← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 19907 | Posts: 20 | Started: 2005-08-31
2005-08-31 15:39 | User Profile
The US collapses: a scenario
A scientific analysis of history can predict the fall of civilisations, says an American thinker. Philip Ball reports.
With the science of psychohistory we can predict the future. We can map out the next 1000 years in detail, and the next 30,000 in outline. Equipped with mathematical models of mass behaviour, psychohistorians such as Hari Seldon, of Streeling University, can predict the fate of nations.
But neither psychohistory nor Seldon is real: they were invented by Isaac Asimov in his famous Foundation series, which describes the fluctuating fortunes of the Galactic Empire.
Now, however, a real-life Hari Seldon has developed his form of psychohistory. In September, ecologist Peter Turchin, of the University of Connecticut, publishes War and Peace and War, a book in which he explains much of pre-industrial world history with his bold and controversial theory of the rise and fall of empires, using the same kind of mathematics that Turchin has used to study ecosystems.
Turchin believes history can be a science, with laws as inexorable as the law of gravity. He claims to have found the general mechanisms that cause empires to wax and wane - laws as true today as they were during the Roman Empire. So the world order is in a state of perpetual change and the global powers today will inevitably be replaced. AdvertisementAdvertisement
Turchin's theory is anathema to some historians. Some regarded his assumptions about human behaviour as simplistic. "Social theory is a minefield, even for those experienced in it," said Joseph Tainter, a United States historian who has studied the collapse of civilisations. Others are opposed to the idea that history has rules analogous to those in science, and that the historian's aim is to discover them. "History is our interpretation of past thoughts that happened to be written down or otherwise preserved," says historian Niall Ferguson.
In the second century BC, the Greek writer Polybius proposed that societies are like organisms, which are born, grow, age and die, leading him to predict the decline of the Roman Empire 600 years before the event. The idea of a mechanical science of history became popular in the 18th century, and by the 19th century was held by most "progressive" thinkers. Turchin's title alludes to Tolstoy's speculations in War and Peace that history is deterministic, directed by "forces" such as those invoked by Isaac Newton.
And Karl Marx echoed Polybius's belief in cyclic history in his economic theory of why a proletarian revolution was inevitable. But others deplored this reduction of the richness and complexity of history to a clockwork caricature.
Turchin knows he is entering a battleground. But his experience in the mathematical modelling of animal populations, such as voles, has given him confidence that the complex processes of human interactions can be captured by such methods too.
Of course, human society is more complicated than vole communities. But Turchin thinks it is not necessarily too complicated for a scientific approach. "A good scientific theory does not need to include everything we know about the subject," he says. "It needs to include only the stuff that is necessary for getting the job done."
For example, he argues the fluctuations in population of pre-industrial societies can be linked to periods of instability and civil war. His theory shows how population growth caused by increased prosperity can itself trigger such social instability, thus sowing the seeds of its own decline. This, says Turchin, is how civilisations and empires collapse.
But War and Peace and War is even more ambitious for it attempts to explain some of history's grand narratives: the rise and fall of Rome, the expansion of medieval European powers, the Russian conquest of Siberia. Turchin believes these empires were the product of one factor: social cohesion, the willingness of groups to co-operate against opponents. He calls this asabiya, an Arabic word denoting "mutual affection and willingness to fight and die for each other".
Using modern understanding of how co-operative behaviour develops in groups of organisms, Turchin's models suggest that asabiya becomes particularly strong on the frontiers of empires, where two civilisations confront one another. This, he says, was how a small group of Cossacks was able to defeat a much larger army of Tatars in Siberia in 1582. Thus, the "meta-ethnic faultlines" between civilisations are "asabiya incubators" from which new empires spring. Here, either you unite or you die.
One consequence is that frontier peoples bury their differences and help one another. The downside is that they exaggerate factors that distinguish them from their foes, who become subhuman barbarians, heathens or infidels.
