
Theories of civilisational ‘collapse’ grow less convincing when scrutinised - Vigier
https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-idea-of-civilisational-collapse-says-about-history
======
nkoren
Very unconvincing article. Would have been better if it had stuck to the core
assertion that "The fall, like the rise of a civilisation is a highly complex
operation which can only be distorted by oversimplification. It may be taken
as axiomatic that there was no one cause of cultural collapse."

Yes, the actual causes of civilisational collapse are complex and varied, and
do not exist to satisfy any particular narrative. And yes, these stories (most
notably Easter Island) have been distorted and by modern polemical desires.
And yes, with a few exceptions, "collapse" doesn't mean the total obliteration
of a culture or their way of life.

But to twist this into "Do civilisations collapse?", with the answer being
"no", is wrong. If you were living in Rome in 477, then your civilisation was
collapsing. The fact that Latin would still be the language of the elite for
more than a thousand years, or that Corinthian capitals would never cease to
be carved, or even that there were people in Constantinople, thousands of
miles away, still contentedly calling themselves "Romans", would provide very
little succour, or otherwise argue against the fact that the civilisation you
grew up in and depended upon was _comprehensively_ fucked.

The same goes for the Maya, the Mycenaeans, the Harappa, and innumerable other
civilisations. Any time you see population levels in precipitous decline,
accompanied by a dramatic loss of technological and organisational
capabilities, you are seeing evidence of some extremely unhappy individuals
whose civilisations are, for them, collapsing. Arguments to the contrary -- on
the basis that it's unevenly distributed, or that there will be elements of
cultural continuity -- are academic. Experiential reality is that
civilisations DO collapse.

~~~
flexie
Did the British Empire collapse? Yes (and it’s political influence seems to
continue it’s diminishing).

Did the collapse happen while the life of ordinary Britains improved greatly?
Yes.

Did the USSR collapse? Yes. Is the quality of life for the ordinary Russians
better today? Yes.

Holy Roman Empire, Greek civilisation, Roman empire: Same story

~~~
colechristensen
Those are nations, not civilizations. Civilization in the 20th century and
some significant time before that was global and ever increasingly so.

The USSR and British "collapse" were the loss of empires, not a collapse of
civilization. The systems of society were shuffled but not destroyed.

~~~
ThomPete
The commonwealth was a civilization as much as the roman empire were.

~~~
mcguire
The Commonwealth, as a civilization, still exists unchanged. Unless the
Australians actually have lost the skill of writing and reverted to their
previous tribal structures.

~~~
ThomPete
The commonwealth is nowhere where it used to be and Britannia do not rule the
world like they did.

It's a perfect example of the fall of an empire and civilization without any
collapse.

------
Gupie
It is strange that the article contains a lot about the Mycenaean 'collapse'
but does not mention that this was part of a general collapse of all the
states in the eastern Mediterranean:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse)

~~~
mcguire
I'm not sure whether that helps or hurts his point about the complexity of the
"collapse". The Mycenaeans had a large scale trade empire across large parts
of the Mediterranean, from Italy up through the Black Sea. The "collapse"
involved other "civilizations", including the Hittites, Assyrians,
Babylonians, and Egyptians, all of which were relatively tightly bound by
trade and diplomacy.

The only commonality, as I understand it, is that between 1400 and 900 BCE,
all of that trade and most of the "higher" civilization in those areas
disappeared, to eventually be replaced by something different.

~~~
ardit33
You are confusing Minoans with Mycenaeans.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization)

Yes, the Greeks are the descendants of the Mycenaeans, but Minoans were a
totally different civilization. Different language, different people.

For what we can read, and archeologic findings, the Minoans civilization
collapsed and disappeared

~~~
mcguire
No, I don't think so.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece#Collapse_.28c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece#Collapse_.28c._1250.E2.80.931100_BC.29)

The Minoan civilization disappeared (possibly being partially incorporated
into the Mycenaeans') about 300 years before the disappearance of Mycenaean
culture along with the other late Bronze age hullaballoo.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse)

------
icc97
The recent Easter Island BBC film [0] was pretty good on this. Jared Diamond
did consider all the European destruction in his book 'Collapse' but still
believed that there had been a large amount of deforestation well before the
first Europeans arrived in 1722.

The BBC claims there were trees and the population was relatively happy when
the first ship arrived. But this changed dramatically after that.

