we are the Romans of the modern world - the great assimilating people. Conflicts and conquests are of course necessary acccidents with us, as with our prototypes.
So wrote Oliver Wendal Holmes.
Crossan (2007) notes that there exists a confluence between the rise of the Roman Empire from its start in Italy spanning outward into the Mediterranean hemishpere and beyond, and our own advance from continental and on to global American Empire.
Chalmers Johnson (2004) The Sorrows of Empire notes:
quote:
Americans like to say that the world changed as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World trade Center and the Pentagon. It would be more accurate to say that the attacks produced a dangerous change in the thinking of some of our leaders, who began to see our republic as a genuine empire, a new Rome, the greatest colossus in history, no longer bound by international law, the concern for allies, or any constraints on its use of military force. (p.3)
In a later chapter entitled "Toward a New Rome" Johnson asserts that America is "not an empire of colonies but an empire of bases" (p.23.), but that we are still, "the second comming of the Roman Empire." (p.284).
Mann in his multivolume tretise of comparative sociology of imperial power notes civilization "as cage"; summarizing, e.g., "The city walls symbolized and actualized the cage of authoritive power." (p.100)
In Mann's view, social power is "mastery exercised over other people." (p.6) but he distinguishes between power found in precivilized societies or cultures and later civilization. In the context of precivilization, "authority was freely conferred, but recoverable, power, permanent and coercive, was unattainable" (p.39.) If this is true, we might ask why - what factors led to - the hegemony of injustice and violence as 'normal' in our contemporary moment? And Crossan notes, "When did the very many begin to be ruled by the very few - in, as the latter claimed the former's best interest?"
Mann concludes civilization is anachronistic and an "abnormal phenomena":
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it involved the state and social stratification, both of which human beings have spent most of their existence avoiding. THe conditions under which, on a very few occasions, civilization did develop, therefore, are those that made avoidance no longer possible. The ultimate significant of alluvial agriculture, present in all "pristine" civilizations, was the territorial constraint it offered in a package with a large economic surplus. When it became irrigation agriculture, as it usually did, it also increased social constraint. The population was cagedinto particular authority relations.
Posts: 1162 | Location: Boulder Creek Watershed | Registered: 14 February 2004
It would be more accurate to say that the attacks produced a dangerous change in the thinking of some of our leaders, who began to see our republic as a genuine empire, a new Rome, the greatest colossus in history, no longer bound by international law, the concern for allies, or any constraints on its use of military force. (p.3)
Yes, and some already thought that, they were just looking for a chance to express it, and, handily, along comes 911.
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Mann concludes civilization is anachronistic and an "abnormal phenomena":
I would say the change occurred around 1700BCE with a man named Nimrod AKA Hercules. The "Tower of Babel" was a vertical structure that aptly represents the civilized social regimen of a godlike empire builder. Nimrod was also the originator of patriarchy and conquest. His empire Sumeria was the model that later Hellenic empires strove to emulate. His method was called "Hydraulic Despotism", the military monopoly of a necessary resource. Today we call that resource "petroleum".
Every empire known to history has collapsed, like the religious cult that has lost its figurehead. Empires are ego-driven, and must continually conquer, absorb and consume. There has never been an empire that was stable and benevolent. As the tower grows past it level of stability, it ultimately collapses. By that time there are plenty of despots who prefer the empire collapse, so they can take a slice of the remains. The same pattern has been seen over and over again throughout history. Here's hoping the United States is not headed there.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
The lesson of history is that all Empire collapses in time. In an article by Ervin Laszlo he notes the various symptoms of "Pax Americana" is in its last throes. Those symptoms are:
"Violent political upheavals due to a serious deterioration of living standards in the Middle East and elsewhere (this has now happened with dramatic consequences.)"
"The formation of an international terrorist coalition with anti-western aims and access to high tech weaponry (now a real and growing threat.)"
"Rapidly changing weather patterns that inflict grave damage on human health and on economics (this is now more evident than ever.)
"A global epidemic on the scale of AIDS."
"The anti globalization movement growing until it becomes a threat to Western governmental and corporate interests"
"The emergence of a geostrategic alliance - possibly of Russia, China, and India- aimed at counterbalancing the US and Western influence."
"Collapse of the alliance between the US and Europe."
"Creation of a counter force organization that could undermine the power of the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization and thus the ability of the US to exercise global economic leadership."
He notes world wide change:
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In the year 2000, it was anybody's guess whether the world of 2015 would be the same kind of world or something quite different. In 2005, this is no longer an open question. The world in 2015 will be very different from what it is today - not to mention from what it was at the beginning of this century.
