Stupor Mundi

Stupor Mundi

The Astonishment of the World

This was the epithet of the midieval Emperor Frederick II, who ruled the Italo-German “Roman” Empire from 1220 to 1250. 

He was not understood by his contemporaries because he was many centuries ahead of his time. In fact he looks like somebody from the Age of Enlightenment, rational, scientific and tolerant. A very early precursor of modernity.

Now, we have another Stupor Mundi, also ahead of his age. Often looking like somebody from after the end of modernity. He is ahead in two senses. In one year he has moved the United States decades ahead into the internal chaos and autocracy which is typical for the final decades of a modernity and into the accompanying international hegemony. I have earlier, in the post “The Second American Revolution” tried to explain this by assuming that culturally, America was already there and just needed a catalyst, Donald Trump. But this achievement of one man is nevertheless astonishing whether you embrace it or hate it.

In the other sense this man points far into the future. As many have seen, he acts and looks increasingly like an emperor. Some may think that he is just a passing narcissistic anomaly. But in fact he is a prophecy about things to come. On the general level, almighty hereditary rulers will be the norm in the world empires from about 2100. They may be termed e.g. Suppreme President, but they are de facto emperors.

In the specific sense Donald Trump looks a bit like a certain type of future emperors. A type we could encounter around 2160, i.e. a type which the Romans experienced in the corresponding time ~ A.D. 40. 

The appearance of Donald Trump in our age is indeed astonishing. He shows what awaits us in the whole world or most of it.