Collapse

Because his previous book "Guns, Germs and Steel" was so long winded, I wasn't going to read "Collapse", but it's the topic of a discussion group next week, with local environmental leaders, so slog through it I did. His message is that since we have the advantage, that no primitive society did, of knowing how societies have collapsed in the past, this means that we have the power to yank ourselves from the vortex of collapse, if we just choose to do so.

What was illuminating were his chapters on societies that did avert eco-disaster like the Tokugawa shoguns of Japan who reversed deforestation and this dictator chap in the Dominican Republic who enforced environmental regulations that saved the forest from further logging. These examples do rather contradict his premise that we have an advantage over early societies because we know so much about how they collapsed. What we do need to know is how close we are to using up our resources. The Japanese had every tree catalogued and a schedule drawn up for when each could be logged and for what purpose. We could barcode every tree from sea to shining sea with our technology, but that would just reveal that the government was giving away the store.

These early examples of reforestation also imply that democracy is too damned slow and ineffective, but Diamond is not going to be the man who points this out. He shines the way on a path through bottom up, grassroots change and this is exactly why he's so popular with environmental movements.

What I did find useful in reading this 500 page tome, was gleaned from his criticism of Joseph Tainter's book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies". (I've been trying to get this book for over a year now, but it's not in any public library, just at Stanford University to which I have no direct access and it's not cheap to buy.) Tainter's book informs the peak-oil community and is the basis of their discussions, thus I can now make a distinction between the environmental movement and the peak oil movement.

Diamond thinks that Tainter didn't get it about environmental degradation, but Diamond refuses to get Tainter's point about the economic forces of complex societies, which is, if I might simplify, that the solutions necessary to make our complex society sustainable, will require even more complexity and use of resources. Readers of both authors can decide which leads to sustainability—Diamonds path to regulate and restrict industry or Tainter's path to work towards dismantling and simplifying our complex society. One is politically plausible; the other may be politically impossible.

The Last American Man

I didn't know it was still possible to live off the land in the old style, but this highly readable biography of Eustace Conway, the buckskin clad, just turning 40, mountain man who devotes his life to persuading others to follow him, is a lesson in itself. If this charismatic, picture perfect frontiersman could not create a movement of followers devoted to returning to the land base, then knowing this has saved me the frustration of thinking people could change significantly enough to help themselves out of current mess we're in.

The real pleasure of reading this book is the skill with which Elizabeth Gilbert renders her subject with an eye that is both awed by him and onto him. She starts by showing him giving his mesmerizing talks at schools and chatting up anyone willing to listen, then deeply explores his telling relationship with his exacting and authoritarian father. The largely self-taught journey that Eustace takes to learn to live off the land is an incredible story in itself, but it goes on to include his vision to buy an entire valley in the forests of North Carolina where he can operate a wilderness camp. That he turns out to be a tyrant and a perfectionist is not at all surprising given his unrelenting drive.

Elizabeth also gives the story just enough context, in reviewing the history of similarly visioned men and the idea of the frontiersman as the American ideal. A useful insight into a part of American culture. And as a woman, she puts Eustace in his place when it comes to his naive and immature ideas of female companionship.

In the end, what Eustace discovers about the deterioration of skills within the American culture confirms my own suspicions. He comments that children today don't know basic physical laws of nature—leverage, inertia, momentum and thermodynamics. This means they have trouble using tools, doing chores efficiently or solving physical problems. They are also incredibly spoiled— as confirmed by the author—used to being asked what they want for very little in return. Those that show up at the camp to intern with Eustace seem particularly lost, lacking emotional resilience or ability to govern themselves. There are stunning exceptions that prove the rule, but the lesson here is that we as a culture have lost so much already.
My thanks to coalandice for recommending this book. www.wnyc.org/books/3438