Collapse

This is a 5 STAR book, meaning READ IT!

Prof Diamond has written this excellent book in review of his life's work, which follows his 1999 best-seller, Guns, Germs and Steel. If the Bandit and his gang read this book and understand it, maybe they will undergo a Pauline conversion. For that and other reasons, this is a book well worth reading slowly and carefully, with attention to detail.

The first two-thirds of the book will appeal to the romantic anthropologist in all of us. It's a story of strange, long lost and far-away places: Easter Island, Mayan Central America, Viking Greenland, Tikopia and Montana (USA). Some of those human societies aren't around anymore, some were around for a long time, and others are still around today. They all have in common a bunch of environmental problems. Some people solved them, and others did not. Some did it democratically, others tyrannically (bottom-up or top-down, as Diamond would have it). This part of the book is an easier read than the last third, but the ease is deceptive. One has to pay attention to the details of the adventures in order to understand the analysis that follows. In that, Diamond follows Tolstoy's War and Peace style.

When I lived on the Southern Oregon coast (rural southwest Oregon, actually), I heard all the concerns, arguments and disputes Diamond recounts in the first chapter about Montana. You can hear the same controversies on the Northern California coast, not far from where I live. There is a seemingly insoluble problem of what to do about the environment as opposed to the people. It's like the Roosevelt elks locking horns in the rutting season, thereby being immobilized for a long time. When the hold breaks, suddenly someone wins and someone loses. That brings us to Diamond's analysis. It happens suddenly at the end. You have to read it, because this is the most important part of the book. Otherwise, you could have read a romantic novel, an adventure story or a travelogue.

There is so much I want to say about the book, which I think sets forth the environmentalist case fairly, strongly and unavoidably. Diamond does not want to be yet another Malthusian, but there is little doubt in my mind that, in the extremes, his work documents the truth of Malthusian ideas. For example, in the analysis he points out that the correct measure of population is impact, not numbers. He also makes the strong case that failed societies are the result of abuse and misuse of their environment, although the people involved were often unaware of what they were doing. Diamond is not a moralist, but a scientist, so he avoids making moral judgements about failure and success. Nonetheless, he is clearly pleased about the successes.

Perhaps my affinity for Jared Diamond's work lies in our coincidentally shared reading list. He refers to Barbara Tuchman (March of Folly) several times, and discusses Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. We agree in being puzzled about Tainter's minimalist conclusion, that the Mayan kingdoms fell apart for a myriad of reasons. On the other hand, one of my few disagreements with Diamond is his leaning too much on environmental causes. I think in the Mayan and some other cases we have to give more weight to human culture than he does. That leads to a larger disagreement, about what will happen to us.

Last week, I had a conversation with a friend who teaches high school. What I learned is that school boards aren't interested in encouraging independent thought, preferring not to confront the minority of parents who are religious fundamentalists. The result is, as previously mentioned in the New York Times and elsewhere, that very little science gets taught in some science classes - especially biology. We are raising entire generations of ignorant, hence incompetent, people; we are training them to be stupid. The conversation incensed me, and causes me to praise Diamond's book even more than previously. We are in dire need of education, of thinking.

That conversation bears on my larger disagreement with Diamond about the future. He states flatly that most societies on this planet will be in deep trouble within 50 years. Some are already in deep trouble. Some, like Wil E Coyote, have already run off the cliff, but are only awaiting realization of their condition for the inevitable KERPLOP¹. Further, Prof Diamond points out that collapses happen fairly quickly, usually in about 50 years (2 or 3 generations). While I think First World collapse might take a little longer - 75 or 100 years - I do agree this is likely to happen. What I don't agree about, especially in view of my weekend conversation, is Diamond's cautiously optimistic conclusion. In true professorial style, he is convinced that people can avoid their fate, if only they will take the trouble to learn the requisite knowledge and act accordingly.

Today is the day after the United States Senate voted 51:49 to allow drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Obviously, 51 Senators haven't read the book, or they refuse to be instructed by Prof Diamond. That brings me to the crux of my disagreement with Diamond's conclusion: most people in every social station don't learn, they are programmed (acculturated, brainwashed). Diamond takes the traditional academic stance, which is indeed necessary for those who carry on the faith. Professors have to assume that students are willing, even eager, to learn (for whatever reason). The professorial attitude carries over to social prescriptions: 'Of course you will change your behavior if you know how things really work.' In partial defense of Diamond, I note that he does discuss "changing values" a little bit, at the end of the book, and admits it is difficult to do. But, the fact remains the prescription simply does not work. People may "learn," but they still don't change their behavior.

While I subscribe to almost everything in Prof Diamond's book, I think he underestimates the power of programming. Why are there still Creationists? How about racists, sexists and conservatives? Prejudice is far more universal than enlightenment. It is for that reason that, despite my discomfort with it, I have preferred not to stray far from academia. Passing a life within the academic cocoon is very comfortable, exactly because that unpleasant ignorance and stupidity is mostly avoided. Doing research improves one's isolation from the uncouth masses, because only those most like oneself (professors, graduate students and hangers-on) are participants. Why do I think so? Because I spent over 18 years in my private business, where I had to deal with my run-of-the-mill compatriots to survive. Meanwhile, I was concurrently a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) [similar to being a bona fide pointy-headed intellectual-scientist], which persistently implored members in the pages of Science to find a way to "communicate" scientific values and views to "the people." That problem remains unsolved.

It is perfectly clear to me that our demographic, population and environmental problems can be solved, if only we are willing to solve them. That's why Diamond uses the word "choose" in the subtitle. The trouble is, most people and societies don't choose. They just go their way, willy-nilly to whatever fate awaits them. Diamond overestimates the capacity of most people to learn anything and change their behavior. Moreover, as I learned in my weekend conversation, acculturated people are perfectly willing to do things just as they have always been done. As Plato said, 'Older is Better,' and, anyway, it's the easy thing to do. (Copycatting requires no thinking.)

Malthus was deeply pessimistic about the fate of human societies, as he believed people are ensnared in a perpetual vicious circle. Economic improvement encourages reproduction, which reduces economic improvement; a negative feedback cycle which actually limits the population according to available resources. But, Malthus should not have been pessimistic, because the cycle he describes is actually a reasonable outcome. In the Malthusian world, there is a steady state ecological balance. Any deviations of sustainable populations and resources are automatically corrected. Malthus' line of reasoning was similar to that of Adam Smith and others of that era who were impressed by Newtonian science. In that "classical" world, everything could be calculated, adjusted and balanced. That is why neo-classical economists consider their views optimistic, even Panglossian.

What Diamond points out in this book, despite the smiley slapped on the ending, is that our problem is much worse than anything Malthus imagined. There is no balance; failed societies just get wiped out. That means everyone dies, often cruelly. Diamond also restates several times the 5^th of his 5 reasons societies fail: leaders who don't care about the condition of the people. As he says, such leaders only reserve to themselves the privilege of being the last to starve and die.

For those whose brains are connected to their mouths and their rear ends, this book is a call to action. I hope very much it will make a difference, because there's precious little time left for that.