One of the silliest tropes that’s entered political discourse over the last decade or so is the closeness of the apocalypse. I can’t help thinking that, as John Gray suggests in his interesting new book on Utopias, Black Mass, this return of the eschatological is related to the apparent impotence of rationality in the face of seemingly intractable crises. It’s something of a common theme across the political spectrum – similar notes are sounded by George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmenijad, and while deep Greens are accused of climate change doomsaying, the war on terror crew can’t stop painting insane scenarios of terminal decline and clashes of civilisations. In fact, although we face convergent crises, we’re not without the ability to respond rationally, if only political and policy debate could be cleansed of emotive catastrophism. In light of all this, the work of Canadian political scientist Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon is very timely. Sydney folk have an opportunity to hear him and Ian Dunlop discuss some of these issues, with a particular focus on climate change, at an event hosted by the Centre for Policy Development on Monday. Go round there for details. I’m hoping CPD Director Miriam Lyons will be writing a guest post for LP to give those of us who can’t make it a sense of what’s discussed.
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It’s a tricky line to tread, isn’t it? The constant dilemma of climate change campaigners, for sure, as well as many others.
As far as I understand it, Homer-Dixon’s argument is that the _potential_ for catastrophe should concentrate the collective mind in order to respond effectively. But a public discourse of catastrophism can lead to paralysis.
Looking forward to reading the new book and hearing about the forum!
You don’t have to look much further than this blog for that kind of schwartzgrün alarmism:
(From the post immediately below this one.)
I have commented several times on LP on the eschatalogical utopianism deeply rooted in leftist thinking. This was expressed very flamboyantly last night by the human rights Law professor James Allen in his debate with Julian Burnside on Difference of Opinion
http://abc.net.au/tv/differenceofopinion/
It’s a bit of a stretch to call James Allan a “human rights” professor when he makes it eminently clear that he wants to sacrifice so many of them. And Burnside isn’t an apocalypticist, just a traditional liberal.
The sort of hyperbole and one-eyed blindness you’re representing here, JG, is a big part of the problem.
Further to Tim’s point, this is something which has exercised my mind from time to time. Whatever the intellectual arguments may be in favour of action to avert climate change and other environmental problems, the emotional content of many voters’ concerns about these issues is not dissimilar to that of voter concerns about law and order, terrorism, certain religious minorities, asylum seekers, etc. This is something which is not captured by conventional compartmentalisation of positions on disparate issues as left-right, progressive/conservative, etc.
If you think it’s just the Left, you haven’t been reading. A different problem is the phenomenon in the US, where fundamentalist christians actually believe they will be “raptured” in the not-too-distant future, and this has an impact on public policy – to give one example, inaction on climate change.
I’d like to know more on how widespread this is – and how likely it is to spread to Australia, as US-type fundamentalism appears to be doing.
(This is tangential, but I got my first complaint from one of my kids today that a science teacher at school – not hers, her friend’s – proclaimed a belief in creationism. A bit of a milestone, eh? It’s starting, folks, it really is.)
Obviously it’s not just elements of the left. The whole point of the post is to suggest that it’s a shared worldview among all sorts of groups and individuals prone to emotive anti-rationalities. It’s just that JG is incapable of reading English.
You donâ??t have to look much further than this blog for that kind of schwartzgrün alarmism:
â??â?¦Bush and Howard will agree to let the world burn.â??
Quite clearly I was using a figure of speech (fiddle, burn) for rhetorical effect.
And I think the proposed APEC declaration is alarming – and it’s not alarmist to point that out.
Tony of South Yarra is also misreading. The post isn’t saying that climate change isn’t alarming, but that some have accused some Greens of gilding the lily with overly apocalyptic discourses. Tim and Paul responded to that. It’s annoying that some commenters don’t take the time, or have the willingness, to read and understand.
Kim
That’s rich. You are more than welcome to employ your own nomenclature for professionals. Call a quantity surveyor a pastry-chef; a psychiatric nurse a forensic accountant; you may even call an architect Jack in the Beanstalk. Me? I shall follow the very dreary convention followed by Professor Allan and the universities where he has worked thank you very much.
Also, you would do well to impress us once more with your reading skills by pointing out where I boxed Julian Burnside into any of your little ideological boxes.
Well, it could be argue that a belief in a supernatural close to the world – ‘rapture’, or what have you – frees believers up in other areas. C S Lewis, for instant, was a prominent conservative who professed believe in a supernatural end to the world, more or less as described in the Book of Revelations, but who nonetheless managed to maintain a sensible and reasoned approach to current affairs.
There could be interesting psychological factors at work here, though. Ian Plimer is (more or less) a climate change skeptic. However, in his excellent ‘Short History of the Planet Earth’ he outlines innumerable planetary and cosmic events which have brought about, in the matter of years, months, or even seconds apocalyptic scenarios. Presumably because he has a historical perspective on such events he has a frame of reference to climate change theory that is not often available to day-to-day pundits and readers of the newspapers.
In this instance, I tend to agree with John Greenfield. It may not be just the left that are doomsayers, but there is an apocalyptic/eschatological strain to many left-wing arguments.
The T.C. Beirne School of Law:
http://www.law.uq.edu.au/professor-james-allan
The only other University where he has worked is Otago:
http://www.law.uq.edu.au/staff/tempprofiles/ja_Employment_History.pdf
Nothing whatsoever to indicate that he’s either a Professor of or a specialist in human rights law.
Hahahaha!
WTF. What pray tell might “bills of rights” be in Kimland?
Professor Allan’s behaviour on Difference of Opinion was disgraceful. He interrupted, shouted at and abused other panellists and audience members who didn’t happen to agree with him.
His lack of courtesy and professionalism was quite amazing, and the University of Queensland should be embarassed to employ such a person.
To call him a ‘human rights’ professor is on a par with calling Tony Abbott a health minister.
