Lessons from collapse of civilizations

 Many of us have seen the Mad Max series of movies which depicts life after collapse of civilization where small pockets of people are holding on separately and fighting with each other for scarce resources, both natural and human. It is just a movie but it can also be a possibility. Every civilization on this earth has collapsed for various reasons into anarchy until it rises again as a separate entity. The earlier civilizations were geographically limited but now we have a global civilization as a broader picture but still fragmented into smaller ones, still fighting with each other. The only difference is previously it was more of a physical war and now it is more an economic war. Knowledgeable people say that more often civilizations commit suicide rather than being murdered.

The collapse of civilizations can be quite quick irrespective of its size. The mighty Roman Empire is an example of it. A study of civilizations from 3000 BC to 300 AD found that the average life span of a civilization was about 335 years. Civilizations can collapse for various reasons some manmade and some natural. Some civilizations transform and adapt to new circumstances and some get obliterated. Compared to western civilizations, the eastern civilizations of China and India had a longer life. Societies are complex things with strict social and political hierarchy, economy, military, art and literature and science and the hold of priests and religion. Our current technological advancement doesn’t make us immune from collapse.

Climate change has been attributed to the collapse of civilizations like the Mayan and the Harappa. The climate change induced crop failure, droughts, desertification and even change in courses of major rivers. Degradation of environment has been another reason which led to soil infertility, water pollution, deforestation and ecological imbalance. Social distress due to unequal distribution of wealth among the ruler and ruled class leads to social disintegration. Suppression of people through taxes, military and imposed social rules also causes social strain. With increasing population and decreasing jobs, labor becomes cheap which leads to poverty and anarchy. All these factors contribute to lack of social solidarity which leads to breakdown. Societies tend to become complex with time and collapse under its own weight. A top heavy controlling ruler and bureaucracy interfering in all aspects of life through increased rules and regulations and with minimum welfare makes society a complex structure and can collapse under its own weight. The earlier civilizations were not fully able to absorb natural disaster, famines and epidemics which led to strain in resources and weakened the civilizations.

Now we live in an interconnected and interdependent world. It is not that the earlier reasons are not applicable now but in addition to it other reasons can also contribute to a collapse of civilization now. Previous collapses were limited in area but now a collapse will have larger ramification. Now economic, political and military might is in a global scale with deep factions and strategic weapons- not the sword and bow and arrow. Now a lot more is at stake than it was previously. Technological advancement has put a strain on the natural resources which are finite and therefore a good reason for aggression. It was easier for the earlier people of pre industrial revolution era to go back to farming and hunter gathering during turbulent times but now the generation is mostly cutoff from this ability. In case of a collapse the current generations are less likely to be capable of adapting to the situation. We are mostly a consumer generation now.

The present trend suggests what I wrote earlier that we may be committing a suicide due to our mistakes than killed by another civilization. We may be moving towards a human driven global effort to ruin the environment and planet in the name of resources for technological and political advancement, which will result ultimately a global war. Or we may be moving towards a global war in our race for supremacy. Either way, if we ruin the world and then fight or fight and ruin the world, in both cases it is a perfect recipe for a collapse of civilization at a global level.

But we have the ability to learn from our past and mend our ways. Collapse of the world civilization is not inevitable if we are ready to change ourselves. But as it is said human nature never changes, only the ways and means change with time.