Sounds familiar? Turchin points out how, after September 11, 2001, a US radio host referred to Arabs as "nonhumans" and claimed that "conversion to Christianity is the only thing that probably can turn them into human beings". The US has all the hallmarks of an empire, Turchin says, and it is one in which asabiya is showing its dark side in nationalism and xenophobia. "Today the most violent clash of civilisations occurs on the meta-ethnic frontiers of Islam with the Western, Orthodox, Hindu and Sinic civilisations," says Turchin.
But if his theory is right, it will be in these conflict zones, such as the borders of Europe, that the next great empires will arise.
The Guardian
The Guardian War and Peace and War by Peter Turchin is published in September by Pi Press. [url]http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-us-collapses-a-scenario/2005/08/28/1125167552525.html#[/url]
2005-08-31 15:43 | User Profile
History, in a nutshell, is simply a record of human behavior over time, therefore history does follow rules that can be observed because while times change, human nature does not.
2005-09-01 05:01 | User Profile
"In the second century BC, the Greek writer Polybius proposed that societies are like organisms, which are born, grow, age and die, leading him to predict the decline of the Roman Empire 600 years before the event..."
Imperial Amerika jumped straight from adolescence to senilty. :dry:
2005-09-01 05:07 | User Profile
Howard,
I have my own theory concerning this. It is the time factor and the impact of technology has upon empires. I think that one of the reasons empires of the past lasted longer was simply due to the fact that their technology was a lot cruder than it is today. It took longer for things to have an impact. I believe the more advance a technology the quicker historical events can occur.
2005-09-01 05:17 | User Profile
Indeed.
Wind and horses got us around from Paleolithic times until Watt and Fulton--our grandparents' grandparents knew folk who remembered that era before either.
Shame that Man's moral, artistic and philosophical growth have been strangled in the crib by the Plutocracy. Apes make better "Consumers".
2005-09-01 05:21 | User Profile
Howard,
I hope the days of the Judeo-plutocracy are numbered.
2005-09-01 05:23 | User Profile
...and may it be a small number, at that! :whstl:
2005-09-01 12:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.]Imperial Amerika jumped straight from adolescence to senilty. :dry:[/QUOTE] "America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization." -- Oscar Wilde
2005-09-01 15:41 | User Profile
Sert - there is something to what you said about technology.
[QUOTE]Turchin believes history can be a science, with laws as inexorable as the law of gravity. He claims to have found the general mechanisms that cause empires to wax and wane - laws as true today as they were during the Roman Empire.[/QUOTE]Ibn Khaldun was working on this 6 or 7 centuries ago.
2005-09-02 01:28 | User Profile
Sert - you titled this thread "The US collapse: a scenario", but how does this article spell out a scenario for the US ? At the end, it says the borders of europe will see the rise of new empires. I quote:
The US has all the hallmarks of an empire, Turchin says, and it is one in which asabiya is showing its dark side in nationalism and xenophobia. "Today the most violent clash of civilisations occurs on the meta-ethnic frontiers of Islam with the Western, Orthodox, Hindu and Sinic civilisations," says Turchin.
But if his theory is right, it will be in these conflict zones, such as the borders of Europe, that the next great empires will arise.
Ok, so he mentions the US and that nasty "nationalisim"...but Im still scratching my head. Me thinks this article is just a bunch of high-brow, head-shrink mumbo-jumbo way of saying Yugoslavia aint got nuthin on the US when the fireworks start.
By the way, what the heck is "Sinic" civilization ? I had to look it up...ahh yes it comes from the work "Sino" , as in Russo-Sino war. My head hurts, I need a scotch.
2005-09-02 01:38 | User Profile
Never heard of "psychohistory" and dont want to contemplate its meaning, but this might be relevant [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations[/url]
2005-09-02 01:57 | User Profile
Josey,
The title I used is the one the article was titled with. The guy's probably a "liberal". What I found interesting about it was that some of the stuff he was thinking of I have had similar thoughts.
