A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
Wright was preaching to the converted, in my case, when he makes the case for getting a grip and living within our means before we exhaust the carrying capacity of mother Earth. I enjoyed reading his book, A Short History of Progress, all the same, despite the scary moments when you want to tear your hair and yell, "No, no, I don't want to be living in the last century of progress!" and then despair because it looks like the only way to prevent it is to get all the greedy guys in control of the goodies to stop panicing about hoarding up even more of their unfair share of the spoils and start thinking about the future, instead.
But I've been depressed about the fact many of the most powerful people on the Earth are certifiable maniacs ever since it was brought to my attention, as a young adult, that world leaders were seriously considering destroying all life on Earth if necessary, just to decide who was right about how life ought to be lived on Earth. Go figure. No child of the cold war can be shocked by the notion that the rich and powerful might have the emotional maturity of juvenile delinquents armed with machine guns in a crowded school yard.
If there was a sour note, for me, in the pleasure of finding a book that gets a vital message out there as effectively as A Short History of Progress, it was hearing through the grapevine that the author, Ronald Wright, is disparaging about Jared Diamond's masterpiece, Guns, Germs, and Steel. I don't find the two of them at all incompatible. Wright stresses the boom and bust inevitabilities of those who consume without reference to sustainability. Diamond answers the question of why some areas of the Earth did better than others in the race for dominance, presuming all human beings had an equal innate potential to win the development sweep stakes.
Perhaps the friction, if there is any (a quick website failed to find anything I could use to deny or confirm the rumor), stems from the familiar if often unfortunate rivalry arising from different disciplinary perspectives. Jared Diamond is a scientist. Wright comes to his conclusions from the humanities and social sciences end of things.
Personally I feel that there is plenty in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to support and reinforce the idea that it is high time for man to know himself, as Wright concludes in A Short History, as "an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligent; clever but seldom wise."
8 Comments:
We need a very special group of individuals who are willing to run for office with the intent of bringing an M.R.I Government to the people. A government that cannot lie. A fair tax system. One where each man and woman decides from a previously voted on list. A list of all the 1000 or so things it takes to run a country. Health Care, Education, Pension, road maintenance. Set a tax program up with the computer banking and interact payments. I think we honestly would see a shrinking poverty level and government. A world that meets a little closer to the center. We might just figure out a way to make life interesting for everyone at the same time. A world where everyone is very happy and proud to be in, and all have that same feeling for any other. Everyone in the world has so much going on differently, it's a wonder how we will ever be able to get on the same page in this literally "choose your own adventure" novel! I would like to hear "You have chosen wisely" However, then I remember something that went like "an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligent; clever but seldom wise." I'd be guessing it's about time for some wising up! This blind push by our leaders for technology to give themselves profit, has created the potential for us to bring forth a new system that exposes the liars. To which then the people can follow the leaders who are telling the truth! I'd be willing to run for office. Install the system and then just step aside and let the people take care of their God given right! Themselves. Everybodies individual decisions, now mean something.
I read the book, and I heard his Messy lecture series (in which he recited from his book, sans footnotes). Whilst it is, in my opinion, a very good book (for less than 150 pages, Wright had some pretty good ideas), I just have two questions.
1) I often felt this book is an identical subset of Jared Diamond's "Collapse". They both used the same historical cases, and made the same arguments about sustainability. The only two differences I see are, Diamond analysis is considered more extensive and more complete, and that Diamond's alleged solution lies in setting government policies, which brings me to the second point,
2) Wright argues that the solutions lies in putting back the power to the people, so to speak. This, I think is a little one-sided. Easter Island is a pretty good counter-example of how the decision of the people could put their civilisation into oblivion. Wright's solution is overly simplistic, and highly impractical.
Hi Bart. I think I would have to agree with you that Diamond's analysis is more extensive. I also derive more hope from his thesis -- that who wins the "cargo"game is predicated to a considerable extent on facts to do with facts, not ego -- than Wright's call for power to the people. I sometimes fear that people really do not want to know the truth about ourselves, as a species. But being able to see the good and the bad clearly is crucial if we hope to stop repeating history.
The late great Neil Postman - whom the mighty NY Times failed to list in its authors of the year,pleaded with us to go the way of the Athenians and not that of the Visigoths. Have we been doing this? I don't think so because we go on "amusing ourselves to death" and choosing leaders who can't read books like "A Short History..", etc. And wouldn't care if they could. Because in one almighty nation, it is "The Corporation" that rules - as the Canadian film showed, and is driving us insanely toward oblivion. There are signs of sanity in the UN's Kyoto Accord, nuclear non-proliferation treaty, laws against pre-emptive war, World Court rulings on crimes against humanity and so on, but corporate USA will have none of it. Ronald Wright has shown us beautifully where we're headed, unless we do something about it, and that there's not much time to do it.
Howdy people ...