Unfortunately, moderator Jeff McMullen wasn’t up to the task of reigning him in, and he was allowed to dominate the so called debate.
The contrast with the reasoned and unflapable Julian Burnslide couldn’t have been more obvious.
Please don’t feed the troll, folks. Maybe he’ll go away if we make it boring for him.
Helen, re your tangent of creationism, I had a high school science teacher who proclaimed himself a creationist, and that was 15 years ago. I hope it’s not spreading. What worries me more, and I can’t quite put my finger on why, is that I’ve seen both Howard and Rudd wearing crucifixes on their lapels in recent days. What’s the story there???
His research interests are listed as “bills of rights skepticism“. Whatever that means. A scholar as opposed to a partisan advocate shouldn’t concentrate on just the negative side of an issue. But UQ Law has a long history of hiring far right professors. Some of them are almost as crazy as GMB – Von Mises fans. Another one distinguished himself for saying that the 1988 referenda would lead to “compulsory lesbianism”.
And I agree with adrian.
Thanks, tim. I shan’t respond any further to JG.
My bad. Nero metaphor acknowledged.
I think several things have added to some of the doomsday outlooks increasingly displayed.
1) MSM reluctance to cover any story they cannot report on in one small sound-bite/segment. This means Right/Left/Other commentaries get shriller and shriller in an effort to be heard.
2) Many more groups (religious and other) “talking past” each other without an even minor attempt to understand where the other is coming from – and resorting to more extreme methods to get their point across (vis-a-vis abortion in the USA).
3) Complete partisanship on the part of most major political entities resulting in an “all-or-nothing” push for legislation/outcomes that support only the viewpoint of the proponent (eg. lack of coherent water policy local or national).
Granted what I’ve listed is being taken from a bloody naive perspective and is based purely on my own biases but it does all seem to have an effect.
When I went to uni 10 years ago it was possible to have a reasoned discussion about evolution with a creationist. Friends currently at uni report being verballed and harrassed by proponents of all walks keen to “get the message across”.
I’d better stop now – sounding like an COF (crusty old fart)
The (my) point is not that climate change isn’t alarming (to some people) but that the hyperbole employed by its proponents may be achieving the opposite effect to that intended. Some will become desensitised to the doom-and-gloom scenarios being forced on them wherever they turn and will just stop listening.
I always thought that according to the Christian nutters in the US that when Israel takes over the holy land all of it, that the final battle would happen when the Beast fights the I assume the AOG, in Palestine,then the Christians will all be raptured up and everyone else will fry.
Mind you its a bit of a worry that people believe this rubbish,one could ask which one of the 345 different bibles do you believe in
Yawn. People prefer drama in their lives, and eschatology caters to that. As long as people value excitement more than accuracy in their opinions there’ll be plenty of opinion makers of all political stripes who’ll be happy to oblige them.
It’s true – human beings cannot bear very much reality.
Good post, Mark.
This is a topic that’s interested me for several years: the use of hyperbole (nay fantasy) by otherwise rational and well-educated persons.
Particularly “on the left”. I’m not saying this is never observed “on the right”, far from it. But I’m amazed that listeners who consider themselves to be “on the left”, let such hyperbole just sail through to the keeper. Why not apply some rigour to persons who are “sort of more or less coming from where you’re coming from”?
Surely someone “on the left” is not so scared of “the right” that they would never dare to criticise their own ilk?
Is this a lamentable carry-over from the ‘democratic centralism’ of past Stalinoid parties, where deviance was punished and leaders were omniscient? How could it be? Aren’t we above that slavish nonsense now?
Is it because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and one dare not cavil with one’s friend?
Australia needs robust debate, and the features I find most lacking are sincere self-criticism, and honest, calm, constructive criticism.
Federal Parliament sounds like Grade 1, most days.
In “Bastard Boys” the actor playing Julian Burnside said, “I abhor politics” – he was portrayed as effete, “upper class”, etc. When I look around the wide brown land, I sometimes concur with that sentiment.
Sad, because this thread shows we have plenty of intelligent, logical thinkers – sufficient for a blog thread anyway.
cheerio
ToSY, that’s exactly my point, too, as someone who’s worked on communicating climate change for an awfully long time. Up’ve got to strike that balance between making sure people realise the enormity of the problem and not alarming them so much that they switch off.
In fact, as many have pointed out, if people really knew and understood the true state we’re in with climate change, we’d have passed that point long ago. One of the best statements I’ve seen of that was Al Gore on Denton’s enough rope, when Denton half accused him of exactly that – taking an extreme perspective in order to scare people. Gore just looked at him and said, but this is not an extreme perspective, it’s very middle of the road.
What you nominate as the middle of the road seems to depend on where you are standing. Earlier this afternoon on the repeat of Counterpoint Bob Carter was saying that the ‘warmaholics’ of the IPCC represent one extreme of the spectrum. At the other end were people who denied that humans had any effect whatsoever.
Sensible people like him recognised that humans did have an effect, for example urban heat islands, but when you added these effects up they left no discernible signature at the global level above the noise of natural climate change.
Well, that’s a relief. We can relax and carry on as usual then!
Mark says:
I dont think that even Mark would deny that some sort of “civilizational clash” is implied by the Culture War. Although I think that the way he frames the narrative – bigoted right-wingers versus sainted minorities – is better suited to those fairy tales that some Left-wingers seem so anxious to ban.
There is some kind of global “civil war” going on. It seems to be pitting pre-modern tribalists against modern nationalists. With post-modern globalists holding the balance. (Hint: that is where the conventional Culture War interpretation fits in.)
The borders of the conflict cut accross, rather than along, the traditional boundaries of religious civilizations. It seems to be associated with the uneven and painful passage to modernity that certain regions seem to be experiencing. It flares up as a byproduct of unregulated or misregulated immigration.
