July 23, 2008
*Ask Jen: Collapse of Civilization Edition
Shank writes: "My Uncle, who I consider fairly intelligent and well-read, has recently been very vocal about what our future holds. Specifically, he sees several economic conditions or events in motion that will eventually lead to total global economic collapse; and, in his words, 'I see people forming communes where groups of like people, and families, learn to adapt and become self-sufficient.'
I guess my question is two fold: Firstly, has my uncle simply lost his shit, or should I really pay attention to this? Secondly, if this is a reasonable and probable outcome, should I neccesarily be worried?"
Thanks for your question, Shank. Next time, try to keep it a little shorter. I have ADD and started to glaze over around "economic" something something.
Anywho, in the past, civilizations would come and go. One day you're on top of the world, sacrificing humans to your various gods, and the next day you're archaeological material.
Never before has the human race been so completely intertwined with one another as they are today. Back in The Day, no one in the Eastern Hemisphere was much affected by the goings-on of the Western Hemisphere. The only things that could affect the planet on a large scale were environmental in nature.
Now, however, most of the global "us" are linked through economic and social ties. (Are you glazing over yet? At this point, a review of the Great Depression might be useful. I can't be bothered with that, so go here. I'll wait.)
I think the current levels of debt in America should be cause for great alarm. Personal debt or corporate debt can be bailed out by the government, sure, but where do we think the government gets its money from? We're all going to pay for it some day...and that day is getting closer.
A global economic depression is entirely possible, but social collapse on the scale your uncle describes seems unlikely. In earlier centuries and millenia, urbanization was cyclical. Groups would form large cities, the cities could not sustain themselves for whatever reason, and the groups would disperse into smaller rural groups.
I don't think this kind of dispersal is really possible in the modern era. It is possible people will become more self-sufficient, but to have the whole world turn into communal village-dwellers seems far-fetched. Maybe it could happen if there is a total breakdown in communication infrastructure, casting people off from one another in the global sense and completely refocusing their concerns to the local level.
So to sum up, put your uncle in a home.
Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't know the answer, I might make something up.
Posted by Jennifer at July 23, 2008 09:00 AM | TrackBackTweet
"In earlier centuries and millenia, urbanization was cyclical. Groups would form large cities, the cities could not sustain themselves for whatever reason, and the groups would disperse into smaller rural groups."
In Charlotte, the collapse of urban life seems to be represented by the "white flight," "bright flight" (parents who could care less about race but want their kids in better schools) and other various forms of flight from the city. That seems to me to be a more contemporary expression of what you describe. Whaddya think?
I think that too is cyclical...you have people fleeing to the suburbs in some areas, and people returning to the city (and regentrification) in other areas. But even if someone buys a house in the suburbs, they likely still commute to the city or keep other ties to the city like visiting cultural attractions, etc. There is rarely complete abandonment like we see in the archaeological record. Maybe some industrial cities come close, with the disappearance of major sources of employment (think Michigan).
Posted by: Jennifer at July 24, 2008 02:57 PM
Jew