THE RESILIENCE OF CIVILIZATIONS

This is an intriguing subject for me because I suspect that it is one of the fundamental questions of our time.

Globalization has had the effect of increasing integration of states and societies as well as weakening or disintegrating them; a paradox which has led to considerable debate regarding the trajectory of world affairs. Possibly, instead of viewing globalization as an either-or phenomena, unidimensional in effect, a continuum of effects might be better. Placement on the continuum would depend on how the particular (societies, states, civilizations) react when they increasingly engage the universal ( the global market).

For example, on one one pole of globalization we see the dynamic, interdependent, convergence of civilizations heralded by Thomas P.M. Barnett, Francis Fukuyama, and Thomas Friedman where the map is new, the Gap is shrinking and the world is flat. On the opposite pole we have Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations where cultures have “bloody borders”, the map has melted and Robert Kaplan’s coming anarchy reigns over a host of states that are doomed to decline, beset by 4GW warfare and John Robb’s global guerillas. A line that can accomodate Bill Gates and Bin Laden, Burma and Britain and the West and the Rest.

Previously, we have discussed building state resilience here and at ERMB, Steve DeAngelis has promoted “Development -in-a-Box” to orchestrate the building of resiliency tailored to the specific problems faced by institutions or states. Civilizations are a much larger, vastly older and an inherently more complex class of human organization than are mere states. Like states, civilizations are not eternal, they can decline and fall but even vanished civilizations leave behind a legacy lasting thousands of years. Many pass on at least part of their ” cultural DNA” to successors, as Greeks did for the Roman, Arab Muslim, Eastern Orthodox and Western civilizations.

This longitudinal endurance speaks to a inherently high level of resiliency but why are civilizations inordinately resilient ? And what determines the forms that such resiliency takes ? Civilizations differ after all. The ancient Egyptian and Chinese cultures both lasted an exceedingly long time and had their origins in the agricultural settlement of major river systems; yet one is dead and gone and the other is enjoying a second rise. In my view, this is not a historical accident.

Page 1 of 3 | Next page