Diamond claims that the 1722 expedition saw no trees over 10ft tall, and says
that effectively the deforestation was 'complete' by then.

Personally I believe the BBC version of events. Disease + Slavery + 70,000
sheep vs a population that had survived for 1,000 years on a tiny island. Even
Diamond agrees that he doesn't understand why the islanders would cut all
their own trees down when they were clearly intelligent.

Edit: Here's the actual quote from the Jacob Roggeveen's journal [1]:

> Nor can the aforementioned land be termed _sandy_ , because we found it not
> only not sandy but on the contrary exceedingly fruitful, producing bananas,
> potatoes, sugar-cane of remarkable thickness and many other kinds of fruits
> of the earth; although destitute of large trees and domestic animals except
> poultry

[0]:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03srmm6](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03srmm6)

[1]:
[https://archive.org/stream/voyagecaptaindo00unkngoog#page/n1...](https://archive.org/stream/voyagecaptaindo00unkngoog#page/n108/mode/2up)

~~~
gaius
_Personally I believe the BBC version of events_

The BBC has their own narrative (the rest of the world was living in peace and
harmony before white Europeans spoiled everything) so I would take their
opinion with a large pinch of salt.

~~~
icc97
The BBC also had an documentary claiming that it was environmental collapse
back in 2012 which is mentioned in the aeon article. They have now produced
another with a separate view point.

Irrespective of the BBC bias I still think that disease + slavery + 70,000
sheep was more likely cause for collapse.

------
bantunes
> The Maya did not disappear, though cities were abandoned, the population
> fell and life changed

I don't think humans will disappear either. But a possible future in which we
escape the surface's radiation by moving underground and live on cave moss
burgers could be seen as a "collapse".

------
kristjankalm
Decline or collapse, or whatever word one uses -- is not subjective, as this
article seems to imply. There are loads of metrics -- levels of urbanisation,
existence of monetary system and taxes, levels of literacy, state funded
infrastructure projects, literary projects, libraries and institutions of
education. All of these pretty much disappeared in western europe between 400
and 700AD or were reduced to tiny isolated examples. Same dynamic with
Hittites or Harappan city states. You can call it something else than a
collapse but it's not a "subjective value judgement".

~~~
ThomPete
Those are metrics for how we might identify something as a collapse, the
author seems to be saying something else namely that there wasnt a collapse in
the mind of the people back then, instead some power structure slowly erroded
until a new one took over. Its fuzzy no concrete no matter how we define it,
the life lived and the recorded history are two very different things.

~~~
kristjankalm
even that i would dispute in case of Rome

"To Agitius, thrice consul: [...] The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea
drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either
killed or drowned."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groans_of_the_Britons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groans_of_the_Britons)

~~~
ThomPete
We are talking civilization collapse no? Not sure what that Wiki article
proves.

~~~
kristjankalm
>> namely that there wasnt a collapse in the mind of the people back then

my quote was an example how people were quite acutely aware of the collapse
around them. wiki link just a reference for the quote.

~~~
ThomPete
I don't see in what way that quote reference any awareness of the collapse of
civilization.

~~~
kristjankalm
ok, to really flesh it out for you then -- this is a desperate letter by the
representatives of roman citizens in britain to Aetius, consul, to send help
or do something since barbarians, crop failures, raids etc. it certainly gives
the impression of people witnessing and being subject to the collapse of the
civic society. if you want more than an anecdote read the whole account of
roman collapse in britain by gildas, a contemporary. its pretty desperate in
tone and attitude.

~~~
ThomPete
I got that part.

It's it is not, however, a desperate letter talking about the collapse of a
civilization. You would be able to find similar letters begging for Romes
intervention during Romes reign.

It's not proof of anything even close to awareness of the collapse of
civilization.

~~~
kristjankalm
>> you would be able to find similar letters begging for Romes intervention
during Romes reign.

which ones specifically then?

and more importantly, its not just this letter, as i mentioned above the whole
gildas’ de excidio goes explaining in quite detail the sudden and devastating
effect of the collapse of roman authority in britain.

do you have any evidence to back up your insistence that majority of the
population went on like business as usual?

~~~
ThomPete
Your examples don't portray someone aware of the collapse of a civilization it
portrays someone aware of the lack of roman authority. That is in no shape or
form the same.

And no I don't have any examples handy that I can point to right now, but I am
sure there are plenty if you dig a little.

------
lmm
All models are false; some are useful. Yes, collapse is complex, as is
everything, but a simplification is useful. To talk about a "state collapse"
seems more misleading and less helpful than calling it a "civilisational
collapse", at least by the article's examples: we are not talking about a
constitutional crisis or a shift in the balance of power between social
classes, but radical changes to the whole population's way of life complete
with the destruction or abandonment of cities.