In short, there is a resurgence of the old sectarian Barbarians v secular Civilians clash, which goes back to ancient Rome (vandals, huns, zealots). With the the po-mos playing a sort of sophist role.
This global civil war resonates with an echo from the “town v country” clash that reared up in 19th C political conflicts. So the conflict is regional rather than religious. I mean Anglicans are religious and they are about as civilized as you can get.
It is the “idiocy of rural life” – in the Badlands of Pakistan, hills of southern Lebanon or the hard-scrabble of West Texas – which is the enemy of civilized values. Civility after all, means “of the city”, the source of finer morals, modes and manners.
PS The Decline of the Wets is a good thing, and therefore an ideological collapse that is not worth worrying about. Unless you think porn, drugs and aimless thugs are the foundation of civilized values. Although the suspicion lurks that some “social liberals” do in fact believe this, going by what they give a free pass to.
On the one hand…”… however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience.” — Edward Gibbon, ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’
Then on the other…”I was walking along a path with two friends the sun was setting.
I felt a breath of melancholy.
Suddenly the sky turned blood-red as it tipped over into runaway greenhouse.
I stopped and leant against the railing, deathly tired looking out across flaming clouds that hung
like – blood and a sword over the deep blue fjord and town
My friends walked on – I stood there trembling with anxiety
And I felt a great, infinite scream pass
through nature.”
Mark says:
I doubt that “crisis” is even the right word for the problems we are currently experiencing. By any stretch of the imagination we are living in a golden age, of industrial performance if not cultural appearance.
If we (ie the OECD) were in the throes of a crisis we would be seeing a lot more violence going on, both intra- and inter-state. But instead we are seeing a decline in both crime and war.
This is part of what Fuuyama called the re-normalization of values after the Great Disruptions of the Class War, Cold War and Culture War that wracked our civilization for more than a century (1860-1980).
Now they were crises alright, because people were prepared to come to blows over them. Massive strikes, wars, revolutions, crime waves, protests etc.
All Homer-Dixon can point to is a few squabbles over water rights. Big deal!
I doubt that people are going to go to war over greenhouse gases. I expect that the resolution of that crisis will pass off the same way as the CFC “crisis”.
Even the Iraq War is not a harbinger of energy crises. Iraq attac is not part of the US’s struggle to control oil supplies. The US does not need Iraqi oil wells. It has been reducing its reliance on ME oil for almost a decade.
It is a struggle to control the use of oil revenues. WHat the US does not want is massive oil revenues falling into the hands of rogue state militarists. Which is probably what will happen once Iraq falls apart.
The only life-or-death crisis that humanity faces is the same old one that has always confronted it: how to best use our tools to stay alive and our rules to be nice about it. This is one crisis which I expect we will be maing some headway on in the not to distant future.
For those in Brisbane, Homer-Dixon is speaking at Griffith Uni on Tuesday:
“If only”? So the massive collapse of biodiversity that confronts us could be rectified if only those black arm-band scientists would stop whinging about it? If they’d just shut up, we wouldn’t need to be concerned about those in our very governments who actually deny the anthropogenic nature of climate change, and we’d all just pull our sleeves up and Fix It?
The catastrophe is upon us, Mark. There are species in Australia that are already becoming vulnerable, endangered or extinct as a result of climate change. There are entire ecosystems that are vanishing. As temperatures in the Australian Alps increase, a species of kookaburra is moving to higher altitudes to find the cooler temperatures it’s evolved to survive in. That’s great for that species, but now it’s preying on an endangered species of lizard that it had never encountered before. Goodbye lizard.
Scientists working in flora and fauna biodiversity in Australia are already talking about “triage”. Working out what species can be saved and which will have to die out–even with the most optimistic analyses of climate change. Given the interactive nature of ecosystems, knock one species out, and you’re going to have massive knock-on effects, many very unpredictable.
The facts are the facts, and they’re readily available to those who wish to find out about them. Yes, even the best scientists get a little emotional about it, because watching a catastrophe emerge isn’t a pretty thing. But to understate the nature of the coming catastrophe is vastly worse than getting hot under the collar.
The post, Lomandra, obviously suggests that rationality should be the response – to oppose “emotive catastrophism” is not to say there isn’t a crisis, but that the response should be a rational and measured one. There’s nothing wrong with people getting emotional, but letting emotions dictate the whole of your communicative endeavours obviously ends up failing to convince and persuade others. “Catastrophism” obviously implies something quite different from what you’re saying.
This is absolutely true Lomandra. And Bernice who got crucified on the other thread regarding carbon trading spoke the truth too.
Unfortunately, the dominant voices will still and probably forever bang on about carbon credits. and nuclear fission saving the world economy, blah blah blah.
I think the point about apocalytic thinking historically is that its proselytisers really don’t care any more about the imminent abyss or the possibility of evading or defeating it. It is just a fact for them. And more than ever today it is they who are are the realists.
Okay, take out the “emotive” but I’m still a “catastrophist”, Kim, because that’s what the science is telling us.
That people cried in the past, “We’ll all be rooned” and were wrong doesn’t mean that people crying similar messages now are wrong. It’s my experience currently that the scientists working on the cutting edge of climate change and biodiversity are very keen to find means to evade or defeat the abyss. To be honest, I think they’d be slitting their wrists if they didn’t see hope.
That is true Lomandra but I think most honest scientists would admit we have a turn around margin of perhaps 20 years tops. Even so, the planet is guaranteed now in 50 years to be have far less species biodiversity, to be poorer, less interesting, less beautiful, and provide a far more unpleasant and difficult environs for an even much larger dependent population than exists today.
