2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
Don't fear the reaper
Jackie Hai. She can be reached at jhai@student.umass.edu.
Issue date: 5/9/07 Section: Editorial / Opinion
There's a fairly common sentiment these days that America is in trouble.
Our democracy is ossifying while the public tunes out. With the middle class disappearing, social inequality is on the rise. Individual and national debt are both through the roof. We are overextended militarily and much of the world hates us for our foreign policy. Perhaps most daunting of all right now is the specter of the energy crisis: fossil fuels will soon run out, taking our economy and livelihoods with it unless we find alternative solutions.
All these factors and more are on a collision course that could mean widespread crisis for our nation. But we need not fear the future. The crisis is surmountable.
Why am I so sure of this? Because, as humans, we have done it before. By looking to the past, we find not only evidence of what happens when society gets into trouble, but suggestions for how to get back on the right path.
Ian Kuijt, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has written extensively on social change in Neolithic villages 8,000 years ago. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of collapse. What prompts a large population center to fall apart abruptly as the people abandon their life ways and decentralize? One compelling theory, advanced by Kuijt, proposes that there are two triggers: the external, environmental cause and, more importantly, the internal one, driven by members of society.
Traditionally, scholars have focused the most on those external pressures leading to collapse: environmental degradation, diminishment of natural resources, war, disease and other catastrophes. The other half of the equation, which is starting to gain recognition in recent years, involves a significant portion of the community deciding that they wanted change.
Generations of population increase, social segmentation and declining standards of living eventually reached a point where the people said "Enough," and simply picked up and left. 'Ain Ghazal and Basta, major centers of civilization, were abandoned in favor of small, self-sufficient hamlets.
Our democracy is ossifying while the public tunes out. With the middle class disappearing, social inequality is on the rise. Individual and national debt are both through the roof. We are overextended militarily and much of the world hates us for our foreign policy. Perhaps most daunting of all right now is the specter of the energy crisis: fossil fuels will soon run out, taking our economy and livelihoods with it unless we find alternative solutions.
All these factors and more are on a collision course that could mean widespread crisis for our nation. But we need not fear the future. The crisis is surmountable.
Why am I so sure of this? Because, as humans, we have done it before. By looking to the past, we find not only evidence of what happens when society gets into trouble, but suggestions for how to get back on the right path.
Ian Kuijt, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has written extensively on social change in Neolithic villages 8,000 years ago. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of collapse. What prompts a large population center to fall apart abruptly as the people abandon their life ways and decentralize? One compelling theory, advanced by Kuijt, proposes that there are two triggers: the external, environmental cause and, more importantly, the internal one, driven by members of society.
Traditionally, scholars have focused the most on those external pressures leading to collapse: environmental degradation, diminishment of natural resources, war, disease and other catastrophes. The other half of the equation, which is starting to gain recognition in recent years, involves a significant portion of the community deciding that they wanted change.
Generations of population increase, social segmentation and declining standards of living eventually reached a point where the people said "Enough," and simply picked up and left. 'Ain Ghazal and Basta, major centers of civilization, were abandoned in favor of small, self-sufficient hamlets.
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