Collapse

I just finished reading Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed  by Jared Diamond. I will say first that he is an extremely erudite and compelling thinker and writer. You will learn a lot from him.

He discusses among other cases the Easter Islanders -- Rapa Nui in the indigenous language, the Greenland Norse, the Anasazi, and the Maya. These were all societies that endured for at least a few hundred years, then either disappeared completely or underwent a dramatic contraction in population and prosperity. Other societies that faced existential challenges managed to overcome them. He is interested in what makes the difference.

In the case of Rapa Nui the story is uncomplicated by external factors such as invaders, loss of essential trading relationships, or climate change. They did themselves in by cutting down all the trees, exterminating the shorebirds, and fishing out the nearby waters. Why were they so foolish?

The island was divided into several territories, whose chieftans competed for prestige by erecting giant statues. Moving the statues from the quarries where they were made to the sites where they were erected required a lot of timber. Timber was also necessary for houses and boats. The interest of the rulers was to enhance their own status, and they were heedless of the exhaustion of essential resources. Once the trees were gone, the society collapsed.

The Greenland Norse tried exporting European agricultural practices to a place unsuitable for them. The Inuit had a successful way of life, but the Norse disdained them. Weirdly, the Norse refused to catch fish, the most abundant resource available to them. Instead, they tried cattle herding, which required bringing the animals into barns in the winter an feeding them stored hay. That didn't work at all. Eventually they were forced to switch to less prestigious (in their view) sheep and goats, but they nevertheless overgrazed the already poor soil which eroded away. Opening of Europe to the east and Africa also provided access to elephant ivory, which meant that the only valuable export the Norse had, walrus ivory, was no longer in demand, so they could no longer import necessities from Europe. They all starved to death one winter.

Their problem was that they could not change their ways. The material culture they brought with them was unsustainable in their  environment, and they had irrational contempt for the people from whom they could have learned how to live successfully.

When these societies collapsed nobody much cared, or even knew about it. Human live went on elsewhere. But now we're all part of a single, global society. There's no place else to go. The wise among us know what we have to do, but the most powerful among us care only for their own aggrandizement; and the foolish among us cannot imagine changing their way of life. They form an alliance against everyone's interest, including their own. We are all in this together, whether we want to face it or not.