Talk:Societal collapse
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[edit] A dissenting voice
I really don't[[ see much in common from all these examples. The Norse in Greenland were driven out by the Little Ice Age in Europe. Nobody knows why the Olmec civilization ended - or maybe it just became the Maya. The "Izapa" are not a society -- it is an archaelogical site. No one knows why Cahokia was abandoned.
Did every civilization end in a "societal collapse"? Is every abandoned town the result of a "societal collapse"? ]] The definition is so lacking in detail ("a breakdown in society") as to be meaningless, IMHO. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Madman2001 (talk • contribs).
- I didn't write or really contribute to the article (yet) but im currently reading Collapse (book) by Jared Diamond and why societies collapse is a complex question. This article currently appears to be just a list of societies that are thought to have collapsed, being the common element. -- Stbalbach 05:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Hey, MilitaryTarget, you really put some rigor into this article. Keep up the good work. Madman 03:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Modern examples?
Rwandan genocide? Soviet Union? Somalia?
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- A textbook example is underway in East Timor right now. --Dave 07:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Disintegration/collapse merge
Against: Isn't it possible for disintegration to be occuring before and regardless of a possible collapse, for example a few centuries ago in London, before actions were taken to fix the sewerage, water supply and disease problems. It is possible a collapse may occur without a disintegration precursor, for example because of a volcanic eruption, tidal wave or other large natural disaster. Because of this distinction, I don't believe Social disintegration and Societal collapse should be merged. - Shiftchange 07:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Against. Social disintegration is a term used in Sociology with specific meaning and history. Societal collapse is a popular phrase with broad meanings, depending on who uses it, when they used it, and in what context they used it. -- Stbalbach 13:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Against: Stbalbach is right. Social disintegration is a sociological concept, implying the collapse of social links and bonds, which is quite different that the collapse of a society. A society's collapse may indeed involve social disintegration in the sociological sense, but such a collapse may be equally caused by events such as war or natural disaster. In contrast, social disintegration is less an event, and more of a process. See individualization.
[edit] PLEASE Update this page and harness many more to contribute
I am very impressed by this page, and by its relevance to our time of troubles today. I urge those who have knowledge and time to contribute, to consider ramping up this page in the next year, as I believe it is quite helpful. A couple of months ago I had occasion to ask Alvin Toffler what his greatest concern was, and he said "the collapse of all our institutions." It is now clearly established that the extremists Republicans (I am an estranged moderate Republican) have taken over and are disrespectful of all of us who believe in creativity (e.g. science as well as humanities), moderation, sharing, and cross-cultural collabiration and understanding. I consider this page to be one of the most important Wikipedia pages available to the general population. I plan to point to it from www.oss.net. Anyone who contributes to this page is doing something for humanity at large and the US population in particular. fkjgskfjgsk With respect, ~~
[edit] Citations
There needs to be more citations for where this information came from
[edit] Discussion on end of civilization
Editors input would be appreciated at Talk:End_of_civilization. There seems to be some disagreement what the end of civilization actually means. nirvana2013 17:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] proposed merge of fall of a civilisation with societal collapse
- oppose. these are really different topics. Fall of a civilisation is centered on Gibbon's concepts of the inevitability of "a fall" and the rotation of world power. societal collapse need not be connected to industrialisation or globalization arguments, and in fact many societal collapses are purely regional (eg Mayan) and have nothing to do with rotation of world power. in any case the two articles should be allowed to develope for now and see where they go. Anlace 16:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Manifestations of societal collapse
Clearly dysgenics is a mode of societal collapse, otherwise that page wont exist.
[edit] Catabolic collapse
I know a Wikipedia talk page isn't the right place to critique a person's work, but in the section on catabolic collapse, it is said that industrial society is likely to grow through a series of crises on it's way to decline and fall. Widespread industrialization may certainly be curtailed in the future, but saying all of it will collapse is like predicting the collapse of agricultural civilization (which does not depend on steel and oil based industries, although it's benefits immensely). Even if America, Europe, Asia, and Africa annihilate the industry out of each other, I'll bet there'd still be pockets of organization who'd be willing to enslave a local population and force them to industrialize, and so continuing the cycle between dark ages and light ages, with kingdoms becoming empires and vice versa. Xaxafrad 22:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
- Xaxafrad, you need to read Derrick Jenzen's "Endgame". Civilisations, from Latin "Civilis" = a town dweller, are always dependent upon a hinterland, as cities are defined as dense population centres where the bulk of the population is not engaged in food production. Historically they proceed by depleting the stock of non renewable resources in the vacinity, and frequently also deplete renewable resources at a greater rate than their recovery rate (Plato speaks of this in his Timaeus, describing how the felling of trees in Attica led to the loss of soils and the impoverishment of the countryside for anything except the growing of olives). For this reason civilisations are compelled to be expansive, and we find since the first civilisations in the Middle East, in southern Iraq, Egypt and the Indus, these are epicentres for the spreading deserts which characterise these regions today. It also explains why the Western Civilisation (the only planetary civilisation to ever exist), is bigger than Islamic civilisation, which is bigger than Roman civilisation, which in turn was bigger than the Greek civilisation, bigger than Mycenaean, which in turn was bigger than Minoan. Civilisations have generally eiyther come to be incorporated into one of the larger ones, or else have collapsed through a dark age. The collapse usually occurs when for some reason or another they come to deplete and destroy the environment on which they depend, resources become scarce, timber demands need to deforestation, soils erode, warfare breaks out between competing elites, and they either get incorporated into a larger temporarily more successful culture or else they collapse when centralisation disappears.
- Our civilisation is not exempt from this cycle, except in our case we are destroying the atmosphere of a planet, and depleting all easily accessible resources of available non-renewable resources. Our collapse will be longer, and darker than all that came previously, because with the collapse of globalised culture there is no new civilisation awaiting in the wings to help us this time. New stone age, here we come. John D. Croft 09:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
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- The Egyptians lived in a relative balance with nature for a few centuries. Let's posit that they could've lived in an isolated world, without so-called barbarian raids or competitive civilizations. How long would such a situation last? Breeding must be controlled, or else more homes will be built, cities will enlarge, one, two, or a handful of families will strike out for the wilderness and found a new city of their own. Environmental isolation (ocean, desert, mountain) is necessary to prevent the founding of colonies. The environment is far from stable, as oceans and mountains rise and fall, and deserts come and go. The nature of DNA is to spread, but I won't announce the primacy of the fitfulness of human genes until they've decisively overcome their planetary origins and limitations.
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- The only thing that can save us from another stone age will be the electronic preservation of knowledge, which requires the preservation of access to such information. With such information, those who can read it will retain some measure of civilization (that is, social stratification, by whatever means necessary, as there has always been somebody willing to kill somebody else to get what they want (it's the one law of nature that needs to be replaced with a law of man)). Assuming a genetically viable breeding population is retained every generation, civilization will come back eventually (at least, over the next couple million years, until evolution or the genetic industry introduce an unpredictable paradigm).
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- We are simultaneously approaching the limits of foreseeable environmental and technological exploitation at the speed of an iron horse. The human mind's ability to adapt to a variety of situations has enabled us to put enough band-aids on our society that it would be indistinguishable from a stereotypical mummy (which can lead us to a whole different metaphor...). Something's gotta give, but nobody knows what will give first, or if we can invent yet another band-aid before it gives. (this is a fun conversation, but I'm afraid it's not on-topic with the article, but I won't tell if you won't ;) although if anybody wants to shout WP:OR I'll stop typing right now) Xaxafrad 22:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
