Civilizations are precarious. They seem remarkably permanent to the people who are living within them, but history has a long list of civilizations that have failed. Some were conquered. However most just extended themselves beyond their problem-solving capabilities until a combination of environmental stresses and internal failures eroded the viability of the structure that held them together.
Our present global civilization is a marvellous accomplishment for humanity, unprecedented in human history. Yet it is beginning to feel precarious because the corrective responses that are needed from us to address its stresses seem beyond our human capabilities. Some of these stresses feel overwhelming because of their immensity and complexity. Others feel overwhelming because they seem to exceed our ability to act collectively with resolve and persistence. The uncomfortable feeling we are getting is that the very success of a global civilization may contain the germ of its failure.
The first symptom of failure is, paradoxically, its success. At a global population of 8 billion and rising, such enormous numbers overtax natural resources, create governance problems, and generate internal social stresses because of crowding, inequities, cultural differences and religious friction. Political and environmental problems in one place send refugees elsewhere, creating a chain reaction of disorder.
People, of course, have always been on the move, but in more tribal and parochial times this movement was not usually welcomed. The historical evidence is that conquerers either obliterated, enslaved, or forcefully absorbed the conquered. In the last few centuries, trade encouraged the movement of products, but the movement of people was generally discouraged. Today, in more modern and enlightened cultures, immigration is generally welcomed as a source of new ideas, energy and vitality, but excessive numbers of refugees in short time spans do not allow opportunity for cultural adaptation. Environmental instability is generating millions of these refugees, and this condition is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades.
Modern civilization’s latest creation is a so-called Global Village, an entire planet integrated by networks of communication, trade and travel. It is an incredible human feat of organization and structure, although, as the Canadian media guru, Marshall McLuhan, said when he coined the term, “I didn’t say they would like each other.” Indeed, the very process of pressing us closer and closer together by the processes of global integration inadvertently makes us increasingly aware of our individual, cultural and aspirational differences. Multiculturalism has not been the organizing principle in past human societies—Imperial Rome may have been the exception, however the inclusion of diversity into its culture may have caused the loss of its internal cohesion, which was the ultimate source of its demise. Being the same yet different is a cultural and sociological paradox that still needs a comprehensive solution. We are trying to solve this multicultural problem with the United Nations and with other international organizations, but with mixed results.
As people are stressed around the planet and within countries by miscellaneous environmental disasters ranging from fires and floods to urban crowding and novel pandemics, they search for safer territory. And this brings us to our little Island in the wholeness of things.
Quadra has always been in the process of changing, but in the last few years the Island feels like it has been “discovered”, a term that comes with a paradox because the very qualities of lifestyle that are luring people here are exactly the ones that are threatened by their arrival. We are living humanity’s global experience in microcosm. How do the energetic aspirations of 8 billion people crowd into one planet while preserving the qualities that allowed them to proliferate and prosper; how do the energetic aspirations of hundreds of new people crowd into one small island while preserving the qualities of reclusion and community that lured them here?
Tourist populations are the surface of this dilemma—as the master of unintended oxymorons, Yogi Berra, once said, “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” Getting on and off Quadra for residents has become a challenge. But this is the least of the problems. Affordable housing, age demographics, supportive services, health providers and development pressures are challenges to be solved without destroying the qualities that make the Island so liveable.
The solution to these problems resides along the razor’s edge that separates wisdom from folly. The precariousness of our future seems to be sensed by a mood of serious consideration that haunts everything that now happens on Quadra. Like the rest of humanity, we are losing our innocence, not only because of the climate crisis, but because of a population overload. Escape is not possible, not even in the best of all possible places. Welcome to the new reality.
Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra
Top photo credit: rushing towards the setting sun – Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash
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