This is Part Three of a five part series on "The Future as I See for Humanity: Three Scenarios the Next Fifty to One Hundred Years." For lighter reading, try Part Two: An Optimistic Forecast: Innovating our way out of Disaster.
At the opposite end of the possibility spectrum from solving all of our problems with technology is, of course, chronically failing to solve any of our problems by any means. If this happens, our society could collapse quite dramatically and quite painfully, and possibly quite suddenly.
Any number of events, predicted or unforeseen, could conspire to bring about social collapse. Let me give one plausible and oft-discussed scenario for collapse based on our current situation.
The two great threats to our society in next decade are the economic situation and the growing scarcity of easily extractable oil. Both of these have the potential to be terminal issues for our society, particularly when taken together. Indeed, a dramatic decrease in the value of the dollar – quite possible given our precarious economic position -- would correspond to a dramatic rise in the cost of imported oil, which in turn would mean having much less of it to go around. Oil shortages would in turn limit our economic capacity, triggering a vicious and precipitous cycle, leaving modern Americans stranded in a suburban desert cars with that no longer run, surrounded by fancy electronic gadgets that no longer turn on.
A shortage in oil doesn't just mean that we can't mow our lawns and drive to grandma's house. It means that the food doesn't get to the grocery store, and possibly doesn't get grown at all. It means shortages in everything, inability to get to work, and the inability to buy much of anything besides gasoline. The shockwaves would ripple through every aspect of our lives and necessitate extreme change in both our personal habits and our social structures.
Fantasizing about the end of the current order and collapse of society is a tantalizing topic for thought and discussion. We all have some sense of how dependent we are on systems that we cannot see and people that we cannot know. Our daily lives are invisibly intertwined with so many things going perfectly, silently right – what if things started to go wrong? How would we live? This thought can become quite consuming, and create a lot of anxiety.
Of course, complete social collapse is in nobody's best interest, and we will all do our best to prevent it from happening. Our common attempt to solve our problems will help, and ultimately, somewhere down the road, we will produce a new stable social order. Still, the transition will be costly, challenging, and painful, but beyond that, we know nothing about what it will look like, when it will unfold, or how we can plan for it.
Unless we are saved by God, or by our clever technological and social innovations, social collapse may very well be in our future. But how do we integrate this reality into our daily lives productively? How do we avoid being ruled by anxiety? What choices can we make that will be wise, not only given our current situation, but also bearing in mind that our context may change drastically and traumatically within the next several years?
Stay Away from Survivalism!
It seems that many people who become obsessed with collapse tend to mitigate their anxiety by taking up survivalism. The internet is filled with people who are preparing for When The Shit Hits The Fan by buying a cabin in the woods and filling it with thousands of dollars worth of dehydrated beans.
The logic of survivalism is clear enough: having seen what is not dependable (a complex society with all its invisible dependencies), we want to fall back on what we can depend on – ourselves. Yet this attitude is simply a projection of pathological individualism on a post-apocalyptic future. It is neither helpful to our continuation as a species, society, or planet, nor wise as a personal strategy.
The truth of the matter is that we are all in this together. There are problems with society, yes, but society itself is not the problem. Humans are social and community creatures, so it does not make particular sense to obsess over our biological existence against or outside of that of our community. The tough times ahead may necessitate that we reimagine our social contracts with each other, but it won't mean we have to cut it totally on our own.
Furthermore, the collapse will have all sorts of so great that there would be little we could do to prepare for it. Even the person who retreats to his cabin in the woods with a lifetime supply of food may find himself murdered by a starving neighbor, taken out by a pandemic, or poisoned by chemicals leaking from an abandoned mine site that is no longer maintained.
The Purpose of Pondering the End
We have very limited influence over what is going to happen in the coming years, very little ability to determine what a collapse might look like, and no sense of what might come afterward. What, then, is the purpose of contemplating the end of society?
First, pondering a future collapse helps us to create aversion scenarios. When we ask ourselves, “How will we survive if X happens?” we not only create strategies that increase our resilience, we begin to practice and promote behaviors and attitudes that may prevent X from happening in the first place. For instance, if my thoughts about peak oil cause me to bike more and buy a smaller vehicle, and encourage others to do likewise, I have not only increased my own resilience, I have participated, however slightly, in changing the philosophy and trajectory of society as a whole.
Second, it is important for us to realize that our culture and society, like our bodies, is a mortal creation. Like our bodies, our social systems will die and pass away with little or no evidence that they ever existed.
People die, societies fail: this is a fact that we desperately need to recognize and integrate into our cultural consciousness. Our decades of breathtaking growth has tricked us into thinking that it can go on forever, that it is somehow a right or an expectation. When death happens, it is either a crime or a medical failure, not a natural and accepted life event.
Remembering our mortality (whether our personal or corporate mortality) invites us to ask the deepest questions about our What is truly important, or at least, what is most important to me? What is truly eternal, truly worthwhile, most rewarding? These are vital orienting questions that will help us to live richer lives no matter what happens in the future.
Of course, these benefits are eliminated if we collapse in anxiety and depression. We should only contemplate such dark topics in moderation, as long as we can do so with no danger to our general psychological health. We live our lives in faith, and awareness of our culture's possible demise should not trouble us more deeply than our own death.
