A 'high' civilization.
Excerpt from 'Ecology and Flexibility in Urban Civilization' (1970), an essay by Gregory Bateson.
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Civilizations have risen and fallen. A new technology for the exploitation of nature or a new technique for the exploitation of other men permits the rise of a civilization. But each civilization, as it reaches the limits of what can be exploited in that particular way, must eventually fall. The new invention gives elbow room or flexibility, but the using up of that flexibility is death.
Either man is too clever, in which case we are doomed, or he was not clever enough to limit his greed to courses which would not destroy the ongoing total system. I prefer the second hypothesis.
It becomes then necessary to work towards a definition of 'high'.
(a) It would not be wise (even if possible) to return to the innocence of the Australian aborgines, the Eskimo, and the Bushmen. Such a return would involve loss of the wisdom which prompted the return and would only start the whole process over.
(b) A 'high' civilization should therefore be presumed to have, on the technological side, whatever gadgets are necessary to promote, maintain (even increase) wisdom of this general sort. This may well include computers and complex communication devices.
(c) A 'high' civlization shall contain whatever is necessary (in educational and religious institutions) to maintain the necessary wisdom in the human population and to give physical, aesthetic, and creative satisfaction to people. There shall be matching between the flexibility of people and that of the civilization. There shall be diversity in the civilization, not only to accomodate the genetic and experiential diversity of persons, but also to provide the flexibility and 'pre-adaptation' necessary for unpredictable change.
(d) A 'high' civilization shall be limited in its transactions with the environment. It shall consume unreplaceable natural resources only as a means to facilitate necessary change (as a chrysalis in metamorphosis must live on its fat). For the rest, the metabolism of the civilization must depend upon the energy income which Spaceship Earth derives from the sun. In this connection, great technical advance is necessary. With present technology, it is probably that the would would only maintain a small fraction of its present human population, using as energy sources only photosynthesis, wind, tide and water power.
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Civilizations have risen and fallen. A new technology for the exploitation of nature or a new technique for the exploitation of other men permits the rise of a civilization. But each civilization, as it reaches the limits of what can be exploited in that particular way, must eventually fall. The new invention gives elbow room or flexibility, but the using up of that flexibility is death.
Either man is too clever, in which case we are doomed, or he was not clever enough to limit his greed to courses which would not destroy the ongoing total system. I prefer the second hypothesis.
It becomes then necessary to work towards a definition of 'high'.
(a) It would not be wise (even if possible) to return to the innocence of the Australian aborgines, the Eskimo, and the Bushmen. Such a return would involve loss of the wisdom which prompted the return and would only start the whole process over.
(b) A 'high' civilization should therefore be presumed to have, on the technological side, whatever gadgets are necessary to promote, maintain (even increase) wisdom of this general sort. This may well include computers and complex communication devices.
(c) A 'high' civlization shall contain whatever is necessary (in educational and religious institutions) to maintain the necessary wisdom in the human population and to give physical, aesthetic, and creative satisfaction to people. There shall be matching between the flexibility of people and that of the civilization. There shall be diversity in the civilization, not only to accomodate the genetic and experiential diversity of persons, but also to provide the flexibility and 'pre-adaptation' necessary for unpredictable change.
(d) A 'high' civilization shall be limited in its transactions with the environment. It shall consume unreplaceable natural resources only as a means to facilitate necessary change (as a chrysalis in metamorphosis must live on its fat). For the rest, the metabolism of the civilization must depend upon the energy income which Spaceship Earth derives from the sun. In this connection, great technical advance is necessary. With present technology, it is probably that the would would only maintain a small fraction of its present human population, using as energy sources only photosynthesis, wind, tide and water power.