As a non-scientist and am willing to self-criticise if I over indulge in generality overkill..it seems this debate of sorts,about a meeting of minds at a place,has decided to role out the red carpet to anyone that sees red with anyone else here.I do however have a problem with the motives of kookaburras ,and why they would go to higher ground,because surely it just isnt a feeling amongst the sub-species of kooka to go up hill because the bloody temperature is increasing!?In which part of their entire living systems can be found the temperature regulator that then knows the exact distance to go to ..to be so up hill that,they then feed naturally on unfamiliar reptiles!? Loving the fact research on kookas are in concert with climate change concerns ,I still find some sort of weakness in the argument about kooka behavour and why it is happening.Bear with me,I am just disturbed.
There is no “turnaround margin” to stop global warming of one to two degrees C over the next 75-100 years. That’s what we’re already committed to, irrespective of what actions we now take. Obviously, the less action, the worse the future impact, and each year we delay action, the greater the climate change commitment and the larger the effort will be required to ameliorate it over time.
That’s the “honest scientists’” assessment, taken from IPCC 2007.
Yes, you are right. I was talking about the stage after that, the big one. But all this is on the public record. And I have miles to go before I sleep, and a test tomorrow, so goodnight from me.
Phil, you are a complete darling. Keep thinking deep thoughts.
I’ll just comment on Professor James Allan, who is a fellow skeptic and one of my referees for Oxford University, before he gets rubbished any further. FWIW, his whole profile reads as follows:
He is a superb teacher and major scholar, and one legal academic who has significant experience at the Private Bar. He is also genuinely accessible to his students, which makes a major difference when it comes to something that can be opaque if taught badly – jurisprudence. Obviously I’m not in the country, so didn’t see what he said on Difference of Opinion, but I would be very surprised if he were rude.
He (like many lawyers) has his doubts about the utility of bills of rights in protecting human rights (something that has been discussed at length over at Troppo) and has a range of sophisticated arguments to support his views. I disagree with him, but that is by the by.
As for the University of Queensland law school hiring academics who do not toe standard academic lines, more power to it. It was a relief to be educated in a place where the academic staff covered the full spectrum of political views, from Marxists to libertarians and all points in between, and meant a great deal to me after an arts faculty experience that was rigidly conformist. Like it or not, von Mises was a great economic thinker whose work deserves attention, just like Marx.
Jack Strocci wrote:
No, that does not follow.
Populations with high levels of violent instability are most significantly correlated with infant mortality, which acts as a proxy for economic performance, education levels health and environmental quality. (See, for example, the State Failure Taskforce reports commissioned by the CIA for details.) That wealthy, industrialised countries are in the short term protected by their high achievement in these areas from emerging crises is hardly surprising. Those countries will generally be the last to suffer the more extreme social effects of global environmental crises, and by the time they do, there will be no turning back. Any number of environmental tipping points will have been passed.
Unfortunately, these are also the countries best equipped to find technological solutions to the crises, and simplistic analyses like “there’s no crisis here because crime and war are decreasing” are only going to delay the innovations required.
SL, I’d be really surprised if there are Marxists in the UQ Law School. And I don’t think that partisan education from the right is any better than partisan education from the left.
Philip wrote:
Sorry, I don’t know if you’re serious or not, but I’ll assume you are….
In geographical terms, if there were a 1 degree C increase in average temperature in Australia, then on average, you’d have to move either up in altitude 100 m or south 125 kilometres to maintain the same temperature. While 1 degree on average doesn’t sound like a lot, it means that the number of days of over 35 degrees C would substantially increase. Many species do not have the capacity to withstand such extremes over time and their would collapse.
Over the last decade, a number of migratory bird species have changed their arrival and departure times in correlation with changing temperatures. These are responding as outlined above, as is the kookaburra species I mentioned.
If his appearance on Difference of Opinion is any guide, Professor Allan is a self indulgent bore, who has little or no respect for those he disagrees with, and whose hectoring and bullying style is totally counter-productive to whatever far right message he is trying to convey.
Brian, I’m reminded in the false dichotomism stakes of a cartoon I used to have pinned to the wall back in my uni days. It depicted a television debate, with the compare saying ‘In the interests of balance, on my right is a government spokesman, and on my left is a wild-eyed Trot from the lunatic fringe’. Boom-boom.
And on Prof Allan, I’d echo adrian’s sentiments. He spent the entire debate attempting to ridicule his opponents rather than advance arguments in support of the resurrected Star Chamber jurisprudence he seems to favour. His undisguised contempt for the mild-mannered Julian Burnside was something to behold and seemed to grow more extravagant each time Burnside referred to the provisions of actual legislation and case law. Allan, it seems, shares the notorious Bush administration postmodernist view of the reality-based community.
Still, Allan came across as such a turd he can only have damaged his toxic cause.
DerridaDerider:
Rubbish!
The Politics of Global Warming
by Thomas Sieger Derr
Repent!
The catastrophe isn’t nigh!
” As temperatures in the Australian Alps increase, a species of kookaburra is moving to higher altitudes to find the cooler temperatures it’s evolved to survive in. That’s great for that species, but now it’s preying on an endangered species of lizard that it had never encountered before. Goodbye lizard. ”
Thanks for the explanation you gave above but does this mean that the kookaburras as a group are moving or that some die out in the warmer areas and the percentage that lived near the cooler area just start to spread out ?
What is proposed to to be providing the impetus for the birds to move ? Is it lack of suitable microclimates to support their prey? Is the increased temperature promoting disease ?
I’m a bit sympathetic to Philip on this one – the original sentence seems a wee bit anthropomorphic – the birds moving to FIND a cooler area as if they know that temperatures are rising . A link to the study would be much appreciated .
snake eater, what I don’t know about biology far exceeds what I do know, but every species has an ideal operating habitat, which temperature is part of. I think humans operate best in the 18C-26C range with clothes on and about 4C warmer without. One of our leading characteristics is our adaptability and our ability to manipulate our environments.
