from the BBC
Future: Are we on the brink of civilizational collapse?
Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.
So concluded the historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History. It was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilisations.
He was right in some respects: civilisations are often responsible for their own decline. However, their self-destruction is usually assisted.
The Roman Empire, for example, was the victim of many ills including overexpansion, climatic change, environmental degradation and poor leadership. But it was also brought to its knees when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Vandals in 455.
...My comment (and all of them will be in blue): up to a few decades ago most of our potential learned Latin and with learning the language of Cicero, Cato, and Caesar those bright and privileged kids also learned how a mass society on a large scale could thoroughly fcuk up and take itself down. Such learning about the vulnerability of institutions that people take for granted was a powerful warning to future clergy, attorneys, and academics, something that one does not learn from a study of a language of similar complexity such as Russian, which has the bonus of some superb literature. Today's most promising youth no longer get that side effect of learning Latin. I will be bringing up Toynbee, whom I consider as relevant to modern Western civilization as to others of the past. The rot is setting in!)
Our deep past is marked by recurring failure. As part of my research at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, I am attempting to find out why collapse occurs through a historical autopsy. What can the rise and fall of historic civilisations tell us about our own? What are the forces that precipitate or delay a collapse? And do we see similar patterns today?
The first way to look at past civilisations is to compare their longevity. This can be difficult, because there is no strict definition of civilisation, nor an overarching database of their births and deaths.
In the graphic below, I have compared the lifespan of various civilisations, which I define as a society with agriculture, multiple cities, military dominance in its geographical region and a continuous political structure. Given this definition, all empires are civilisations, but not all civilisations are empires. The data is drawn from two studies on the growth and decline of empires (for 3000-600BC and 600BC-600), and an informal, crowd-sourced survey of ancient civilisations (which I have amended).
![[Image: p0715m80.png]](http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/raw/p0715m80.png)
Here is a list:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218...s-compared
Comment: with the possible exception of the Byzantine civilization, none of those last beyond 1000 AD. Some last a long time (Three Kingdoms of Korea, 725 years and the Axumite Kingdom (in the southeastern Sahara (1000 years). The Qin dynasty lasts 14 years and the Third Dynasty of Ur at 46.
If a civilization is a dynasty or a continuing tradition of government, then the oldest existing civilization is the Hanoverian dynasty in the UK, the United States (so far one of the most impressive empires to have ever existed) is second at 242 and counting, and the Swiss Confederation now checks in at 203. The Orange dynasty is the same, but one must remember that four horrible years were occupation by the Demonic Reich (Nazi Germany) that itself is an attempt to establish a new civilization setting new (if monstrous) norms for its objectionable empire. Do the Swiss think that they have a civilization distinct from its neighbors? I doubt it.
The Hanoverian dynasty in Britain has just surpassed (at 305 years) the duration of the distinctive civilization of the Romanov Dynasty of Russia (303 years), and the United States of America will get there if it lasts deep into the next Fourth Turning that begins about 65 years from now. Much as I loathe Nazi Germany an ethical and intellectual sewer I recognize it as an effort to establish a new civilization built upon a foundation of pseudoscience, terror, and slavery. I also recognize the Soviet Union lasting for 74 years -- which the Republics of India and Israel, which have their own distinctions (at 72 this year) already outlasting the first Bolshevist state. The longest-lasting Marxist states is that of the Kim Dynasty (surpassing the Soviet Union this year at 74) in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- which is a complete lie about itself as a description of its character. It is on the Korean Peninsula, so it gets that correct.
I see the Republics of Israel and India as more durable than many political entities that have existed.
The United States of America is one of the most impressive empires to have ever existed.
It also has one of the most durable political systems to have ever existed. Will it survive Donald Trump? Probably.
Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.
Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists.
What can this tell us about the future of global modern civilisation? Are the lessons of agrarian empires applicable to our post-18th Century period of industrial capitalism?
Comment: I am not counting voluntary divestment of colonial empires as collapse.
I would argue that they are. Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of “normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their size and stage.
We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix.
And while our scale may now be global, collapse appears to happen to both sprawling empires and fledgling kingdoms alike. There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly-coupled, globalised economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread.
If the fate of previous civilisations can be a roadmap to our future, what does it say? One method is to examine the trends that preceded historic collapses and see how they are unfolding today.
While there is no single accepted theory for why collapses happen, historians, anthropologists and others have proposed various explanations.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218...n-collapse
Future: Are we on the brink of civilizational collapse?
Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.
