Anonymous
6/13/2025, 6:34:36 PM
No.101156617
>>101156512
Ultimately, yes. The village priest became the village's counterweight to the local lord. Remember- the most natural alliance is that between the low and the high. A Duke or King will always be preoccupied with keeping his barons and counts in line. Any pretext to come around and slap the local pontiff's ballsack will be taken. A literate priest writing the local peasantries complaints is exactly that. This system only breaks down when the nobility becomes entrenched and leadership is increasingly incompetent- but even then, much of that is propaganda created by French revolutionaries and British enlightenment thinkers. If you look at the despots of the 17th and 18th centuries- Adolphus of Sweden or Christian of Denmark or Maria Theresa or even Peter the Great- they use the peasantry and freemen as a beatstick to keep the nobility in line. In the modern era, politicians naturally form alliances with the modern nobility- ie corporations. Democracy has no real check to that, so we end up in a situation where the only counterweight populists can find are the uber-wealthy.
>>101156392
Read it, love it. The Excalibur Alternative by David Weber is another book in a similar vein. David Weber's also writing a series called Ascent to Empire which seems to largely concern itself with how modern democracies collapse.
Ultimately, yes. The village priest became the village's counterweight to the local lord. Remember- the most natural alliance is that between the low and the high. A Duke or King will always be preoccupied with keeping his barons and counts in line. Any pretext to come around and slap the local pontiff's ballsack will be taken. A literate priest writing the local peasantries complaints is exactly that. This system only breaks down when the nobility becomes entrenched and leadership is increasingly incompetent- but even then, much of that is propaganda created by French revolutionaries and British enlightenment thinkers. If you look at the despots of the 17th and 18th centuries- Adolphus of Sweden or Christian of Denmark or Maria Theresa or even Peter the Great- they use the peasantry and freemen as a beatstick to keep the nobility in line. In the modern era, politicians naturally form alliances with the modern nobility- ie corporations. Democracy has no real check to that, so we end up in a situation where the only counterweight populists can find are the uber-wealthy.
>>101156392
Read it, love it. The Excalibur Alternative by David Weber is another book in a similar vein. David Weber's also writing a series called Ascent to Empire which seems to largely concern itself with how modern democracies collapse.