(I think this comment isn’t important for the core points of this post.)
In each case, the populations suffered, many died, and none ever recovered their pre-eminence. This seems like an obvious catastrophe, but short of an existential risk.
Do you mean “an obvious catastrophe from the perspective of the regimes that had ruled those civilizations”?
I think it’s not obvious that all/most societal collapses in history have been catastrophes from the perspectives of those society’s populations, let alone the perspectives of the world. See, for example, the book Against the Grain, which:
sets out to undermine what he calls the “standard civilizational narrative” that suggests humans chose to live settled lives based on intensive agriculture because this made people safer and more prosperous.[1] Instead, [the author] argues, people had to be forced to live in the early states, which were hierarchical, beset by malnutrition and disease, and often based on slavery. (Wikipedia)
(Though we could theoretically accept the latter view and yet still think collapses were negative for the people in those societies, because of the related turmoil.)
But this is mostly a nit-pick/tangential query, because:
I think a strong case can be made that modern liberal democratic states have improved wellbeing (even if early states didn’t)
I think a strong case can be made that a global collapse from our current civilizationwould worsen humanity’s long-term trajectory
I think we could even believe the latter case without believing the former case
This was imprecise—I meant that collapses were catastrophes for the civilizations involved, and current collapses would also be catastrophes, one which I agree would be significantly worse if they impacted humanity’s longer term trajectory. And yes, some collapses may have been net benefits—though I think the collapse of early agricultural societies did set those societies back, and were catastrophes for them—we just think that the direction of those societies was bad, so we’re unperturbed that they collapsed. The same would be said of the once-impending collapse of the antebellum South in the US, where economics was going to destroy their economy, i.e. slavery. But despite the simplicity of the cause, slavery, I will greatly simplify the political dynamics leading to the outbreak of the civil war and say that they started a war to protect their culture instead of allowing the North to supplant them. This seems like a clear civilizational catastrophe, with some large moral benefits from ending slavery.
I think that unlike the Antebelllum south, and early exploitative agricultural societies, the collapse of Rome was also a collapse that hurt civilization’s medium-term trajectory, despite taking quite a long time. And I’m hoping the ongoing collapse of the post-WWII international order isn’t a similar devolution.
(I think this comment isn’t important for the core points of this post.)
Do you mean “an obvious catastrophe from the perspective of the regimes that had ruled those civilizations”?
I think it’s not obvious that all/most societal collapses in history have been catastrophes from the perspectives of those society’s populations, let alone the perspectives of the world. See, for example, the book Against the Grain, which:
(Though we could theoretically accept the latter view and yet still think collapses were negative for the people in those societies, because of the related turmoil.)
But this is mostly a nit-pick/tangential query, because:
I think a strong case can be made that modern liberal democratic states have improved wellbeing (even if early states didn’t)
I think a strong case can be made that a global collapse from our current civilization would worsen humanity’s long-term trajectory
I think we could even believe the latter case without believing the former case
This was imprecise—I meant that collapses were catastrophes for the civilizations involved, and current collapses would also be catastrophes, one which I agree would be significantly worse if they impacted humanity’s longer term trajectory. And yes, some collapses may have been net benefits—though I think the collapse of early agricultural societies did set those societies back, and were catastrophes for them—we just think that the direction of those societies was bad, so we’re unperturbed that they collapsed. The same would be said of the once-impending collapse of the antebellum South in the US, where economics was going to destroy their economy, i.e. slavery. But despite the simplicity of the cause, slavery, I will greatly simplify the political dynamics leading to the outbreak of the civil war and say that they started a war to protect their culture instead of allowing the North to supplant them. This seems like a clear civilizational catastrophe, with some large moral benefits from ending slavery.
I think that unlike the Antebelllum south, and early exploitative agricultural societies, the collapse of Rome was also a collapse that hurt civilization’s medium-term trajectory, despite taking quite a long time. And I’m hoping the ongoing collapse of the post-WWII international order isn’t a similar devolution.