Quote:DEEP CIVILISATION
This article is part of a new BBC Future series about the long view of humanity, which aims to stand back from the daily news cycle and widen the lens of our current place in time. Modern society is suffering from “temporal exhaustion”, the sociologist Elise Boulding once said. “If one is mentally out of breath all the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future,” she wrote.
That’s why the Deep Civilisation season will explore what really matters in the broader arc of human history and what it means for us and our descendants.
So concluded the historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History. It was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilisations.
He was right in some respects: civilisations are often responsible for their own decline. However, their self-destruction is usually assisted.
The Roman Empire, for example, was the victim of many ills including overexpansion, climatic change, environmental degradation and poor leadership. But it was also brought to its knees when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Vandals in 455.
...My comment (and all of them will be in blue): up to a few decades ago most of our potential learned Latin and with learning the language of Cicero, Cato, and Caesar those bright and privileged kids also learned how a mass society on a large scale could thoroughly fcuk up and take itself down. Such learning about the vulnerability of institutions that people take for granted was a powerful warning to future clergy, attorneys, and academics, something that one does not learn from a study of a language of similar complexity such as Russian, which has the bonus of some superb literature. Today's most promising youth no longer get that side effect of learning Latin. I will be bringing up Toynbee, whom I consider as relevant to modern Western civilization as to others of the past. The rot is setting in!)
Our deep past is marked by recurring failure. As part of my research at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, I am attempting to find out why collapse occurs through a historical autopsy. What can the rise and fall of historic civilisations tell us about our own? What are the forces that precipitate or delay a collapse? And do we see similar patterns today?
The first way to look at past civilisations is to compare their longevity. This can be difficult, because there is no strict definition of civilisation, nor an overarching database of their births and deaths.
In the graphic below, I have compared the lifespan of various civilisations, which I define as a society with agriculture, multiple cities, military dominance in its geographical region and a continuous political structure. Given this definition, all empires are civilisations, but not all civilisations are empires. The data is drawn from two studies on the growth and decline of empires (for 3000-600BC and 600BC-600), and an informal, crowd-sourced survey of ancient civilisations (which I have amended).
Here is a list:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218...s-compared
Comment: with the possible exception of the Byzantine civilization, none of those last beyond 1000 AD. Some last a long time (Three Kingdoms of Korea, 725 years and the Axumite Kingdom (in the southeastern Sahara (1000 years). The Qin dynasty lasts 14 years and the Third Dynasty of Ur at 46.
If a civilization is a dynasty or a continuing tradition of government, then the oldest existing civilization is the Hanoverian dynasty in the UK, the United States (so far one of the most impressive empires to have ever existed) is second at 242 and counting, and the Swiss Confederation now checks in at 203. The Orange dynasty is the same, but one must remember that four horrible years were occupation by the Demonic Reich (Nazi Germany) that itself is an attempt to establish a new civilization setting new (if monstrous) norms for its objectionable empire. Do the Swiss think that they have a civilization distinct from its neighbors? I doubt it.
The Hanoverian dynasty in Britain has just surpassed (at 305 years) the duration of the distinctive civilization of the Romanov Dynasty of Russia (303 years), and the United States of America will get there if it lasts deep into the next Fourth Turning that begins about 65 years from now. Much as I loathe Nazi Germany an ethical and intellectual sewer I recognize it as an effort to establish a new civilization built upon a foundation of pseudoscience, terror, and slavery. I also recognize the Soviet Union lasting for 74 years -- which the Republics of India and Israel, which have their own distinctions (at 72 this year) already outlasting the first Bolshevist state. The longest-lasting Marxist states is that of the Kim Dynasty (surpassing the Soviet Union this year at 74) in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- which is a complete lie about itself as a description of its character. It is on the Korean Peninsula, so it gets that correct.
I see the Republics of Israel and India as more durable than many political entities that have existed.
The United States of America is one of the most impressive empires to have ever existed.
It also has one of the most durable political systems to have ever existed. Will it survive Donald Trump? Probably.
Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.
Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists.
What can this tell us about the future of global modern civilisation? Are the lessons of agrarian empires applicable to our post-18th Century period of industrial capitalism?
Comment: I am not counting voluntary divestment of colonial empires as collapse.
I would argue that they are. Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of “normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their size and stage.
We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix.
And while our scale may now be global, collapse appears to happen to both sprawling empires and fledgling kingdoms alike. There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly-coupled, globalised economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread.
If the fate of previous civilisations can be a roadmap to our future, what does it say? One method is to examine the trends that preceded historic collapses and see how they are unfolding today.
While there is no single accepted theory for why collapses happen, historians, anthropologists and others have proposed various explanations.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218...n-collapse
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.