In my view the 'signs of the times' are clear. The superstructure as we know it today is teetering on collapse, and will, in our life times, come crashing down.
Posts: 1162 | Location: Boulder Creek Watershed | Registered: 14 February 2004
Another paradigm I've been working out of is the the diminishing margin of return that goes with increasing complexity. You'd have to read Tainter's book, The Collapse of Complex Societies to get the full force of the paradigm.
Essentially, complexity and hierarchy are highly correlated. Hierarchy is a problem solving strategy to achieve, and complexity is the result. The results of the strategy at first are very good, and the margin of return goes up at a sharp angle, but as complexity comes in, because more problems eventually emerge as a natural consequence of myopically solving production problems with hierarchical efficiency, then the cost of hierarchical complexity goes up, thus the returns taper off.
The next strategy is you bring in the priests of the mystical arts of economics and try to figure out how to make things more efficient.
In the process you need to weed out the inefficiencies of democracy. So you get strategies like the Unitary Executive Theory here in the U.S. to deal with the rising complexity of government bureaucracy and the impediments to efficiency like the checks and balances. I think many of the things you've called attention to are probably elements of trying to find ways to increase efficiency in the face of growing complexity. But this has always been a dead end strategy in the past.
Note that the military is a highly efficient hierarchical organization, so the tendency is to want to use that efficiency because of the messiness of putting even those highly efficient polyarchic democracies in place. And with all of that, there's the primary cheap energy that supported all this complexity now peaking in quality, quantity and cheapness, so the globalization complexity is challenging the costs and the margin of return needed to support it.
I know that's fairly abstract, but in the end, the overwhelming costs of complexity win out, and the human problem solving tool that is what we identify as a complex society, collapses. You'd have to look at "society" in a fairly loosely abstract way in order to recognize the way it has now become increasingly applied to a global network of loosely connected nation states. The commercialization form that become increasingly redundant over the globe is the primary characteristic that defines it.
Ren, Ive been meaning to get back on this and another thread but I am monumentally busy right now. (Also been meaning to ask you about that other web site of yours; maybe a link at the other place?)
Posts: 1162 | Location: Boulder Creek Watershed | Registered: 14 February 2004
Ren. my take on social complexity and hierarchy are rooted to an understanding of chaos theory.
Humans like all other complex organisms are dynamic systems permanently sitting at the edge of chaos whether they recognize it or not. This is especially true for ecosystems forming a dynamic and interconnecting link between all life on the planet. The problem is that human awareness has not yet evolved to perceive the link. Instead, mechanical man perceives himself outside and above this dynamic interplay of being. The truth is, is that these collective systems are grander and more alluring than are the scope of its individual members.
And to another point you made about Bateson on another thread, Laszlo, for example offers this observation:
"To know what happens when a trend breaks down calls for deeper insight. It calls for going beyond the observation of current trends and following there expected path - it requires knowing something about the developmental path of the system in which the observed trends appear and may disappear...because of the unsustainablity of many aspects of today's world, the path of development that will apply to the future is not the liner dynamics of classical extrapolation, but the non-liner chaos dynamics of complex system evolution."
The important point Laszlo makes regarding this trajectory of human development (and why I think Hartmann and people like him are spending their energy in the worst possible way) is because evolution is heading toward breakdown and not breakthrough. Values and world views of a critical mass of people in society are resistant to change and despite their rhetoric to the contrary. They abide in a future that never materializes, hoping for the best. By placing their efforts in established institutions they essentially capitulate to an organizational rigidity incapable of transforming itself. This, of course, can only lead to more inequality and conflict, coupled with the continued degradation of all ecosystems on the planet which continues to create unmanageable stresses on the whole. The result is more degradation of social outcomes/ecosystems, violence and conflict.
What we need is a pathway taking us to breakthrough...not 'hope for the best.'
Posts: 1162 | Location: Boulder Creek Watershed | Registered: 14 February 2004
Yeah, Chris, that pretty much fits within the complexity theory, and it touches on some things I've tried to express by using theories of eco system dynamics and species selection types to make sense of levels of succession. We can recognize that higher levels of succession are naturally stable, because of the balance that comes with the broader range of interconnected and interdependent species, and the species that adapt to that stability are hypothesized to be K-selected.