To Lynda - In reading your comments on mine, I feel the need to reciprocate. Yes, we must approach the "truth" from both sides of the coin. My only concern is, whether Ronald Wright offered any possibilities at all. He simply said "the power must return to the people". Unlike Jared Diamond (and from Wright's footnotes, I have a feeling that Ron and Jermey don't get alone), who laid out possible pathways, Wright simply presented his "solution" for the sake of closure (of the book, of course). Nevertheless, a short history is by no means poorly written, from contents alone.
To Sam: Somehow I must disagree with you in your arguments. I have seen "The Corporation" as well (I have not read the book, however). The films shows only the side of Corporation "we" want to see ... a confirmation that they are psychopathic entities. But in the mean time, the oblivion is our own undoing, since the nature of the corporation (separating the individuals from the business to encourage innovation -- in case it flops) gives people an excuse to sweep dirt under the carpet.
Another thing. The Kyoto Protocol is a pipedream. The Canadian target is too optimistic, that even if we do something right now, we will not even meet our target, not even close. On the other hand, other countries, like Germany, will exceed their target because they are already producing less that what they project. The only thing Kyoto bring about is the false sense of well-being, an illusion that we are doing something.
Back to the corporations. as far as energy goes, believe it or not, oil companies (BP and shell) are already shelling out money for alternative fuel research. This is not a matter of lip service, because these company know, that their existence will be threatened when cheap oil runs out. They still want to be in business when other forms of energy become prevalent. Granted not all corporations have the foresight to do something like this, but it is one step into the right direction.
Lynda,
I stumbled onto your site while looking for additional information on Easter Island. I read Ronald Wright's book with a sinking feeling in my stomach, because I could see we've been spiraling downward for a very long time. In essence, I think we're pretty much doomed, because we, as a species, seem to be incapable of acting collectively to deal with global problems. Ever since I read a book called The Population Bomb decades ago in my freshman year in college, I've been making the hard choices to preserve our natural world. To me, that means not reproducing, growing much of my own food, driving a 12-year-old car only when I have to, living in a small house, eating a vegan diet, recycling and reusing virtually everything, not flying anywhere for any reason, avoiding big-box stores, etc., etc., etc. When I was young, I stupidly assumed that everyone would read The Population Bomb and act on it. I worked to indoctrinate my siblings and others and felt fairly confident that when they "grew up," they too would make the hard choices necessary to preserve our world. Was I ever wrong! In the 35 years since I read that book, the world population has more than doubled. And it's not just the world population I?m talking about here, it's the population of the United States, Europe, and other "civilized" nations that's wreaking havoc on the environment. I recently measured my ecological footprint again, and as frugally as I live in comparison with the average American, I still have a score of 12, which means if everyone on the earth lived like I do, three earths would be required to support all of us in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed. Who?s responsible? I blame ?civilized? societies, which means I blame all of us, including myself. We can't expect politicians to take over and convince us to follow them in the right direction. That'll never happen. The bottom line is, we're in control, because we're the consumers. If we stop buying processed food and more "stuff" that we really don?t have to have to survive, we win back our independence and our ability to chart our own course--back from the brink, if we're lucky!
Don't give up hope! Hope needs every bit of every one of us who has the courage of their convictions about wanting to make the world one that's sustainable for future generations. What we need is to get organized behind NGOs or other organizations that fight the fight. Thanks for commenting, and for being intelligent enough to see the big picture as something that does matter.
I'm not sure how this site works, but here goes.
I have not read Ronald Wright's book, nor Jared Diamond's, but I've heard Wright's Massey Lectures three times and have read a fair bit of and about Diamond's ideas on the net. Diamond has been here in Australia a number of times and each time he gets plenty of coverage on our national public radio broadcaster, the ABC.
Both Wright and Diamond were here at the same time last year and were interviewed together on the Breakfast Program. They were both good and there didn't seem to be any tension between them. Indeed they seemed to support each other's ideas. Wright seemed a little sharper and more articulate in the interview situation and I thought at the time contributed one significant additional idea.
That was that the power-wielding elites tended to protect themselves from the adverse effects of the over-exploitation of the environment thereby making collapse inevitable. In fact I find that this idea is very clearly articulated towards the end of a lecture Diamond gave at Princeton University in 2002. (The highlights of this lecture were broadcast on our ABC and the transcript has been widely posted on the net. Google under 'Why societies collapse: Jared Diamond at Princeton University'.)
Wright does say that most agriculture-based societies are communitarian or democratic at the outset and tend to become hierarchical and authoritarian as they grow and develop. Both are keen on reclaiming democracy which is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for avoiding collapse.
Wright has the orientation of an historian. I find that historians are keen to prevent us from repeating history but are not themselves future-oriented in a practical way. Diamond has a varied scientific background, but is perhaps best considered as a geographer who attempts to bring together the scientific and human perspectives. I don't think his sociology is strong enough to fully appreciate what needs to be done.
On which point I must say I agree with Sam that the power of corporations must be reined in if we are to have a chance (I've read the book, seen the film.) It's a longer story, but maximising profits for the shareholders is almost invariably going to lead to conflicts with the longer term public interest.
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