2005-09-02 02:54 | User Profile
I really don't know about the "true science" stuff. Too many variables to take into account.
This civilization is doomed. Our integration into the world economy is going to push the country into frightening poverty. I think that even if somehow someone or somebody could provide excellent leadership that did all the right things, our best hope would be for the US to remain a regional power. All this hyperpower stuff is ready to go down the drain. We are headed toward being a big poor country like Brazil or Russia.
The only comfort I can see in any of this is that the Neo-cons will be in the driver's seat when everything goes to hell. All those snake handling, evangelical, redneck yahoos who worship the establishment will also be humiliated. Screw-em!
2005-09-02 03:10 | User Profile
Corncod,
I agree. The idiots like Limbaugh who are always arrogantly and ignorantly hollering about [I]"the world's only superpower"[/I] are too stupid to realize that time elapsed a few years back. Now the whole world can see us with the feet of clay the US has thanks to the greed, stupidity, and sheer ignorance of our Juedo-plutocracy. They wreck the industrial base with "free trade" agreements and squandered our military power with all sorts of misadventures overseas. At the end of the Cold War the US should have dumped the useless title of the "world's leader" and used the time to strengthen our economy. Yeah, I figure at the best, we'll come out a reasonably strong regional power due to our Navy.
2005-09-02 13:53 | User Profile
Yeah, I figure at the best, we'll come out a reasonably strong regional power due to our Navy.
Maybe, but only if the Chinese agree to continue making our naval vessels for us!
2005-09-02 18:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=MadScienceType]Maybe, but only if the Chinese agree to continue making our naval vessels for us![/QUOTE] What? American Naval Shipyards are still around, if somewhat depleted in number. What are you referring to?
AE
2005-09-02 20:59 | User Profile
AE,
Here you go.
[url]http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050725_china.htm[/url]
Not sure how true this is, but I'll take PCR's take on things over Scott McClellan's any day of the week.
2005-09-28 20:22 | User Profile
Serts, this is such an interesting topic.
The only point the article didn't fully explain is that post-9-11, nationalism didn't rear its "ugly" head in this country. Instead of galvanizing us for a prolonged war it divided us into factional infighting. Nor did the citizens of this country even perceive a common enemy. Turchin seems to have ignored the external influences that can reshape what he calls the "organism". The organism in this case was susceptible to stronger forces than its own need to survive. It's as if the organism/country is being tricked into killing itself from within, something like an auto-immune deficiency.
Constrast that to the colonists living in Penn. before 1776. They were being slaughtered by Indians who decimated entire settlements beginning with those on the periphery. This was largely due to the Quaker influence which forbade the carrying of weapons and the killing of other humans even in self-defense. And since Quakers were in positions of authority, the Indian raids continued until the colonists united against the enemy within, in this case the Quakers, and sent them packing. Quakers weren't allowed to hold office after this disaster. The colonists became single-minded in their war against a sworn enemy. It also defined more specifically who they were and were to become. Turchin's model was followed.
2005-09-28 22:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Turchin believes these empires were the product of one factor: social cohesion, the willingness of groups to co-operate against opponents. He calls this asabiya, an Arabic word denoting "mutual affection and willingness to fight and die for each other".
Using modern understanding of how co-operative behaviour develops in groups of organisms, Turchin's models suggest that asabiya becomes particularly strong on the frontiers of empires, where two civilisations confront one another. This, he says, was how a small group of Cossacks was able to defeat a much larger army of Tatars in Siberia in 1582. Thus, the "meta-ethnic faultlines" between civilisations are "asabiya incubators" from which new empires spring. Here, either you unite or you die.[/QUOTE]
Seems intuitive enough, though predicting the fall of the U.S. would involve more than two competing ethnic or racial groups.
2005-09-29 01:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.]Imperial Amerika jumped straight from adolescence to senilty. :dry:[/QUOTE] A tribute to American efficiency.