America Is Not
the Greatest Country………..for long
By John P. Middleton
Nov 2013
The title of
this piece is a controversial and emotionally loaded concept. But I hope the reader would stay with me
awhile before throwing the tomatoes.
The Facts
are that the United States currently ranks 49th in life expectancy,
between 12th and 26th in education (depending on
discipline or specialty), 31st in gender gap, between 27th
and 32nd in mother, women and children issues, 114th in
“Happy Planet Index”, 85th in Global Peace index, 13th in
quality of Life index, 46th in suicide rates, and 168th
in Failed States Index. (All statistics from The Economist Intelligence Unit,
CIA World Fact book, and Yale University.) All information is available online.
Therefore, it is probably inaccurate, but not unreasonable to declare the
United States the “greatest” country in the world despite the foregoing
evidence to the contrary.
The argument
for “greatness” may be centered on our constitution and military might. But we
are clearly deficient in many humanitarian areas.
In a
previous paper I mentioned how frustrating the political process had become,
for most people, due to the “system”. In
Humanitarian (and even military) concepts, the system is flawed for a number of
reasons, among which are;
1. A
failure to correctly identify the difference between “leadership” and
“servanthood”.
The
people of the United States should be the leaders and the politicians
their servants, which is the basic concept behind a representative democracy or
a republic. That is the concept which gives our Constitution strength.
2. Because
of our country’s embrace of unrestrained Capitalism the abuses of
Capitalism are rampant.
Money
permeates politics to the extent that re-election trumps all other considerations,
and indeed, consensus. Reprehensible
policies such as gerrymandering, or onerous voter registration, simply further
the goals of the re-election process, and have little to do with lawmaking for
the general good.
These kinds
of abuses could bring the U. S. down more rapidly from its position of speculative
and precarious dominance. There are many
other political abuses that could, similarly, result in the fall of the United
States.
While I could labor on about “abuses” of the system,
there are some who might find justification that the rich should get richer
while the poor struggle, or who believe only the strongest should survive,
citing Darwinian evolution as justification for imbalance. So, I will continue with something that will
be much more difficult with which to disagree, something that virtually assures
the demise of the United States as THE world power, and is more consistent with
old Mr. Darwin………Cultural Anthropology.
At the core
of Cultural Anthropology is one, no longer so controversial, concept. This concept may be called The Law of Evolutionary
Potential”, as promulgated in chapter 5 of the book, “Evolution and Culture”,
Harding, Kaplan, Sahlins and Service, Univ. of Michigan Press, copyright
1960/1973; and elsewhere.
The law generally
states, “The more specialized and adapted a form is in any evolutionary stage,
the smaller it’s potential for passing to the next stage.”
Now
Anthropology is not an exact science. And there are many opinions as to why
political/cultural history is what it appears to be. But we should not
disapprove of the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution when applied to states.
Now, because
I am not a graduate in cultural anthropology, I can only deal in general terms. But that
should be more than sufficient here.
There are basically two types of evolution, specific and general.
1. Specific: “In any given system—a species, a culture or
an individual, improves its chances for survival and progresses in the efficiency
of its capture of energy by increasing its adaptive specialization.”
A
man is different, and higher on the food chain, than an armadillo. But each has
unique specializations suited to its line of descent and is a contemporary
creature. You would not be anywhere near
as good at finding, unearthing, and eating a grub worm, than an armadillo
without the aid of equipment designed for that purpose.
“We
increase our specializations for efficiency at survival.” This is specific evolution,
which
is limited by several factors, among which are, The “Principle of Stabilization”
forces. The armadillo, having the tools
to feed itself and breed and protect itself, is unlikely to develop much
further, unless another need arises, due to it being “stable” in many
areas. Someday it may even figure out that crossing the southern highway at
night is dangerous, but it appears to have not developed that far yet. Similarly,
humans are losing their “gills” although vestiges may remain.
Two
of the several factors to consider here are Dominance and Potentiality. Much of our world turmoil is a contest
between dominance and potential. It is unlikely that the armadillo will rule
the world, but mankind and the cockroach have a shot at it…..for a limited time.
2. General: “The
more specialized and adapted a form is in any evolutionary stage, the smaller
its potential for passing to the next stage.”
(The Law of Evolutionary Potential)
Another
way to state this is “specific evolutionary progress is inversely related to general
evolutionary potential”.
Now what
does this stuff mean for the future of the United States?
There are
several factors at work, some in general cultural evolution and some in
environmental evolution as follows:
“There’s a
word for this new era we live in: the Anthropocene. This term, taken up by geologists,
pondered by intellectuals and discussed in the pages of publications such as
The Economist and the The New York Times, represents the idea that we have
entered a new epoch in Earth’s geological history, one characterized by the
arrival of the human species as a geological force. The Nobel-Prize-winning
chemist Paul Crutzen coined the term in 2002, and it has steadily gained
acceptance as evidence has increasingly mounted that the changes wrought by
global warming will affect not just the world’s climate and biological
diversity, but its very geology — and not just for a few centuries, but for
millenniums. The geophysicist David Archer’s 2009 book, “The Long Thaw: How
Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate,” lays out a clear
and concise argument for how huge concentrations of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere and melting ice will radically transform the planet, beyond freak
storms and warmer summers, beyond any foreseeable future.
The
Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London — the scientists
responsible for pinning the “golden spikes” that demarcate geological epochs
such as the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene — have adopted the Anthropocene
as a term deserving further consideration, “significant on the scale of Earth
history.” Working groups are discussing what level of geological time-scale it
might be (an “epoch” like the Holocene, or merely an “age” like the Calabrian),
and at what date we might say it began. The beginning of the Great
Acceleration, in the middle of the 20th century? The beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, around 1800? The advent of agriculture?
