Versailles

If I were to define history at all I'd say it is like God was described by Voltaire, a comedian playing to an audience too scarred to laugh. Wandering the epicenter of Monarchical decadence at Versailles the burlesque of modern history gave me much to consider. The thought train left the station headed in this direction, and as usual it's last stop was quoteville-

While staring out over the mammoth geometric gardens that emanate from the palace I of course was thinking of revolutionaries swarming over the grounds like angry ants on October 6th 1789. What drove the Parisian mob was a desire for affordable food, not any abstract ideology. This is clearly seen by the way in which after a few years of the Jacobin party they embraced Napoleon as an Emperor because he delivered the goods. During the Belle Époque (1871-1914) the lives of many commoners improved greatly and is generally seen as a Golden Age for Western Europe. And indeed bourgeois rule was an improvement in the sense that it provided a broader section of the population access to nice things such as sanitation, transportation and food. Happy days for Europe, even if it came at the price of the most reckless and ruthless round of Imperialism seen yet, but hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs; and they thought the eggs were inherently inferior and somehow being helped anyway so that logic worked out nicely.

These thoughts gave me some chuckles, but they led me to that dark and less amusing place that most historical musings take me, the present. So after the great wars in which Europe almost killed each other entirely because of their sadistic love of organized violence a new era emerged in which the entire purpose of the state was to deliver material wealth to the citizenry. There was some debate as to how best achieve this (see Cold War) but in the end the triumph of Consumer Capitalism and Globalization has come through with another era of glorious advancement for the cause of people attaining their own individual Versailles. It's not pretty how we reach such dizzying heights of Civilization, but it seems in our rationale the ends justify the means. After these thoughts had finished traversing my neurons I sat looking at the crowds of well off tourists who were meandering all about me taking in the vastness of the palatial gardens all looking rather pleased with themselves. It was then that the thought dawned on me that this age will also draw to an abrupt and bloody end. Us who have inherited this phenomenal system that funnels the worlds consumables to our insatiable markets are just like the Monarchs of old. And just as those castles made of sand slipped into the sea of history so shall ours. As always with mankind's chronicle, the joke is on those who are living in its raucous reality.

"Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream" -William Cowper

"I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames." -Jim Morrison (and possibly the motto for all moderns)

"Riches serve a wise man but command a fool." – Old French proverb