Inevitable Complexity Civilizations Life Cycle and the Challenge of Degrowth
Author: Douglass Carmichael Issue: 2023-07-05
Inevitable Complexity: Civilization's Life Cycle and the Challenge of Degrowth
by Doug Carmichael
Many of us are connected to efforts to rethink climate change, or to push further on efforts already underway. Some of my recent thinking questions these approaches. Since our activity continually connects us with each other, with ideas and things, we find ourselves making structures that are incapable of change, made worse by increasing population.
Imagine 100 people standing close together in the middle of a football field. Each person is relatively free to move through the crowd, but if each person reaches out, takes another or a few by the arm, the structure becomes immobilized. Individuals cannot move.
The great writers on the collapse of civilizations, Joseph Tainter, Jared Diamond, and most importantly, Arnold Toynbee, conclude that all societies collapse because of their inability to manage the emerging density of complexities.
It follows that the sweet spot for vital living in the history of a civilization is not at the beginning where conditions are really rough, nor at the end, where conditions feel futile because they are incapable of handling the web we spent centuries weaving.
In the middle of a civilizational life cycle, art, science, architecture, and much else feel truly useful and helpful, but the logic of civilizations suggests this is a bit of an illusion. While good times are had by many in the middle of a civilization’s life cycle, these times will not last, and we are bound to move into a time where the results of our activity seem not to pay off, but are making problems worse. For example, all economic activity creates more CO2, despite the intent of our projects and policies.
We might conclude that we cannot escape the historical time of the life cycle of our own civilization, but must make the best of it, and do what we can, understanding that there is nothing we can do to make the situation fundamentally better. Indeed, we are living a life we have created, but cannot control.
But what of the various forms of degrowth? Toynbee is clear that disintegrating civilizations can provide important fragments for a subsequent civilization. Those who talk seriously about degrowth are clear that it implies a different civilization, but there is not much discussion about how the process of moving from one civilization to the next is very messy in terms of ruined lives and institutions. Facing up to this inevitability of civilization collapse is, at least for the moment, freeing, as one turns attention to poetry, painting, reading, conversation…..
Related:
- Douglass Carmichael (author)
- 2023 (year)
- Topics: Climate and Environment