Scored - 1st person post-toastie!

[idiotgrrl]

Someone on one of my many lists and forums, in a discussion of the same, pointed out that nobody living knew what it was like to live through a collapse of civilization. I pointed out that in a literate society, there was no such thing as "nobody knew first-hand what it was like" as long as there were writings on the subject

Comments

[beatrixal]

I wonder what the people of Afghanistan would think about the statement, "nobody living knew what it was like to live through a collapse of civilization." Due to the physically-isolated nature of the region, it may have seemed like a collapse of civilization--and all civility

[idiotgrrl]

My perspective? I totally agree with you about these things being - local and temporary - collapses of civilization. As was WWII in Europe. The point is "local" meaning there was stability to be found elsewhere if you could get out and reach it; and "temporary", meaning, look at all the rebuilding going on now in, saw, Rwanda. With leaders whose primary goal is, and will be for some time, enough stability so that this shall never happen again.

Another sort of collapse is the partial one, where there is rebuilding afterwards, but on a smaller and simpler scale, also known as "Where is the Ninth Ward since 2005?"

And then there's the Chinese scenario, in which you look up from your rice paddy and comment "Here we go again!" and get back to work.

[beatrixal]

I just thought of something. The collapse of the Roman empire was just local and temporary. The eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, was just fine. At the other end of the Silk Road, the Chinese civilization was just fine. So if you could go east, you could get to civilization. The collapse of the western Roman Empire matters to us, because we are it's cultural descendants. Therefore, it carries more weight than if we were Greek, Egyptian, or Armenian

[idiotgrrl]

Concerning Byzantium, John Michael Greer notes that by cutting the Western empire and its long frontier with the German tribes loose, "the eastern Empire allowed massive quantities of relatively unproductive, high-maintenance capital to be converted to waste, bringing its M(p) below its remaining C(p) and breaking out of the catabolic cycle.” (Note: M(p) is maintenance production, the level of production necessary to maintain capital stocks at existing levels; and C(p) is new capital produced.)"

The "unproductive high-maintenance capital" being the Western Empire, and "converted to waste" means they set the Western Empire out on the sidewalk for the scavengers. Who promptly said "Achtung! Grab while the grabbing's good!" Or else "Free at last, thank Woden, free at last!"

Somewhat like the east coast cutting loose of the Great American Desert and points west.

[idiotgrrl]

And that promptly received the following comment "In my opinion, Las Vegas would be an excellent example of “relatively unproductive, high-maintenance capital” that should probably be preferentially converted to waste, since it appears impossible to salvage."

[idiotgrrl]

He continues the analogy "Machiavelli might also suggest, “There has been a net draining of capital from the East (particularly from the Great Lakes industrial area) to the West for many decades; and therefore, you should try to salvage as much of that capital as possible as soon as possible, before any more of it is squandered on useless Western desert fantasies like Las Vegas, or mountain fantasies like Vale. The West is filled with ghost towns of the past and ghost towns of the future.”