One of the problems with current climate change is the speed at which things are happening. Flannery reckons that change is 25 times faster than when we came out of the last ice age when the conifer forests migrated from Florida to northern Canada no doubt taking a range of bugs, birds and other flora and fauna with them. No doubt as the ecosystem moved north some species fell away and opportunities for others opened up. I’d expect for each species it has to do with a lot of factors beyond food and temperature.
But it’s possible that this particular kookaburra has missed the boat leaving for the south and is going up the mountain, which is not a good move long term.
Mark Lynas mentions the tepuis of the Guiana highlands, especially in Venezuela, plateaux arising out of the Amazon jungle and very difficult to climb. Lynas says (in his Three degrees chapter, ie 2-3C above pre-industrial levels) that two Spanish biologists estimate that a third of tepui endemic plants are likely to be wiped out.
With limited scientific resources we are going to have to make decisions on which species we want to study in detail and spend effort saving.
Kim
I am confused. You have not told SL she is wrong or a “troll.” Perhaps you are currently typing out an apology to me, which might say something like, “hi John, I am sorry for shooting my mouth off when I am clearly ignorant on the topic. Thank you for pointing out events, people, perspectives, and data that my inflexible eshatalogical theo-leftism prevents from ever shining light on my mind.”
Or maybe not.
One wonders if the delightful, cerebral and informed locutions of “Adrian” and Graham bell might ever find their way to Media Watch. Oops, wrong blog. Perhaps if they posted that at Tim Blair?
Lomandra on 24 August 2007 at 9:38 pm
I never thought I would see the day when Greenies would quote CIA reports chapter and verse to unreconstructed Cold Warriors like myself. Wonders will never cease.
Your argument implies that low-infant mortality states are not likely to create social problems. If only the fertile haus-fraus of Wilhelmine Germany could have told the Kaiser about their healthy bundles of joy we could have been spared all that unpleasantness during the 20thC.
Actually, the actual line of causation runs in almost exactly the opposite direction to the one you posit. Demographic vitality, associated with declining infant mortality, is usually a sign that trouble is brewing. A fact that French strategic planners were uneasily aware of thoughout the latter part of the 19th C. And no doubt some such fear motivates Israeli strategists contemplating their next move in the “Battle of the Cradle”.
Global demographic prognosis is for declining birth rates, especially in the North. I predict that Northern ecological problems will not be amplified by sociological crises. This is because our populations are risk-averse, highly-geared and conservative. We all have too much to lose, especially trophy children and dress circle propertys.
Demographicly mature nations with stable populations and established households (eg Japan) are nowadays incredibly boring for social critics. They almost never have any social crises what so ever. Unless you count teenage girls not giving up their places in public transport as a sign that “the end is nigh”.
Thankfully the authoritarian Asians have put a lid on Northern Hemispheric demographic growth. Nowadays it is fertile Africans, Arabians and Americas that have cranked up Southern Hemispheric population growth. Wikipedia reports:
And guess what, these Southern regions are where social crises seem to emerge with depresssing regularity. Extra children, extra mouths to feed and restless youths looking for hell to raise.
Lomandra says:
THe ecological “crisis” is not likely to reach meltdown stage leading to social crisis, at least in Northern Hemispheric nations. I am cautiously optimistic that Chinese coal plants will not fry the planet. We can work around the other problems if we all pull together ie ratify Kyoto, follow Stern, cap & trade etc
As far as I am concerned, if there is no social conflict then there is no political crisis. Political crises require antagonistic social blocs fighting over zero-sum conflicts. Whereas the tackling the ecological issue is generally a positive-sum game.
Natural disasters are quite unlike social conflicts. Humans are pretty phlegmatic about “Acts of God” that generate harm, whether they be earthquakes, floods, fires or even the flu. The Spanish Influenza killed more people than WWI, yet it caused no govts to fall. Whereas “Acts of Man” that generate harm tend to make people see red, take to the streets vote for Hitler and so on.
Ecological problems will only become sociolgical crises if contemporaneous ideological idiocy has weakened society’s ability to work as a team to deal with “tragedies of the commons” ie class warriors of the New Right and culture warriors of the New Left seeding social division and encouraging everyone to do their own thing.
Over the past generations Japan dealt with far worse ecological problems that other nations because their people pulled together in the spirit of self-sacrifice and frowned on free-riders. There is a lesson in that for mindless boosters of of “social liberalism”.
Indeed.
Poppycock Jack, Japan had an ein volk era and it was WWII. Japan’s self inflicted ecological problems, were just that – self inflicted. Segments of Japanese society were quite happy to foul up their own rivers, air and oceans until people rightly got sick of living next to a toxic river, not being able to breathe properly, and having mercury deformed children. They dealt with it like other places and passed legislation and managed to export their environmental problems to other Asian countries – not without it’s measure of contempt.
If you’re talking about natural disasters, in the last Great Tokyo Earthquake – one of the response was for the mobs to kill several thousand foreigners on the unfounded basis of rumours that they were poisoning wells and starting fires. I suppose it was their fault for being there and not being players in team Yamato. The same fears were kindled up by general race-baiter and Tokyo Mayor Ishihara who warned of foreigners rioting in the event of an earthquake. This is in a city that is ringed with harbourside fuel depots and with a reaonable chance that half the reclaimed land of the last 50 years will turn to slurry.
If you’re referring to Kobe, Kobe was an international city and home of Japan’s second most famous Chinatown. The earthquake was the trigger of a great amount of social unhease in Japan due to how bad the effects of the eathquakes were – especially to offers of foreign help like Swiss rescue teams. It also exposed the weakness of building quality and infrastructure like the Expressways.