~~~
ThomPete
I am unconvinced the normal person experienced that. To the it was life not
some historical event.

~~~
lmm
A city being abandoned has gotta be a significant event or period to live
through. Even something like a palace being destroyed and not rebuilt would
surely be notable.

~~~
bluGill
Was it in the way of realizing civilization as they knew it was collapsing
though? Detroit has been going through the process of abandonment since the
1970s. Civilization doesn't seem to be collapsing though, just the one city as
people move abandon it. (though of course that might be my perspective,
history will tell if that is the early sign of the collapse of our
civilization of the next few hundred years, or just a minor blip.

------
monday_
The author's position seems to be that the very notion of civilizational
collapse is flawed because people often come up with reductionist, poorly
supported ways of explaining it. The unspoken implication here is that whoever
brings up a threat of collapse in a political argument hasn't got a clue what
he's talking about. Stephen Bannon referencing Gibbons work comes to mind,
and, come think of it, that's probably what prompted the author to write this
piece.

Denying a historical phenomenon for political gain is as bad as selectively
citing a two century old book to justify xenophobia. It is revealing that the
author mentions Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies", and then dismisses
it's meticulous definition of collapse as "jargon". Before coming up with this
definition Tainter spent a whole chapter describing many, many examples of
social collapse including the ones mentioned in the article. The definition
arises from these examples and absolutely covers the collapse of Rome, Bronze
Age and others.

As for how we define and study the social collapse without arbitrarily
designating some cultures as superior to others - a good example would be
collapse of ecosystems. In this case you can have a sensible definition of
complexity and energy intake and the collapse would be a sharp decline in
both. There is a whole framework for similar studies in social collapse - see
this talk.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI)

------
leojg
This article confuses civilization with culture, you probably can't have the
first without the latter. but culture by itself won't do great public works,
wont even develop a written language.

Civilization means cohesion to a greater level than a mere culture.

~~~
froboz
I think the problem is that the term "culture" is generally misdefined by most
people, and the term "civilization" is incredibly problematic in the post-
colonial world.

Contemporary anthropologists tend to shy away from even using "culture" these
days because of it's mis-use by laypeople (or other social sciences, for that
matter). These days anthropologists tend to think of it simply as referring to
a vaguely distinctive system of meanings and practices, with emphasis on the
practice portion (Pierre Bourdieu ftw!).

"Civilization" historically refers to what we Westerners consider social
systems that resemble our own: centralized, hierarchical states with explicit
labor specialization. The term is often used punitively against non-Western
societies (portrayed as "uncivilized"), hence why anthropologists try to avoid
it like plutonium.

Responding to your comment, on these terms culture is absolutely necessary for
civilization to exist, as culture is necessary to even be human. It's culture
that allows us to conceive of a need for public works, and form labor groups
to construct them. It's culture that provides language, which in turn provides
written scripts. It's culture that creates a set of shared meanings and
practices that provides a sense of collective identity in order for social
groups to cohere in the first place. None of these things, in fact,
necessarily even need a strong, centralized government (i.e., "civilization")
to occur.

Now, whether or not a culture produces what we would consider "civilization"
is entirely subjective and bound up with what we see as particular markers of
complexity. Heck, there are a lot of archaeologists that scoffed until very
recently at the notion that the Classic Period Maya constituted a state-level
"civilization" simply because Maya cities were much more dispersed over the
landscape in comparison to Aztec urban centers (which were much more similar
in form to Western cities, if much larger).

~~~
quotemstr
I reject the idea that "civilization" is a bad word. I regard regard large-
scale, organized, and literate societies as being obviously better than
barbarism. Scientific progress exists and it improves the human condition.