Interestingly, human beings as a species have many of the characteristics of K-selected species -- slow reproduction potential, long maturation period, and long lives. Where humans can cheat their biology is with their cultural adaptation. What we see now is something along the lines of what you described in this general outline:
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By placing their efforts in established institutions they essentially capitulate to an organizational rigidity incapable of transforming itself. This, of course, can only lead to more inequality and conflict, coupled with the continued degradation of all ecosystems on the planet which continues to create unmanageable stresses on the whole. The result is more degradation of social outcomes/ecosystems, violence and conflict.
Among those organizational rigidities, is the strategy of reducing complexity in natural eco-stystems in order to create human-species oriented resources, which are maintained at an extraordinary expense of outside the system energy inputs. Human agriculture has always been an effort to create a low succession, r-selected species environment for the species it favors, like corn, beans, wheat, and so forth. The extremely cheap and abundant availability of fossil fuels turned the cultures themselves into r-selected like species. With the help of human engenuity, and abundant energy, the feedback necessary for recognizing natural orders of breakdown have been overcome by what the more arrogant-oriented tend to view as human planetary superiority, disconnected from, as you note:
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ecosystems forming a dynamic and interconnecting link between all life on the planet
You then said:
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The problem is that human awareness has not yet evolved to perceive the link. Instead, mechanical man perceives himself outside and above this dynamic interplay of being.
I'm not sure about that point about "not yet evolved to perceive the link." I think we can perceive it given the appropriate cultural cognitive tools to work with. The question I ask, is: are we willing to be humble enough to recognize nature's capacities to create stability and let nature do what it can do best? Or are we going to insist on the hubristic attitude of being the earth's caretaker because implicitly we are also its exploiter?
I have a sense that some of our science enables that perception you suggest we aren't evolved enough to perceive. I also feel that the pre-contact cultures may have had their own intimate awareness based on the adaptations they managed in their respective locales. But now that we have this myopically, and egotistically derived sense of planetary awareness, the same sense of perception an indegenous culture may have come to is challenged in a new way. It depends on how you might be reading "perception" when you suggest we aren't evolved enough. I would read it as an organizational learning level perception, and that takes us to my connections with what Gregory Bateson tried to tell us of what he saw of it. Perhaps we have the capacity to perceive on a planetary level as a species, perhaps not.
But what I really feel is that what's happened is we've become drunk on an abundance of cheap energy, and we've been able to develop a set of tools and correlated living conditions for seeing and understanding that blinds us at the same time from what we are innately capable of, as a species that has been here in this form of what we call "modern humans" for over 165,000 years now. And this may be the most deadly of things for the species as a whole, not to mention the interconnected biosphere as we know it now, as this brief moment in the history of the species cycles through, and the gift of this abundant energy dribbles away, and the cancer of so-called "civilization" collapses with its host, the planet's biosphere.
In addition to that, r-selected species expand "bushwise". That is, their survival strategy is to occupy the maximum space possible in the shortest time. Not just as a gene pool, but the idea applies to one unit also. Bushes are the most obvious example, they branch out at more nodes, capture resources quicker and achieve growth arrest sooner.
The diametric opposite (K-selected) is the California Redwood and Coastal Cedar. These species actually thrive in an environment of limited resources, especially while young. The Cedar is easily killed by excessive sunlight up to about 30 years, and requires a mature canopy to even get through its adolescence. One could never describe a plant adolescent stage in bushlike flora, since they apparently have none.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Originally posted by Gnarlodious: In addition to that, R-selected species expand "bushwise". That is, their survival strategy is to occupy the maximum space possible in the shortest time. Not just as a gene pool, but the idea applies to one unit also. Bushes are the most obvious example, they branch out at more nodes, capture resources quicker and achieve growth arrest sooner.
The diametric opposite (K-selected) is the California Redwood and Coastal Cedar. These species actually thrive in an environment of limited resources, especially while young. The Cedar is easily killed by excessive sunlight up to about 30 years, and requires a mature canopy to even get through its adolescence. One could never describe a plant adolescent stage in bushlike flora, since they apparently have none.
Yes, and that r-selected species strategy is a very good strategy for a low succession eco system. As more species enter a system and the r-selected species face competition, they give way to the more K-selected species, which are better set up (adapted) to deal with a more competitive complex eco-system environment, essentially.
What the latest modern human cultures have done is to develop technologies and cultural practices to eliminate a broad range of especially K-selected species competition from many of its environments, especially in forestry and agriculture, thus reducing ecological complexity of higher level succession eco systems. To replace the natural process that K-selected species provide in controlling the dynamics of r-selected species, humans have evolved technologies, like pesticides, medicines and so forth to deal with the various r-selected species that can get so quickly out of control, like insects and diseases. This is extremely expensive when you add an expanding human population to the mx.