You’ll also find that recent problems with youth have gone a bit further than girls not giving their seats up – Boy delivers severed head to police
You know, John, I don’t like the fact that your previous comment was deleted, but it might have had something to do with the sort of hostility also on display here:
hi John, I am sorry for shooting my mouth off when I am clearly ignorant on the topic. Thank you for pointing out events, people, perspectives, and data that my inflexible eshatalogical theo-leftism prevents from ever shining light on my mind.
People may be interested in this article by Thomas Homer-Dixon in yesterday’s Courier Mail wherein he addresses the question:
Brian,
People obsessed with security will use climate change to threaten peace.
People who genuinely wish to reverse climate change will be seen as threats to security.
Sorry to return to the same theme but the catastrophe may be closer than we like.
This article is very depressing reading.Where to start addressing this mess is beyond me and the anodyne suggestions at the end are fantasies .
China today is an unappreciated ,barely comprehensible ecological disaster of global proportions.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86503-p60/elizabeth-c-economy/the-great-leap-backward.html
Just on the diversity of the UQ law school, I present you with the following:
A socialist/Marxist: Graeme Orr
A postmodernist: Nick James
A libertarian: Suri Ratnapala
A ‘big C’ Conservative: Peter McDermott
A Benthamite positivist: James Allan
A feminist: Sarah Derrington
An Islamic law specialist: Ann Black
And that’s just the legal philosophy stuff, without going into areas of legal specialization.
More here.
What really distinguished the UQ law school was the fact that every single one of these people rewarded excellent arguments, regardless of their political provenance. I really valued my four years at UQ law for that reason. Disagree with them all you want, but please lay off on the ad-homs.
I think one of my comments has vanished into the spaminator.
The
comingcomic of the apocalypse.From the Difference of Opinion transcript:
Shorter Allan: All regular Channel 2 viewers are l*vvies, and I despise you.
Is Allan the Professor of Nuance at UQ?
Snake eater, I don’t have a link to the research, unfortunately–I heard about it recently in a lecture on ecosystems, climate risks and species vulnerability given by Prof Leslie Hughes, Dept of Biological Sciences, Macquarie Uni. If I find a citation, I’ll post it here. Brian’s explanation of the dynamics is pretty much as I understand it.
Jack Strocci:
Then you misread my argument. I wrote “violent instability”, not “social problems”. They are not interchangeable. Nazi Germany was many things, but internal violent instability wasn’t one of its issues. The violence within was state-sanctioned.
I assume you’re referring to demographic transition theory and are just plucking out stage two, the mortality transistion, because it supports your argument. Looking at it in isolation from overall transitions is very selective. Stage two can indeed be a source of instability because it combines high birth rates with low infant morality rates, tending to create a youth bulge that puts pressure on infrastructure, increases youth unemployment, over-stretches urban regions and education and increases social discontent. However, it seems to be an essential stage in the development from peasant agricultural societies to successful industrialised societies, as all “developed” nations have progressed to stages 3 or 4 over the last two centuries.
I haven’t time now to deal with the rest of your post (am writing a paper on, of all things, population and environment, due next week), but I’ll return to it if time permits.
Lomandra on 26 August 2007 at 9:43 am
No, it is you who “have misread my argument”. I specifically referred to Wilhelmine, rather than Nazi, Germany ie Kaiser rather than Fuhrer. It read: “If only the fertile haus-fraus of Wilhelmine Germany could have told the Kaiser…”
This is because Germany’s baby boom both pre-dated and post-dated the Third Reich. Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany were a veritable cauldron of violently instable social problems, wars, revolutions, depressions etc. Most of which were exacerbated by the millions of baby-boomed peasants flooding into the cities.
This was made worse, not better, by the evident inability of the Prussian military elite to cope with consensual democratic politics (I wonder why.) Weber spent a good deal of hand-wringing, brow-furrowing and chin-stroking on the problem before he produced his incomparable essay.
Lot of good it did, because people just went on and did what they pleased. Just shows you what a waste of time intellectuals usually are. The guy had a brain the size of the planet, came up with the right answer and even his own students ignored him.
For sure, Nazi Germany did not have much violent internal instability. But I dont think that means it was absent social crises. Its toxic combination of ethnic clan and economic class conflicts formed one long spluttering series of social crises that went off with a Gotterdamerung.
Hitler was popular because he addressed the right problem of concurrent crises. National Socialism was meant to resolve them. And it did for a while, mainly by putting a popular, although violent state-sanctioned, lid on them. But his solution, invade everyone, only made things worse in the end.
Wrong solutions to right problems being something of a speciality of German military politicians in the post-Bismarkian era.
Lomandra on 26 August 2007 at 9:43 am
You bet I am referring to demographic transition theory. No socio-biologist worth his salt would leave home without it. I make no apologies for “selective plucking” because your argument, as it stood, was manifestly false.
Lomandra said:
Wilhelmine, Weimar and Nazi Germany had low infant mortality yet were wracked with “high levels of violent instability” associated with ethnic and economic conflicts. Conversely the Indian Raj had very high infant mortality rate yet was comparatively peaceful for almost a century.
No doubt demographic variables can be associated with different “political crisis” signs depending on times and places. But that is a problem for the theory of evolution to work out, not my proposition as it stood.
Piffle. Read some Indian history.
Infant mortality might be useful as a proxy variable as Lomandra indicated. It’s ahistorical to start using it as an atemporal variable. You’ve just built your usual superstructure of self-serving ideology on top of it, Jack.
Mark, I confess to being unfamiliar with Jack Strocchi, but I was suspecting that he might be of the anti-neo-Malthusian ilk, who in my experience tend to be the Pollyannas of the free market. Would I be right?
I don’t think Jack is enamoured of the market, Lomandra. I think he’s more your social conservative with a bee in his bonnet about genetic determinism. But no doubt he will explain to you at great length what his stance entails!
Mark on 26 August 2007 at 5:47 pm
Mark you are ignorant of the pertinent historical facts. Also, your theoretical model has got a bad puncture. Otherwise, everything is fine.
