As every school child knows, Civilisations
have come and gone. Ours is not exception. The purpose of this
article is to bring to mind the criteria of a Civilisation in
decline and question where Western Civilisation may be heading
at the beginning of the third millennium.
Let us consider the following characteristics:
*Migration at unprecedented levels
*Conflict between ideologies (as migrating people met)
*Military conflict
*A rise in the numbers of 'ruling elite' and their servants
*Slavery widespread
*Pornography and sexual exploitation.
*An emergence of the occult and superstition.
*A growing separation between settlement and the provision of food.
It would be easy to recognise these characteristics as present
in the contemporary world. However, they are actually referring
to the period at the end of the third and last great Kurgan
Invasion into Old Europe. The school child knows this as the
Doric Invasion and our characteristics describe the old world
around 2000-1500 BC. From this state of flux and social chaos
arose the greatest intellectual Society the world had seen.
By 800 BC the emergent Greek City States were strong enough
to nourish the development of writing and thus we gained the
first great works, the grand poetry of Homer, which survives
to this day,
The noteworthy aspect of these characteristics is that they
comprise a criteria of civilisational decline and the ensuing
confusion. Take for instance the decline of the Aztec Civilisation
which between 800AD and 1500AD recapitulated the stages
of Hellenic Civilisation. By the time the Spanish conquistadors
arrived in South America there was already breakdown which may
be viewed as resulting from separation of food source (each
year the crops of corn came from further away) along with internal
fighting among the swollen numbers of the ruling class. Hence
it was easy for the Conquistadors to complete that decline which
they achieved in brutal, military fashion and in a very short
space of time. The Spanish were not the cause of that decline,
they in fact hastened what was already happening.
These characteristics can be applied, with close fit, to any
period of Civilisational decline. It is apparent in the fall
of Rome where corruption, slavery and decadence are well documented.
Students of Egyptian history will note the same characteristics
which ended that 4000 year old civilisation.
Let us now apply them to our own times.
1. Migration.
The fact is that
migration is at its highest peak in history. This
migration may be classified as:
(1) Economic and
(2) Asylum
Seeker (Refugee).
The first group of economic migration has
been occurring since the foundation of the R.R.S. (Regions
of Recent Settlement; viz New Zealand, Australia, South Africa,
North America). It is well documented in the 19th century
particularly.
This migration peaked after WWII when countries encouraged
Europeans to migrate to start a better life in the New World.
Even Australia,
which for most of its history had carried a 'White Australia
Policy' (i.e.Caucasian immigrants from, largely, the United
Kingdom), changed the policy to include post war waves of
migration from S.E. Asia, China and the Middle East. Today
Australia's major city, Sydney has over 30% of its population
born overseas.
2. Conflict between ideologies of migrant peoples.
An example of the conflict which arises can
be seen in contemporary Holland. This country was liberal after
WWII largely as a
result of its disgust for Nazi Occupation. Post WW11 Holland
opened its arms to, for example, migrants from Islamic countries.
Today Holland struggles with the question of Dutch-ness and
the inclusion of Islam. Holland is not the only country dealing
with the question of Islamic inclusion for not long ago France
declared that no religious insignia many be worn to School.
As a result Islamic people felt excluded because they want
to continue wearing traditional costume. In England, the home
of the Enlightenment there are now over 1,000 mosques.
The great 'melting pot' of the United States
now has large and clearly defined ethnic groupings comprising
Caucasian, Black,
Hispanic, Asian, Hebraic peoples and a small remainder of Indigines.
The American history of racism and conflict is well documented
At the time of writing the frustration of Islamic peoples is
affecting the entire world through an idea, a word, which is
terrorism or Jihad. In Iran the United States is publicly depicted
as 'The Great Satan'. Even the tiny tropical island of Bali
has suffered from Islamic inspired terrorism in the form of
bomb blasts which killed many locals and Anglo visitors. A popular
headline description states "The Third World War-Al Queda".
3.Military conflict.
Even to list the conflicts raging in the world would be exhaustive.
Simply enter 'world conflict' into any search engine and follow
the lists of prompts.
Here we take military conflict as a given for it is hard to
find a spot on Earth not suffering one way or the other from
military conflict and the stakes are rising with nations such
as India, Pakistan and Israel (probably) holding the capacity
for nuclear weapons.
4. A rise in the numbers of 'ruling elite'
and their servants.