So humans have killed off many of the K-selected species, thereby eliminating the potential for a future of balanced eco systems that would naturally return to the areas humans have dominated. This is occurring in both land and in the sea. That's the underlying concern for the annual species decimation list we now keep track of.
r-selected species is a very good strategy for a low succession ecosystem
That is a very interesting terminology in the context of my post. California is named for the Arabic word for "Successor" (caliph). Coincidentally, the most high-succession ecosystem on the planet is there in California. Or maybe it's not a coincidence.
If you get around the planet a lot, one thing you observer is that bushlike (r-strategy) species have a big advantage in the east, while treelike (K-strategy) species reach their fullest potential in the west. The dividing line is the Syrian-African Rift, a giant crack in the earth's surface that splits the planet geologically (as well as ideologically). To cite an example, the 13th century Mongolian warlord Genghis Kahn has more descendants than any other historical figure. One might say that having a large gene pool is the ultimate goal of the r-strategy organisms. This whole lecture is bordering on the supernatural topic of Geomancy, so I'll shut up now.
Bushlike species are somewhat despised by humans, probably because they adapt quickly. Many of today's drug-resistant diseases are the result of short-lifespan living things that evolve quickly to fill ecological vacuums. The human way to control nature is to maintain a vacuum, which is an exercise in futility.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Good to see you are familiar with the terminology and some of its applications, Gnarly.
quote:
quote:
r-selected species is a very good strategy for a low succession ecosystem
That is a very interesting terminology in the context of my post.
The terminology is essentially just a kind of dry, technical structure functionalist approach to describing species adaptation.
For instance, rather than saying:
quote:
Bushlike species are somewhat despised by humans,
with my terminology I would probably look at the ways different human cultures have used bushes as part of their cultural set, and I might conclude that bushes don't tend to offer much in general to humans and their adaptation strategies, so instead, they employ competition reducing strategies to rid the eco-systems they want to control of bushes (and other unwanted species).
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The human way to control nature is to maintain a vacuum, which is an exercise in futility.
That's why it takes a lot of energy. That might help to explain the congruence of the rapid rise in planetary population growth, and the discovery of this extremely cheap, easy to harvest cache of stored solar energy we've been blissfully using for about a hundred an fifty years now. In general, humans have had a lot of excess energy to throw at that excercise in futility for a short time now. We appear to have no more sense about it than a rodent.
Here in the US, to continue our own ecological niche "expansion" practices, we've simply shifted from numbers of humans to expanding the size of our individual ecological footprint in our consumption of the human-oriented survival strategy resources. Something like 7.7 Chinese humans to one American (1.6 China to 9.6 US) measured by ecological footprint (source). It actually makes the US more densely "populated" by looking at the consumption of the resources of the planet, than China.
China's population estimated in July of 2007 was 1.322 billion
The USA, same month and year, 301 million.
301 million times 7.7 equals 2.317 billion.
The possibly good news is it would take a much shorter period of time to change the adaption strategies that lead to ecological foot print size than to reduce actual population size -- assuming a humane approach is employed, of course.
Now that you mention it, bushlike plants probably got a lot more respect before war was institutionalized, since bushes were not a war resource like hardwood trees. It is well known that ancient matriarchal societies were forested and after the triumph of patriarchal societies they became barren. Gunpowder and iron smelting (for cannons and cannonballs) resulted in widespread deforestation, and so the standard of living enjoyed by that short period was sustained by historical deposits of some resource. Nothing changes very in history.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Speaking of bushes, alternatively, Bush could concoct some rationale for eliminating some of the populations of those overly dense countries like India and China, and once the nuclear mess was cleaned up, there'd be all that cropland available, and a whole lot less competition for the cheap energy that's left, and so the US humans wouldn't have to think about their ecological footprint for some time.
I think maybe there's something metaphorical in that, somehow related to that r-species concept.
I don’t accept the view that we can just condemn the [AQ] terror, period, because it was so horrible. I think we really have to ask questions of comparative costs, ugly as that may sound. And if we are going to take a moral position on this—and I think we should—we have to ask both what the consequences were of using terror and not using terror. If it were true that the consequences of not using terror would be that the peasantry in [China] would continue to live in the state of the peasantry of the [Indians], then I think the use of terror would be justified."
