does this particular end justify this particular means?”
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals 1971, Of Means and Ends, p. 24.
“The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means. Agreements on the Geneva rules on treatment of prisoners or use of nuclear weapons are observed only because the enemy or his potential allies may retaliate.”
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals 1971, Of Means and Ends, p. 29.
James, no apology necessary. The LaFond universe is the realm of crackpot philosophy. Thus if you come here you are likely to have your beliefs challenged. In outrageous ways. I accept that. Bring it on! At this stage of my life, even being the jingoistic myrmidon that I am, I am more amused than outraged by domestic America haters. As I have mentioned before, a colleague of mine in Baghdad was an Iraqi expat who fled the country when Saddam Hussein first rose to power, he would often meet Arabs from other countries who thought Saddam was a good guy. Rather than argue with such people he would instead tell them, “If that is what you believe then I wish for you to someday live under a ruler like Saddam”. So likewise if any of you residents of our fair land profess to believe America is an evil place, I wish for you that someday you may live in a country that is NOT America. It looks to me like you will get what you say you wish for, sooner rather than later. And in spades too. America, as well as the rest of Western Civilization, is clearly headed for destruction. The agents of that destruction, either by their actions or inaction, are the very individuals and entities who are supposed to be the guardians of that civilization, not any writers advocating for a return to a state of barbarism. So I do not blame James or any of the other wannabe barbarians who read and/or contribute to this blog for the impending collapse of our civilization. They are all naught but pawns on the chess board of life. As am I. Therefore what anybody ‘wants’ does not matter. What is going to happen is going to happen and we will just have to prepare to deal with it as best we can.
Speaking of challenging beliefs, James, despite being a self-professed barbarian you seem to have inexplicable scruples about targeting enemy civilians? Why? Have not enemy civilian populations been a legitimate target of war for most of human history? Especially by ‘barbarian’ forces? The Geneva and Hague Conventions and all that rot not withstanding? After all, war is the ’realm of life and death, survival or ruin’ for the polity so engaged. So the most immoral thing a government can do in a war once it is entered upon is to not fight the utmost to win it.
targeting civilians is done equally by barbarian and civilized militaries. It is one of the few thing identical to these two human conditions, that civilians are to be disposed of in one way or another. Civilians were only really spared in civilized warfare from 1700-1913, a period when most soldiers were conscripted.
This is so wrong it's farcical and absurd.
Just count how many cities the U.S. fire bombed, knocked and carpet bombed and note that most of these cities belonged to nations that posed no threat to the U.S. Only Japan threatened the U.S. of all the nations it bombed.
But the U.S. gets big points for erasing more cultures than any other.
Both of these are not functions of the U.S. having more, or even as much evil intent as earlier more brutish empires, but simply being in possession of higher tech means.
You see, we have been so brain-washed by the U.S. culture erasure machine that we believe that intent trumps effect.
I rated these empires not on intent, but effect. The Athenians would have enslaved every nation on earth, but all they had was 120 war galleys.
"...You see, we have been so brain-washed by the U.S. culture erasure machine that we believe that intent trumps effect..."
No I think your numbers are wrong because you are biased. I don't believe you've counted them right. If you go by population per capita the numbers change remarkably.
Jeremy Bentham comment,"...So likewise if any of you residents of our fair land profess to believe America is an evil place, I wish for you that someday you may live in a country that is NOT America..." is also instructive.
The present US is not the same as the older US and even it never lived up to it's promise as none of us ever do. We've also gotten remarkably worse as the grip of the country by the Jews has become more secure. You could just have easily have blamed this on the Jewish Empire and been more accurate by any means. The US as a sovereign nation ceased to exist a good while ago.
I will address these thoughtful concerns in in full-on biased crackpot fashion.
“If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.”
-General Curtis LeMay
OK James, even if we are just measuring results rather than intent (and under the law ‘intent’ is what makes an action ‘evil’, a crime, or not), I still think you have rated the USA circa 2004 undeservedly high (The Communist Bloc should be recognized as the all–time champ in terms of both results AND intent). In no way has the 21st Century American Empire achieved the results that you claim. For example, the USA didn’t kill anywhere near as many people (particularly military age males) in the Middle East during the past 25 years as was needed to pacify the region. So I gotta throw the bullshit penalty flag on that play dude. America has many times in its past been accused of perpetrating genocide; however, the peoples America presumably waged genocidal war against are, with few exceptions, still extant. In my locale such former targets of American wrath are thriving thanks to Indian gaming. So it seems to me that if Americans are genocides they are damned incompetent genocides and undeserving of any such accolades. For all its high-tech, America hasn’t even done as well as low-tech cultures like Turkey, Rwanda, Burundi and Sierra Leon. The USA collectively possesses way too many scruples to be a proper genocide. Scruples that will eventually be the death of it.
Another question James. Since the world you say you would like to live in would only have a human population of 100 million, do you have any thoughts on how such an end state could be achieved? Such a goal would require the earth’s population to be reduced by some 98.7% (it was roughly 7.53 billion at the end of 2017). Thus you’d have to break a whole lot of eggs to make that omelet! Now personally I think that there is likely to be a massive culling of the human herd sometime in the next couple of centuries. I don’t imagine the Globalist elite will wait for the next ice age to accomplish that naturally. The Communist Bloc collectively succeeded in killing tens of millions merely by simultaneously starving and working them to death. But I must imagine that would be too coarse and untidy for our current crop of Globalists. Particularly as they are Westerners and therefore inclined to be squeamish and enamored of neat, high-tech solutions (like in the conclusion of every episode of ‘Star Trek –The Next Generation’). Wonder what they’ll come up with?
I don't know, James. Is this ranking not an a demonstration of American exceptionalism, even if you had the opposite intention?
I think we have to give the Devil his due: the Soviets were truly the Evil Empire. I don't see how you could read the Gulag Archipelago and give the Soviet Union a zero for slavery.
Of course, we're not done yet, so we may still claim the top spot one day.
I will be writing a piece explaining this.
Of course, the Soviet Union is the key to wrapping this up.
I don't know if this is asking too much, but, could you, please, do an explanation behind your rationlae for each empire's score?
It is outlined.
Thank you, Bruno.