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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] How Societies Choose ....
  • Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 14:06:41 EST




> I have not read that book. I tend to avoid doomsday, Apocalyptic and "the
> sky is falling or it might if we don't do something drastic" books.

I've read it 'kiver to kiver' a couple of times. While one extreme is to fly
about like 'Chicken Little' as you are pointing out, the other extreme is to
bury one's head in the sand.

And it is possible you have miscued on the book. Half of the entire text of
this very, very long book is devoted to societies that recognized cultural
and
ecological disasters and avoided them ... and prospered for thousands of
years. The subtitle is more descriptive of the book "How Societies Choose to
Fail
or Succeed". As an example the author describes how the small island of
Tikopia was facing ecological ruin because of raising pigs. The islands
population agreed in 1600 (before European contact) to get rid of all the
pigs. They
did so, stabilized their soil and forests, and continue more or less unabated
to this day.

The collapsed societies he describes almost all had at least one thing in
common, it is clear that they saw economic or environmental disaster coming
(it
is clear because archeologist can see what was coming even to this day, so
the
people living right in it could not have helped but notice) and yet ... and
yet ... some cultural trait caused them to dismiss it, usually (he surmises)
with "Ah ... don't bring me down with all that doomsday stuff!" Surmises
except
in the case of the Norse Greenland of which we have a written record. The
person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island could look around and see
what he was doing, see that there were no more trees. The forest land that
once surrounded the Anasazi ruins was eroded into desert over an 80 year
period
from deforestation and overcropping allowing all the topsoil to be carried
away
by deepening and deepening arroyos. The people clearing land beside an
arroyo couldn't have helped but see what the result of their actions was
going to
be, but they did it anyway. Why? Because they didn't want to fill their
lives
with all that gloomy stuff.

And so goes the story the author unfolds. One of the most dramatic was
comparing Haiti and the Dominican Republic which occupy the same island, one
is an
environmentl wasteland and the other environmentally and economically stable.

Yet they were dealt more or less the same hand. One society succeeds and on
fails. The one's that succeeded did so by not sticking their heads in the
sand and not wanting to be bothered with any talk of doomsday. The one's
that
failed glibly went on and did ignore what to those of later time doing the
post
mortem on their societies was obviously the seeds of their doom.

James




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