I just received the Audubon special issue: “Birds & Climate Change”. I was forewarned of its depressing contents by news articles and recent podcasts. Paging through it steered my mind to a discussion last weekend with one of my running buddies.
He said it was surprising how long the Sunni-Shiite divide had persisted especially considering the advances and scientific knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age. I replied this brought to mind my history studies of the tribal warfare which persisted among the tribes of southern African culminating with the conquests by the Zulus. And then I added a comment I had read, that notwithstanding the killings and destruction, those events paled in comparison with the savagery amongst the so called civilized Western countries during the First and Second World Wars. So it is all about perspective, I said.
He said “good point” and then added “we should leave the world in as good a condition as we find it”, thinking this was innocuous and would not occasion much discussion. But this brought me to my next theme. This is a worthy objective for an individual and for a society and civilization as well, but when we accept this as the primary yardstick for a nation’s or civilization’s contribution (let’s ignore medical advances, rule of law, democracy, the technological revolution) the results of the analysis are disturbing.
For instance it can well be argued that the American Indians tended to and enhanced their natural surroundings. This is the unavoidable conclusion you reach after reading “Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources” by Kat Anderson. I have heard similar comments on the role of Australian aboriginals before they were largely obliterated. So these native peoples left their environment as good as or better than when they found it. And if this is the worth of a civilization then our accomplished civilization is doing poorly indeed.