This is a most contentious issue because those who comprise
this elite are not always conscious of their role. Most would
believe that they are providing for themselves in their chosen
profession and have the talent and ability to gain the position
they hold. They are, in short, unconscious of their rank.
Such professionals do not see themselves as serving a narrow
elite.
They talk in terms of democracy and the Rule of Law. Put bluntly
we may see lots of advertisements in employment lists which
seek lawyers, accountants and managers/administrators. The
creation of financial elites such as the C.E.O, is widely
apparent in
any country. In Australia the average ordinary weekly earnings
are about $800 (for men) yet in an elite class Corporate men
earn millions per annum. It would be fair to say that the
growing division between 'haves' and 'have nots' in Western
Countries
is at an all time high and does not appear to be abating.
To gain a more quantified view of this economic division visit
link below marked 4).
5.Slavery
Enter 'Global Slavery' into a search engine and gain an immediate
sense of the scale of this human pathology.
Whether it is a Mexican bonded into slavery in Florida, an Albanian
girl held in prostitution in Tokyo, a Chinese imprisoned within
a Australian Chinese household as domestic servant without wages,
or any one of the growing number of young women from depressed
economic conditions who are tricked into serving as prostitutes
under the rule of uncaring pimps and overlords, the picture
globally is one which shows clearly that respect for human life
is no longer upheld by the value systems of ruling elites. Slavery
is a powerful indicator of decline because it smashes so utterly
the Civilisational ideal of 'the sacredness of human life'.
6.Pornography
It may come as a surprise to some that archeological digs during
the Post WWII era have uncovered murals and images on pottery
which make it abundantly clear that there is no new form of
pornography. Every possible permutation of the human sexual
act was carried out before the rise of Greece and our current
Western Civilisation.
At the risk of theorising we may note that in Freudian terms
sexuality is of the Id, the base reflex, that imperative shared
by all of life which produces lineage by sexual reproduction.
It requires nothing more than animal reflex.
Thus it is constantly
available to any person who seeks the sensation and immediacy
of gratification, an immediacy well suited to the world wide
web.
Anyone who uses the www is well aware of the rise of pornography
in this current epoch. It is reported that pornography comprises
some 60% of all business transacted over the internet. In most
cities it has become institutionalised within the sex industry.
7.An emergence of the occult and superstition
This phenomena is not difficult
to understand. In the period first mentioned (i.e. c.1500 BC)
the structures which held Old
Europe together had been demolished. Religion, cultural explanation
and myth broke down near the commencement of this period.
Thus peoples who were migrating and encountering new tribes
with different beliefs were left in a state of confusion.
None of the old reliable methods of explaining life were available.
The old ways were left in the ruins of the original settlement
and people were without reliable guidance.
People must have an explanation of life, without it life is
meaningless. Into the vacuum created by the loss of former settlement
came reasoning to explain events. Every known method of divination,
astrology, casting of bones, tarot, rune stones....all date
from this period of about 1500 BC. Some today seem amusing,
such as if a fox comes into the settlement it means there will
be a fire; or if a black cat crosses one's path it will incur
bad luck. Others were formulations of common sense or what we
might term today Grandmother's wisdom. The point is that all
forms of prophecy and foretelling arose to fill a gap in the
lives of people without an established religious/mythological explanation.
It is not possible to quantify the degree to which superstition
has re-emerged in recent times, however a quick look at the
'New Age' section of any book-shop will reveal elaborate texts
on the occult. Most newspapers carry an astrology column and
the classifieds carry ads for psychics and faith healers who
have never studied any form of medicine or psychology.
This phenomenon has arisen with
the demise of the influence of formal religions and explanation
of life's meaning. The last
writing by the late South African, Laurens van der Post, is
called "Witness to the Last Will of Man" and in this
essay he points to the dangers of a loss of meaning in the Western
World. That was over 20 years ago. Western leaders have used
up all credibility that their governments are Christian. In
fact it has descended to such a point where ordinary people
are hard pressed to find a figure to trust. By the end of the
second millennium trust was thin or non-existent for lawyers,
politicians, priests and police. What do people do when they
can find no trustworthy figures from these ranks? They are forced
to invent new entities to trust and these entities are often
superstition.
8. A growing separation between settlement and the provision
of food.
Today supermarkets offer strawberries in the middle of winter!
Such produce is imported from the other hemisphere where it
is summer. The adage of macrobiotics, that people ought to eat
food grown in season and nearby has been rolled over by the
world market mechanisms which can provide anything anywhere
anytime for a price.
