Civilizations collapse when they lose the will to defend themselves

Evidence

Man’s domination over himself, which grounds his selfhood, is almost always the destruction of the subject in whose service it is undertaken; for the substance which is dominated, suppressed, and dissolved by virtue of self-preservation is none other than that very life as functions of which the achievements of self-preservation find their sole definition and determination: it is, in fact, what is to be preserved. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 62 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Purely self-interested individuals collapse when organization and terror arrive — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 169; Lichens will outlast a human civilization undone by its own barrenness — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1012; Total defeat in war can collapse an entire civilization’s cultural self-confidence — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 286 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Self-domination destroys the very subject self-preservation aims to save #complicates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 62