Just to make sure we are not talking at cross-purposes, my link referred to the Indian Raj in the post-(1857) Mutiny to pre-(1947) Independence period, which is “almost century”.
I am assuming that you are not sufficiently ignorant of demography to contradict the first part of my proposition, namely that the Indian Raj typically “had very high infant mortality rate”. Indian infant mortality did not begin to decline to modernist levels until the Green Revolution and the introduction of antibiotics, which both occurred after the Raj.
So you must be “piffling” the second part of my proposition, namely that the Indian Raj “was comparatively peaceful for almost a century”. Obviously you imply that the post-Mutiny Indian Raj was, “comparatively” speaking, a place wracked by civil unrest and poltical violence. I deny this.
I use “comparatively” as a relativist term. I am relating India’s level of civil unrest during the late Raj period (1857-1947) to the civil unrest in the early Raj period (1773-1857); and to civil unrest in other countries during the same period of history (ie Germany 1865-1945).
I maintain that the late Raj was, comparatively speaking, a veritable ocean of calm relative to the early Raj or the later Reichs. You can choose to challenge that intepretation by referring to the Amritsar Massacre and various independence movements. Or the serene atmosphere of post-Bismarkian Germany. But this would only highlight how “piffling” is your knowledge of Indian and world history.
Armitsar was an exception to the generally non-violent nature of British rule, as proven by the inquiries launched in its wake. Looking at European and Asian history during the same time it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Indian civil society responded in kind. Evolutionary biologists call this benign form of correspectivity the “tit-for-tat” strategy.
And the various sub-continental independence movements that sprung up during the late Raj were characterised by their non-violent nature. This antipathy to violence has been the foundation of India’s fairly civil democratic political system.
Moreover India, far from being an unruly colony, did not require a large British military garrison. It also provided massive military assistance to the UK during both World Wars. Hardly a sign of seething political discontent, occasionally bursting into violence.
Indian history also neatly illustrates my argument that ecological problems do not usually translate into political crises. During the late Raj there were a number of pretty severe famines, usually associated with bad weather. These did not in themselves, as my model predicts, lead to tremendous civil unrest or direct challenges to British rule.
mark says:
Yes it might. But she did not insert the proper temporal qualification, leaving her open to empirical refutation. I did, leaving no empirical gap between theoretical bad and pad.
I am puzzled by your “ahistorical” criticism, since I am the last person to begrudge history its cyclical swings and secular shifts. You are quite right to say that it is “ahistorical to start using [infant mortality] as an atemporal variable”.
That is why my last par includes a rider warning that “demographic variables can be associated with different â??political crisisâ?? signs depending on times and places. But that is a problem for the theory of evolution to work out”.
I would have thought that noting that “political crises” depend on “times and places”, and suggesting the explanatory utility of the “theory of evolution”, shows that I am dead-set serious about avoiding “ahistorical” fallacies and insisting on the use of “temporal variables”. But there is no pleasing some folks.
mark says:
Can you please explain how my comment somehow shores up the shaky foundations of the “Strocchi-verse”? I am baffled by your criticism since there is nothing in it for me to suggest that, politically speaking, the late Reich was relatively nasty and the late Raj was relatively nice.
I don’t know what that might mean, Jack. And I think you need to have a look at more recent Indian histories.
Please try to present your case more parsimoniously.
There would be enormous difficulty in making a comparison for all sorts of reasons, but I’m totally lost as to what you are suggesting the independent variable might be.
It means that Indian civil society was relatively non-violent in response.
The independent variable was what the British Raj wanted to do, and was capable of doing, with Inida.
Modestly and pragmatically, the British left most of the traditional authority structure and almost all of the pre-existing system of land ownership intact.
The British were interested in being revenue raisers in India rather than settlers. In this sense, India is a rather unrepresentative example of nineteenth-century British imperialism.
No useful purpose at all is served in attempting to compare the Third Reich with the Raj. The British were utterly uninterested in dsplacing, much less exterminating, any part of the Indian population.
Jack was referring to the Bismarck period, not Das Dritte Reich.
Was he?
Katz has a point, Jack. Please write more briefly. I have been trying to follow your argument, but shoehorning German history from 1865-1945 into one ‘period’ for purposes of comparison is most awkward. The comparison between post-Mutiny and pre-Amritsar Raj and Bismarckian Germany is probably legitimate, but the later periods of German history (especially the Kaiser’s unpicking of Bismarck’s careful foreign policy) doesn’t really hold.
But it wasn’t! Or “relatively” compared to what? There’s just no precision in any of Jack’s attempts at comparison. I very much doubt that you could make any useful comparisons between India and Germany because the situations of the two countries were and are too different. Try coming up with something meaningful to say about contemporary India and Germany compared – it makes no difference then whether you want to go back a hundred and fifty years or whatever. There’s not a lot of coherence in Jack’s grand narrative, I’m afraid, if you scratch the surface.
That’s only partially true, Katz.
They certainly didn’t leave the traditional authority structure intact in Bengal for instance, though you could make an argument that at certain periods they were co-opted by it as well as co-opting. And they misinterpreted the farming out of revenue raising as akin to land ownership, which of course many of those who’d held tax farms were quite happy about – as they got ownership and also ersatz titles.
Which part of my qualified comment do you want to refine further?
British administration of India was a crazy quilt. Virtually any generalisation can be weakened with a counter-example.
I’ve always liked James (father of JS) Mill’s quote that the British Empire was “a vast system of outdoor relief for the upper classes”. In that sense India was a very representative example of nineteenth-century British imperialism.
Well, yes, GregM, the Raj was very characteristic of the British Empire in the sense that it was British, and also part of its Empire.
In terms of the outdoor relief for the upper clases aspect, the Raj was of several orders of magnitude greater than anywhere else in the British Empire.
