civilization

A set of values and ideas that guide life; therefore poetry can found or corrupt civilization.

Contrasted between the school model of progress and Jiang's model of hierarchy-legitimation through mythology, writing, trade, and temple control.

History, culture, and values that ask people to maintain, protect, and defend a shared inherited world.

The stronger version of that argument is that these falsifiers manipulate large social trust, such as money or the destiny of an entire civilization, not just one interpersonal exchange.

He argues that the strongest civilizations are those whose founding stories are universal enough to connect with other cultures and to survive across time and space.

He argues that history moves in recurring cycles such as rise and fall, civilization and barbarity, and that these patterns should be treated like natural events rather than moral verdicts.

He argues that white supremacy emerges from empire and from the binding stories and narratives of nations rather than constituting the deepest root problem by itself.

Jiang presents Homer, Virgil, and Dante as the three great poets whose works successively found Greek civilization, Roman and Catholic order, and then modernity after the Dark Ages.

Jiang argues China is culturally an historical middle-kingdom, largely non-expansionary in worldview terms, so short-run globalization is presented as an aberration rather than core norm.

He casts Russia as an autocracy with long-term planning advantages but succession vulnerability, while treating the U.S. as democratic with innovation upside and polarization downside.

He argues Anglo-American thought is structured by individual achievement and rebellion against constraint, while Russian thought stresses duty, humility, and rejecting egoic overreaching.