Posts: 7939 | Location: Santa Barbara | Registered: 19 July 2005
I don’t accept the view that we can just condemn the [AQ] terror, period, because it was so horrible. I think we really have to ask questions of comparative costs, ugly as that may sound. And if we are going to take a moral position on this—and I think we should—we have to ask both what the consequences were of using terror and not using terror. If it were true that the consequences of not using terror would be that the peasantry in [China] would continue to live in the state of the peasantry of the [Indians], then I think the use of terror would be justified."
What's the point of that in the context of this discussion, Ronald? Looks like spam to me.
What's the point of that in the context of this discussion, Ronald? Looks like spam to me.
ren, I would expect that that was the way you would see it. As always, I recommend that you either respond to it if you so feel inclined or just ignore my posts. I am sure if someone is interested in what I have posted here or somewhere else, they will ask for clarity or discuss what I have posted. I do question if this is spam:
quote:
Speaking of bushes, alternatively, Bush could concoct some rationale for eliminating some of the populations of those overly dense countries like India and China, and once the nuclear mess was cleaned up, there'd be all that cropland available, and a whole lot less competition for the cheap energy that's left, and so the US humans wouldn't have to think about their ecological footprint for some time.
I think maybe there's something metaphorical in that, somehow related to that r-species concept.
Posts: 7939 | Location: Santa Barbara | Registered: 19 July 2005
I don't think its spam. Just another possibility of the way the nut in the White House may be thinking.
Save us from a confrontation with China later over the oil in Sudan that they are developing....ditto some of Iran's oil fields.
If Nut-job can equate road-side bombs as being weapons of mass destruction, heaven knows what a ton of Chinese firecrackers may be perceived as.
Now that that nonsense is handled....Ronald, you kind of missed everything being discussed. Suggest you start at the top of the thread and read all the way to the bottom.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
Originally posted by Gnarlodious: I do find it mystically ironic that George Bush conforms to the bushlike "r-selected" survival strategy in every aspect of his presidency.
Gnarlie, not that you may have a valid point, I just don't see it that simplistically. Maybe you can expand on how you see George Bush as "r-selected" survival strategy.
If we truly were to look at societies that are "r-selected" then we would be interested in what China is doing now as well as some African Countries (hint: Zimbabwe).
Posts: 7939 | Location: Santa Barbara | Registered: 19 July 2005
What's the point of that in the context of this discussion, Ronald? Looks like spam to me.
ren, I would expect that that was the way you would see it. As always, I recommend that you either respond to it if you so feel inclined or just ignore my posts. I am sure if someone is interested in what I have posted here or somewhere else, they will ask for clarity or discuss what I have posted. I do question if this is spam:
quote:
Speaking of bushes, alternatively, Bush could concoct some rationale for eliminating some of the populations of those overly dense countries like India and China, and once the nuclear mess was cleaned up, there'd be all that cropland available, and a whole lot less competition for the cheap energy that's left, and so the US humans wouldn't have to think about their ecological footprint for some time.
I think maybe there's something metaphorical in that, somehow related to that r-species concept.
I'm asking for clarity. Once again you avoid providing any.
By saying it appears as "spam" to me is like saying it doesn't mean anything to me within the context of this thread discussion. It also gives you an opportunity to associate "spam" with another thread where an authority had to clarify for you what spam appears to be to her. I notice you tend to respond well to authority figures, and not that well to people who ask for reasonable, sensible clarification.
So that's my "clarity" for your "expectational" response to my use of the word "spam" -- expectations of that which you have never once guessed correctly about -- my intentionality and what goes on in my mind. I am not simply labeling it as "spam" without offering an explanation of how I'm using the term. It actually has explanatory purpose, and I'm willing to provide it for you.
I have to continue to wonder why you tend not to do so with your labels when I ask for explanations.
I can do no more than that.
quote:
If we truly were to look at societies that are "r-selected" then we would be interested in what China is doing now as well as some African Countries (hint: Zimbabwe).
I'm going to ask you something about this very curious assumption embedded generality you've made here, would you consider China to fit under the general heading "civilization"? If not, why not?
quote:
Gnarlie, not that you may have a valid point, I just don't see it that simplistically. Maybe you can expand on how you see George Bush as "r-selected" survival strategy.
Simplistically Ronald? Why would you use that particular term towards Gnarly's use of her analogy?
Gnarly has demonstrated in this discussion that she has a pretty good working knowledge of the concept "r-selected species," and can apply it in different ways. Meanwhile, you have yet to demonstrate you have even the vaguest clue you comprehe
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