Collapse Extended II

 

Old Stories

First, you must acknowledge that the idea of a civilization slipping under the waves is not unusual.

The Soviet Union faded away in less than a decade, precipitated by the unlikely deaths of several rulers within a few years, a war in Afghanistan, economic weakness, and a naive Michael Gorbachev who thought the system could be reformed.

The British Empire was done in by two World Wars, although it almost survived the first one. The conservative's hero, Winston Churchill, did everything he could to bend the United States to his will, but failed. FDR wasn't interested in restoring the British Empire to its former glory, and Harry Truman had other fish to fry. Thus we have the British foreign policy invented by Margaret Thatcher, and followed by every PM since: be America's poodle, but look like a bulldog in public.

The ancient Roman Empire liquidated itself in much less than a century, the victim of centuries of abusive treatment of colonials and the defeated, promises to pay the army too much, cheating on payments due State vendors, excessive and costly worship of the Emperors, chronic economic mismanagement and, not least, the rise of Christianity. Too late, Constantine tamed the disloyal, rebellious Christians, but could only save the Eastern Empire: the Byzantine ending of 1000 years of history. For another millennium, Constantinople lived by hoarding its gold and staving off the Barbarians of the East and West. But, when it ended, it ended quickly. The Holy See - St Sophia - was shortly converted into an Islamic mosque.

Temporary Habits

There are many more stories. All of them point out that entire civilizations are whisked away in the dead of night. Those upholding those societies in most cases had little or no warning, no inkling of what would come to pass. The most dramatic and horrible memoir of what it must have been like are the towns and people dug up from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Both towns are still tourist traps today, which shows how easily people forget even the greatest horrors. Herculaneum, particularly, is a fast growing suburb of Naples, despite the continuing threat of Vesuvius. So, being a Roman, a Napolitano or an Italian is merely a veneer people put on for a time. What doesn't change is the narcotic desire of enjoying that luxurious beach.

If history is any guide, our supposedly entrenched American values are just beach clothes. We can change them tomorrow, or even during what is left of today. Since what we call a society depends on its culture, the habits and attitudes of participants, societies are far more fragile than they appear. This fragility is what makes it possible for a society to disappear in a few generations. Here in California, for example, White Anglo society is on the verge of total collapse in many parts of the State and is a defensive minority almost everywhere else. Entire communities have already become wholly Mexican or Asian, except for their physical presence within this American geography. For all practical purposes, "American civilization" disappeared in those areas in much less than my lifetime. Can I and others adapt to this new culture? Yes, we can in a few years. Thus, it is possible for a civilization to disappear utterly in a relatively short time. Those left in Rome after the Visigoth (and other) sieges of the City didn't all die. They just stopped being citizens of ancient Rome, even if they called themselves "Romans."

While some civilizations just fade away, others have a calamitous end. How they die doesn't seem to matter much; they all just die in a few generations. When whatever made it all go loses its oomph, things just stop. It's the car that runs out of gas. If the car was on a country road, maybe it glides to a gentle halt. Running out gas in the left lane of the freeway is another matter, fraught with risk and possible disasters. But, whether our car comes to a safe stop or flames out in a multi-vehicle collision matters not: out of gas is out of gas. Its useful service is over.

American Balloon

Coming to the nub of the matter, about the United States, why would I think collapse is likely to occur within the next century? Here, I note that collapse has many forms. I also note it does not require an apocalypse. What it does require is a "loss of oomph." I think the valves have already been opened, letting out the air and deflating the American balloon.

The first thing being dissipated is the American Dream. This has many forms. It is the refusal to extend that dream, expressed on the Statue of Liberty, to immigrants. Americans are becoming "closed in," "nativist," and defensive. CNN's Lou Dobbs is beating the drums against immigrants every day, and so are many other Nativists. There is greater and greater stratification of American society, and less social mobility than ever. There are winners and losers, with no means of passing from one state to the other.

The global power of modern America was derived from the perception by the world's peoples that America meant to extend the Dream to them. Unlike Rome or Britain, American domination of the world did not come about solely through military conquest. The United States did acquire a basic foothold in Europe and North Asia by military conquest in World War II. It did not, however, gain control over China, India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Africa. American influence and dominance spread on account of the perception of American good will and good deeds. It also spread because of the desire - especially of young people - to participate in American popular culture. But, those good deeds are fading away. Globalization, ironically, has produced local knock-offs of popular culture, which allows the originals to be discarded. The Bush Administration's detested pre-emptive and unilateral policies are undermining the Pax Americanus. The Conquest of Iraq was a watershed event dividing the good ole' US from the Death Star it has become. (Somehow, and just in time, Star Wars is the applicable allegory of our era.) This means the United States is now on the defensive: it's playing to keep what it's got.

Post-modern America is founded on the glorious, frivolous burning of energy, youthful and otherwise. Despite a warning lesson in the 1970s, people went back to their gas guzzlers, bigger and gaudier than ever. But this time the warnings about running out of oil are not crying wolf in the theater. We are at the end of the world's oil supplies. It is unlikely oil can be pumped any faster than it is. Of course, the forthcoming oil shortage happens just in time (I hope) to prevent the total destruction of the gobal climate and atmosphere. What is the response of Americans to the complex of problems surrounding oil? The Hydrogen Economy in a generation or so, even if we have no idea how the hydrogen will be made. Americans are great believers in technological miracles, such as penicillin and The Bomb; the deus ex machina ("pie in the sky") that will save their play from an unfortunate and untimely end.

An Imperial economy depends upon Imperial power. The economy works to the benefit of the Empire's First Citizens because they arranged it that way. If those arrangements are disrupted, the First Citizens necessarily suffer. If Imperial power cannot fix the disruption, then the economy begins to collapse. The simple truth is a complex economy is intolerant of even the slightest upset. That is why Usama Bin Laden was a genius in planning the attack on New York: he succeeded with one quick blow in pushing the United States into a deeper and more prolonged recesssion during a period of economic weakness (than would have otherwise been the case). In fact, the World Trade Tower attack indicates just how fragile American society really is. A more robust society should have shrugged off 3,000 deaths in a few weeks at most. (Far more people die in America every day from car accidents, heart attacks, etc.) By dispensing wth the American Dream, and relying on brute force, the United States has actually undermined its own power. This means the economy is vulnerable.

All of the foregoing should give pause about how long it might take to deflate the American balloon.

The Shootout

The end always comes quickly. That's because, once the homeostatic mechanisms stop working, and the social mechanism starts drifting, the slow-down decelerates to a stop. It's the same when each of us dies. The conditions leading to our deaths were present for many years, but they do not combine to destroy us until near the very end. A large proportion of people die in their sleep - usually in the early hours of the morning after they stop deep-sleep dreaming. It is as if the wake-up process, which should start in the early hours after dreaming, just doesn't boot up. So, when the dream ends we die, never expecting or knowing it.

It's the same with societies. When did we stop attending our teenage "friends," and enter adult relations and activities? When did our adult lives slip away and become aging wrecks? When was the day and hour? No one knows, but it always happens, as T. S. Elliott said, 'not with a bang, but with a whimper.'