These views would make me unemployable in academia.

~~~
froboz
"Civilization" is not a _bad_ word so much as it's a badly _mis-used_ one
(same as "culture"). My point was perhaps unclear; the issue is how it's been
implemented politically that's the problem. I happen to think one _can_ use it
in a scholarly context as a broad brushstroke reference, but only with care
and discretion and an understanding of its historical use.

Labelling a community as "barbaric," however, has been a handy excuse for
taking land and killing people for millenia. White settlers came to view
Native Americans as barbaric, and that was reason enough for attempted
genocide. A case could be made that trying to systemically eliminate an entire
population might perhaps count as barbaric. "Barbarism," like "civilization,"
is in the eye of the beholder.

Being natives within a large-scale, organized, literate society, it's only
natural to assume this is the best of all possible worlds, but one could make
a counter-argument that this society leaves its members weak, alienated, and
anomic. There's also the matter of poverty, large-scale warfare, oppression,
and pollution that contemporary societies contribute. I must say, my digital
watch is pretty neat, though.

As a scientist myself, I certainly place a great deal of value in science as a
process of inquiry and understanding. However, science is just a tool, and
like a hammer it can be used to cause harm as well as create. It all depends
on the person wielding it.

------
jonathanstrange
I'm not an expert but maybe collapse is a misnomer anyway. These events take
place over centuries, and existing civilizations are in a continuous
transformation and often defined in arbitrary political terms. For example,
many of Europeans and Americans are pretty much direct descendants of the West
Roman Empire and the Mongolian Empire, mixed with many other influences.
Others are primarily descendants of the Chinese Empire, which still exists in
some form of political unity, mixed with many other influences.

Sometimes when a transformation is faster than usual, for example because of
an imported illness or conquests by technologically more advanced groups, we
may call this a 'collapse'. In case of the Mayan culture this is probably
justified, but that's not the normal case. The normal case is a continuous
mixing with other cultures from which new political unions, languages and
identities evolve.

~~~
DiThi
> These events take place over centuries

Not necessarily. The bronze age collapse happened in a few decades. It's not
one civilization but several. Trade, agriculture, writing... all that nearly
disappeared in less than a human lifetime.

~~~
jonathanstrange
Good point, you're right. I should have been more precise. I didn't want to
claim that technological advances cannot lead to mass genocide, I wanted to
make the more modest point that these events seem to be rare and that fairly
slow assimilation processes based on mixing cultures, intermarriage and
migration, seem to be the norm.

------
WillReplyfFood
In my eyes, the power of the individual is often underestimated. Individuals
propagate a system, indivduals can turn neutral to a system, or long for its
destruction. Beyond a certain tipping point, small men, refusing to carry
wheat and may the world burn anyway, shatter empires.

~~~
mcguire
One theory of the late Bronze Age collapse I've heard is that great numbers of
peasant types ran off to avoid governmental pressures and became nomads and
raiders that eventually attacked and took down the large states.

I'm not sure how much weight I would put into it, but one story I've heard
seems pretty solid: The Philistines (of biblical fame) were Mycenaean Greeks
who attempted to attack and settle in Egypt, and who were in turn resettled on
or near the Egyptian border with the Levant.

------
narrator
Rome did not collapse because of environmental factors.

~~~
swombat
Rome did not collapse at all, it just entered a long slow decline period where
the central power became less and less effective while independent city states
thrived and created numerous works of art, developed scientifically and
commercially and militarily, and generally weren’t particularly aware that
there was a “collapse” going on.

~~~
jules
I wasn't aware of this. What art did they create, and which scientific,
commercial, and military developments?

~~~
mcguire
Specifically, between, say, 400 and 800CE?

------
Chiba-City
In defense, the scope, scale, timeline and ripple effects of change were
different (slower and slower spreading) for most of human history before
trains, automobiles, airplanes or widespread literacy, photography and now
film and TV.

His distinguishing states from civilization here is also instructive. We can
further analytically carve "civilization" into different histories -
industrial, arts, literary, architecture, agriculture, etc. - that divide our
timelines into different overlapping periods of sin waving ascent, descent,
advance or retreat.

"Not with a bang, but a whimper." \- T.S. Eliot.

------
jankotek
The effect of climate change on population is well documented in medieval
Europe during 11th and 12th century.

~~~
quotemstr
Rome had massive food surpluses, much of it from North Africa and Egypt.
Famine did not cause the collapse.

------
erasemus
Those Easter Island Statues: did building them help to keep the islanders
_sane_ or was it merely a shocking waste of time and resources? (serious
question). When the final crisis hit, did they see the problem and grapple
with it or did they merely double down and build more identical heads?

------
known
Very confusing title