Indeed, the Indian Army alone represented a huge avenue of preferment for younger sons of the British squirearchy. Nothing remotely like that existed anywhere else in the British Empire or, for that matter, in any other Empire, as far as I know.
I actually like the quote because of the perspective it gives on just who benefited from the altruism whenever I see an argument about what an altruistic enterprise the British Empire was, Katz. And also for the dig in the use of the term “outdoor relief” which in early 19th century Britain was their rudimentary form of unemployment benefits for the indigent.
The supposed altruism of the Raj was an exercise in pious self-mystification by some (perhaps many) representatives and spokespersons of the British administrative classes.
It is a moot question how many of those classes actually believed the rhetoric, before or after contact with the reality on the ground in India. No matter, for the rhetoric was lapped up by the marginal British voter.
With the voters’ support, the Raj throve as a symbol of British puissance.
Meanwhile, realists could perceive that India cost British taxpayers much more to run than could be raked off in revenue for the British state.
This model served as a fine guide for the later development of US military keynesianism, and for the Melbourne Grand Prix.
The punters were flattered to accept the drain on public revenue, while private interests (like merchants, arms manufacturers, and the “hospitality industry”) made profits hand-over-fist.
To the side a bit. There’s a highly entertaining (and entirely dismissive) review of Gray’s book here.
Back on topic, the unfolding horse flu emergency is emerging as an interesting case study in societal responses to risk. It’s still too early to tell, but if it continues it could become the X factor in the Federal election.
Brisbane folk have the opportunity to hear Thomas Homer-Dixon at The Real University on Tuesday.
As I said, the British mistook tax-farming for property rights.
Mistakes are often the result of inattention, which itself is frequently the product of lack of interest.
Lord Cornwallis can with some legitimacy be accused of complacent ignorance when he promulgated the Permanent Settlement Act (1793), but I beleive that you would agree that this was a far cry from the malign intentions of Germans towards untermenschen during German pursuit of lebensraum in Eastern Europe.
Like I said, I think the comparisons between Germany and India are silly. They’re only of interest to residents of the Strocchiverse.
I believe we are talking singularity here, Mark.
That may be so, Katz.
Katz
The truly barbaric Islamic Mongols who had been raping the subcontinent for centuries. They were simply too dopey to bring technology or the arts of administration and economics development to south Asia. Somebody else was always going to. That’s the way history works. You had better get used to it, coz it ain’t going away.
Keep your racist nonsense to yourself, JG. Your ignorance of history is embarrassing.
The Strocchiverse has just doubled in size.
Yes, Mini-J as Nabs calls him. Unfortunately for the Strocchiverse, Mini-J hasn’t yet learned to obfuscate with pseudo-scientific jargon and tons of verbiage, so the underlying crap is on display fairly nakedly.
Mark
Not quite as embarrasing as your substitution of luvvie shibboleths for historical reasoning. ‘Racist nonsense’ is merely a trope devised to shut down debate by substituting your moral vanity for reality. The days of people taking notice of morally narcissistic Leftists thinking they have a monopoly on deciding what, who, and when is ‘racist’ are long past. Mark, you would do well to learn that the past exists totally contemptuous of your personal 21st century moral pyrotechnics.
In this instance, John, there is nothing to “shut down” because your comment, like most of them, is pure ideological piffle and very far from being an example of “historical reasoning”. Your constant habit of claiming that people would “do well to…” is irritating, when almost every comment you write clearly proceeds from a deeply skewed worldview which you never subject to any critical scrutiny, dealing instead in pointless barbs about “luvvies”. If you did have any capacity for self reflection about what you write here, you might have also realised that the abuse you constantly direct towards female bloggers along with your habit of writing “I reach for my revolver” and your constant invocation of “rape” and “raping” might also be revealing something about yourself.
I suggest you take your leave from this site, and restrict your “contributions” to Catallaxy. I’m surprised that you don’t already, though on reflection, perhaps I’m not because amidst all the noise and bluster there you don’t get the attention you obviously crave.
Mark on 27 August 2007 at 2:13 pm
I would not be taking my cues from Nabakov’s characterisations. He has a nasty little habit of tattling half-falsehoods about other person’s particulars. I suppose anonymity emboldens a certain sort of letter writer.
I would expect better from you. You are developing an unpleasant tendency to hurl insults and cast aspersions when you find yourself unable to win a point by intellectual means. It detracts from your otherwise sunny disposition.
And you are riding a rather shaky high horse when you dismiss rival intellectual positions with bad-faithed bluster. You have certainly unloaded “tons of verbiage” onto the internets in a largely vain attempt to shore up the shaky foundations of your discredited cultural philosophy. And anyone who quotes Derrida with a straight face is not doing much to ward off the suspicion that they are prone to “pseudo-scientific jargon”.
The best way to keep your world view free from “underlying crap” is to put out testable theories, fess up when they are falsified and rack up some confirmed predictions. I try to do this when possible, getting egg on my face or feathers in my cap as the case may be. For some reason you seem to be a little derivative and conservative in your intellectual approach. Occupational hazard, no doubt.
Mark
Wow, you’ve ripped a doozie there. Lacan and Freud would have a field day with ‘projection issues.’ What have we got? A narrative plotted with ‘rape metaphors’ ‘well-known historical allusions,’ ‘deeply skewed,’ ‘critical.’ Yep the whole luvvie pomo box of dice.
Let me simplify it for you Mark. Your ‘analytical’ spray only reveals what a quaint, if reactionary, 1950s patronising attitude towards women you have. An unfortunate attitude you are only too keen to wheel out when you think the theatrics of moral narcissism might distract from engaging truthfully with history. In the meantime we all breathlessly await your Ode to the compassion, ingenuity, and creativity of the Mughals.
Haven’t got a clue what you’re on about, JG.