Our major cities have expanded further into the zones which
formerly provided for market gardens and farming produce.
A clear example of this may be seen in the disappearance
of market
gardening from western Sydney, a major city of New South Wales,
which has a greater population of about 5 million. What was
green and productive a generation ago is now new suburbia,
the home of the so called 'aspirant classes'.
The average distance traveled by fruit and vegetables on the
shelves of Australia's major grocery provider is 1500 kilometers!
That means it has been grown well away from where the consumer
lives and has been in cold storage for longer and longer
periods of time. That distance is also enough to allow for
produce
from different climate and chemical composition of soil
and water.
Where our milk, wheat and carrots come from is more a matter
of market competition than it is of common culinary sense.
Two generations ago many people had productive gardens
and grew
their own summer and winter vegetables, also keeping chooks
(chickens) for fresh eggs and pest control. Now young
people are rarely sure where their food comes form. Surveys
in
cities indicate that when asked where the milk comes from
children
often answer 'the supermarket'. There is an entire generation
living with no direct connection to gardening or farming.
In every Civilisational decline there is a clear point
at which the production of food occurs too far away
from the
cities.
For example we can return to the Aztec Civilisation
(bearing in mind this followed the earlier Mayan which may
have
followed an even earlier Toltec). The staple food was
corn and by
the time the Spanish Conquistadors arrived there existed
a crises
in food provision. Tropical soils are notoriously thin
and this easily exhausted. This meant that each season
the corn
was grown
further and further away from the settlements which
of course could not be moved because they comprised elaborate
construction.
It is no different today. Italian or French water is
drunk at fashionable cafes everywhere. McDonalds has
made an
art of creating
an artificial standard of its items. What were once
exotic treats may be purchased any day of the week.
Market forces
dictate
some areas bulldoze local citrus orchards so the market
can distribute the products of Brazil and California.
Egg production
is based on the battery concept wherein chickens are
isolated from their environment and kept locked in
small cages.
In our ignorance we have treated food like any other
commodity to be
shipped, flown and driven from one market to another.
This time around however Western Civilisation has expanded its
exploitation into the very forests which provide our most fundamental
image (not to speak of soil conservation or water retention
which combats salination of soil). There is not one primal forest
left on earth which is free from accelerating destruction. Industry
chomps through old growth forests in order to provide wood chips
for toilet paper and serviettes. Meantime our children suffer
from obesity and diseases such as diabetes are rising along
with heart disease.
It would be reasonable and appropriate to include Corporate
Agriculture or mono-culture (large land areas devoted to one
commercial product) and artificial food however the reader
can easily research these and come to their own conclusions.
Conclusion
While it may be frightening to consider the decline of our way
of life it is difficult, in the light of the criteria above,
to believe otherwise.
This explains also why new disciplines such as Human Ecology
have arisen.
The testing of limits applies to both the current means of providing
for human populations (existing paradigm) and to those who are
aware of the decline and are working to a new set of values
and in time a new Civilisation. The former are maintained by
power and military means and the latter are deemed counter-culture.
There is no easy place to stand in this time. Either each person
is held within the current order (usually because they have
a mortgage and debts to repay) or has the courage and foresight
to quit and change into a new way of being. (Note well a new
way of being and not a new way of doing).
This personal transformation is not easy, however it is
immensely more satisfying to work for the future and not the
past. Those unable to break away from their lives in jobs in
cities will have to endure enormous suffering when the bubble
bursts (an event we know must happen even though it is not possible
to predict when and by what means) and there will be a further
migration from urban areas left in chaos and tribal rule. Rural
areas may seem to offer a way out of misery but such migration
will not succeed for many reasons. Human abuse, forms of addiction
and breakdown of infrastructure will be a necessary stage of
change.
Those with the best chances of healthy survival have already
embraced a new way of being in the world. Their consumption
is minimal, they do not control huge financial resources,
they tend to their spiritual needs. To them 'small is beautiful'.
To undertake a personal transformation of values, attitudes
and way of being is the greatest gift each individual can
make to life on earth. It also means gaining a new way of
perceiving
the world around us.
Further References:
Ref: 1) Migration
International Migration Statistics
The United Nations Statistics Division has organised an interregional
Workshop
on Improving the Compilation of International Migration Statistics
that was held in Geneva, 15-17 September 2003.
4)
Rise of the ruling class
5) i.
Slavery
ii.
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