The
challenge the Anthropocene poses is a challenge not just to national security,
to food and energy markets, or to our “way of life” — though these challenges
are all real, profound, and inescapable. The greatest challenge the
Anthropocene poses may be to our sense of what it means to be human. Within 100
years — within three to five generations — we will face average temperatures 7
degrees Fahrenheit higher than today, rising seas at least three to 10 feet
higher, and worldwide shifts in crop belts, growing seasons and population
centers. Within a thousand years, unless we stop emitting greenhouse gases
wholesale right now, humans will be living in a climate the Earth hasn’t seen
since the Pliocene, three million years ago, when oceans were 75 feet higher
than they are today. We face the imminent collapse of the agricultural,
shipping and energy networks upon which the global economy depends, a
large-scale die-off in the biosphere that’s already well on its way, and our
own possible extinction. If homo sapiens (or some genetically modified variant)
survives the next millenniums, it will
be survival in a world unrecognizably different from the one we have
inhabited.” ---“Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene,” by ROY SCRANTON http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-how-to-die-in-the-anthropocene/
The
foregoing, while horrific in its consequences for the world, and heavily fueled
by the recent dominance of North American energy consumption and the emerging energy
consumption of the East, is not the only the specific Darwinian cultural change
I am discussing here. Although the consequences of an Anthropocene period are
culturally world changing, in this paper, I am specifically bound to the
shorter term cultural changes of world dominance by specific states.
America, “the
greatest country,” cannot sustain that position for much longer.
Evolution
applies to both species and technology, but, in this case, and more
importantly, cultures. Greece fell, Rome fell, Spain fell, Portugal fell,
England fell, France fell, Germany fell and all other powerful nations have
fallen from the pinnacle of dominance. Were they morally insufficient? Some yes, most no. Were they sufficient or
“efficient” for the future…..NO! That’s why they fell.
In the next
35 years futurist colleagues see the growth of the middle class as enormous in
India and China and falling in the US and Europe. An anthropologist might make the claim that those
countries are filling the middle class vacuum because the U.S. and Europe
already have a middle class. Additionally, their lower labor costs allow them
to develop manufacturing whereas it is declining in our country as jobs and
plants are sent to cheaper labor markets thus growing their middle class. Where
the middle class grows, development usually occurs.
At some
point in a system the dominance one exhibits tends to become
non-progressive. We already all own TV’s
AND CARS thus General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have already identified the
next market as India and China and are building their manufacturing plants in
those locations. It is likely the advances in TV and Cars will come from India
and China as they are still adapting to TVs and Cars, while we already have
them. Needless to say, with manufacturing plants located in those target
countries employment and economic growth and the growth of the middle class will
follow in those places.
A young man
recently referred to my desktop computer as a “Grandpa Box”. I objected. I have studied computers and
built this one I am using from the best available and affordable components. It
is a very fast and flexible machine, loaded with the best software, cleaned and
pruned and checked daily. What the hell
did he mean “Grandpa Box”? Dr. Jerry
Rose, an anthropologist colleague at the University of Arkansas, helped me to understand
the young man was right. It IS a grandpa box. Youth today do their work on
cellphones to a great extent. They are
portable (my box is not) they have downloadable apps (which are much rarer on
my box). They have more instant communication from wherever they are, etc.
As an old
fart, I reserve the right to claim that THEIR COMMUNICATION IS not as complete
as mine and currently done in the severe limitation of 144 characters. But that is changing. And how does the
futurist see the value of my rambling essays in an era of “Instantaneous
Knowledge”? Is my longer essayist’s
opinion any more valid than their 144 character opinion? Clearly I represent
the past and the young man the future. It is, for that example, understandable
that most cell phone developments are a product of the east since the east
lacks a viable land line network.
So it is
with states.
What will
happen to the United States when our declining middle class and economy can no
longer sustain our investment in our military that is four to eight times
higher than our next competitor?
As our
economic advantages disappear, albeit slowly, our military dominance must also
disappear. Our cultural dominance will
take much longer to disappear. We still talk about the cultures and ideas of
Egypt, Greece, Rome, England and others who have, in many cases, disappeared
from the world stage as dominant players. Ours will be the “Lingua Franca”
(with apologies to my British friends), the dominant world language, for some
time to come.
Our dominance
is likely to be a long slow process downward.
Since we already have one of the highest standards of living in the
world, change, and improvement, will more likely come from somewhere else.
There will
be some plateaus and blockades. For
instance, as a nation, we are spending an enormous amount of time on
development and sustaining fossil fuels like oil, when the future is clearly in
solar, wind, battery and lesser environmentally damaging technologies. If we
were to shift gears to the latter technologies the United States could be a
world leader in those areas for some time to come. Sadly, those developments
are, apparently, being ceded to the East through greed on the part of our oil
and auto and energy barons.
Physical
Evolution is a slow process, Cultural Evolution appears much faster. Our future
as a nation is likely destined to be a long slow downward spiral as the forces
of evolution overtake us. Even without
those forces, the prospect of world government looms large in the potential
history of the planet as it gets smaller and smaller culturally.
This
probable spiral can be aided by several diverse factors. In the beginning of this essay I indicated
“Money
permeates politics to the extent that re-election trumps all other
considerations, and indeed, consensus.
Reprehensible policies such as gerrymandering, or onerous voter
registration, simply further the goals of the re-election process, and have
little to do with lawmaking for the general good.”
Our culture
is addicted to greed. It chokes the
engines of development, the interest in fossil, rather than alternative fuels, dominance
of the single commuter in the large SUV, and many other examples of how we seem
determined, as a powerful and influential nation, to hasten our demise.
While change
and progress are still possible, our greed will certainly trump and slow them
and ultimately assure our national disappearance from the earth.
John P.
Middleton
Nov 2013
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