At the opposite end of the possibility spectrum from solving all of our problems with technology is, of course, chronically failing to solve any of our problems by any means. If this happens, our society could collapse quite dramatically and quite painfully, and possibly quite suddenly.
Any number of events, predicted or unforeseen, could conspire to bring about social collapse. Let me give one plausible and oft-discussed scenario for collapse based on our current situation.
The two great threats to our society in next decade are the economic situation and the growing scarcity of easily extractable oil. Both of these have the potential to be terminal issues for our society, particularly when taken together. Indeed, a dramatic decrease in the value of the dollar – quite possible given our precarious economic position -- would correspond to a dramatic rise in the cost of imported oil, which in turn would mean having much less of it to go around. Oil shortages would in turn limit our economic capacity, triggering a vicious and precipitous cycle, leaving modern Americans stranded in a suburban desert cars with that no longer run, surrounded by fancy electronic gadgets that no longer turn on.
A shortage in oil doesn't just mean that we can't mow our lawns and drive to grandma's house. It means that the food doesn't get to the grocery store, and possibly doesn't get grown at all. It means shortages in everything, inability to get to work, and the inability to buy much of anything besides gasoline. The shockwaves would ripple through every aspect of our lives and necessitate extreme change in both our personal habits and our social structures.
Fantasizing about the end of the current order and collapse of society is a tantalizing topic for thought and discussion. We all have some sense of how dependent we are on systems that we cannot see and people that we cannot know. Our daily lives are invisibly intertwined with so many things going perfectly, silently right – what if things started to go wrong? How would we live? This thought can become quite consuming, and create a lot of anxiety.
Of course, complete social collapse is in nobody's best interest, and we will all do our best to prevent it from happening. Our common attempt to solve our problems will help, and ultimately, somewhere down the road, we will produce a new stable social order. Still, the transition will be costly, challenging, and painful, but beyond that, we know nothing about what it will look like, when it will unfold, or how we can plan for it.
Unless we are saved by God, or by our clever technological and social innovations, social collapse may very well be in our future. But how do we integrate this reality into our daily lives productively? How do we avoid being ruled by anxiety? What choices can we make that will be wise, not only given our current situation, but also bearing in mind that our context may change drastically and traumatically within the next several years?
Stay Away from Survivalism!
It seems that many people who become obsessed with collapse tend to mitigate their anxiety by taking up survivalism. The internet is filled with people who are preparing for When The Shit Hits The Fan by buying a cabin in the woods and filling it with thousands of dollars worth of dehydrated beans.
The logic of survivalism is clear enough: having seen what is not dependable (a complex society with all its invisible dependencies), we want to fall back on what we can depend on – ourselves. Yet this attitude is simply a projection of pathological individualism on a post-apocalyptic future. It is neither helpful to our continuation as a species, society, or planet, nor wise as a personal strategy.
The truth of the matter is that we are all in this together. There are problems with society, yes, but society itself is not the problem. Humans are social and community creatures, so it does not make particular sense to obsess over our biological existence against or outside of that of our community. The tough times ahead may necessitate that we reimagine our social contracts with each other, but it won't mean we have to cut it totally on our own.
Furthermore, the collapse will have all sorts of so great that there would be little we could do to prepare for it. Even the person who retreats to his cabin in the woods with a lifetime supply of food may find himself murdered by a starving neighbor, taken out by a pandemic, or poisoned by chemicals leaking from an abandoned mine site that is no longer maintained.
The Purpose of Pondering the End
We have very limited influence over what is going to happen in the coming years, very little ability to determine what a collapse might look like, and no sense of what might come afterward. What, then, is the purpose of contemplating the end of society?
First, pondering a future collapse helps us to create aversion scenarios. When we ask ourselves, “How will we survive if X happens?” we not only create strategies that increase our resilience, we begin to practice and promote behaviors and attitudes that may prevent X from happening in the first place. For instance, if my thoughts about peak oil cause me to bike more and buy a smaller vehicle, and encourage others to do likewise, I have not only increased my own resilience, I have participated, however slightly, in changing the philosophy and trajectory of society as a whole.
Second, it is important for us to realize that our culture and society, like our bodies, is a mortal creation. Like our bodies, our social systems will die and pass away with little or no evidence that they ever existed.
People die, societies fail: this is a fact that we desperately need to recognize and integrate into our cultural consciousness. Our decades of breathtaking growth has tricked us into thinking that it can go on forever, that it is somehow a right or an expectation. When death happens, it is either a crime or a medical failure, not a natural and accepted life event.
Remembering our mortality (whether our personal or corporate mortality) invites us to ask the deepest questions about our What is truly important, or at least, what is most important to me? What is truly eternal, truly worthwhile, most rewarding? These are vital orienting questions that will help us to live richer lives no matter what happens in the future.
Of course, these benefits are eliminated if we collapse in anxiety and depression. We should only contemplate such dark topics in moderation, as long as we can do so with no danger to our general psychological health. We live our lives in faith, and awareness of our culture's possible demise should not trouble us more deeply than our own death.
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