In Civilization and Capitalism, Fernand Braudel points out that civilizations are generally deeply conservative. In food, clothing, social structure and religion—even interior decorating–they change slowly. Bread was eaten in ancient Egypt just as it is in modern Spain, and the consumption of rice in Asia is of similar antiquity.
This stability is reinforced by culture, even by religion. Of course people in the West eat potatoes and rice, rye and oats. But wheat bread is still the “staff of life,” just as it was in the time of Christ, and it figures in Communion, the central ritual of Christianity.
It took over two hundred years for corn to be widely accepted in the Old World, and even longer for the potato, a change that might have taken a generation or two according to strictly rational considerations.
And likewise with dress: people in parts of the Middle East still dress as Moses dressed, and dress in China seems not to have changed until Sun Yat-sen’s reforms in 1912.
And in ideology there is a similar conservatism. China did not change its model of social relationships and of governance from Confucius’ time to the fall of the Manchu dynasty. Neither Buddhism nor the Mongols nor the Manchus changed anything basic. The population endured periodic invasions, anarchy, famine and depopulation—-only to repeatedly restore exactly the same form of government once peace made it possible.
In India caste distinctions are often still important, despite the opposition of venerated leaders from the Buddha to Gandhi. And in Islam the opposition to calendar reform and usury endure.
Everywhere people cling to decisions and habits formed centuries or millennia ago. They don’t cling to everything, of course, but they cling to enough to prove Braudel’s point.
However, there is one exception—Western civilization. In some contexts the West shows a voracious appetite for change. And indeed we have integrated change into our institutions and values—-the concept of “progress” has given the West its unique dynamism, and lies right at the heart of both Marxism and capitalism. Along with science, progress is the Western concept that has affected the non-Western world most profoundly.
So that’s nice, isn’t it? We are the civilization that embraced change, and in return we got untold power and wealth, and modernized the world. Almost beautiful, isn’t it? Until you remember *why* other civilizations have generally rejected change, or only accepted it when it was closely directed by sacred forces—as in the Book of Revelation.
Very simply, people reject change because (a) it’s dangerous and alienating, and only produces good at a cost, and (b) they over-estimate their ability to prevent change.
If you look at the changes in the West in the last century—we see World Wars I and II, the fall of European monarchies, the rise of fascism and communism, the rise of America, the Cold War, the development of post-Marxist plutocratic regimes in both Russia and China (and something similar here), the introduction of Buddhism to the West, the invention of nuclear weapons, computers, antibiotics and mass propaganda and a general disillusion with Christianity—except where it has linked itself to nationalism. People no longer read poetry or ancient mythology and they no longer sing with their friends—for the most part. Over the past century, people in the West have become significantly more isolated and less grounded in their communities and families.
That’s a lot of change, and we have to ask ourselves, is change spiraling out of control? And has it been worth it so far this century?
Most human societies have regarded change as an enemy, and there’s some justice to that. Once the state has established a degree of peace and continuity, then the farmers can usually make a crop without being attacked by soldiers or bandits, and that gives the entire society relative food security. The general feeling has been that if we’ve got enough to eat then we can deal with our other problems on a case-by-case basis. Forget the local sultan and his nutty ideas—are the farmers able to plant without being robbed or murdered?
(And the need for social stability to ensure the food supply is especially strong where agriculture depends on complex irrigation systems, as in ancient Mesopotamia and China. A minor revolt or invasion upstream can result in mass starvation.)
And this is not just a matter of food security. Having a common ideology or religion certainly limits conflict within a society or civilization. When the Norwegians under Olaf II debated the adoption of Christianity, one practical merchant pointed out that if the Norwegians became Christians they were less likely to be murdered and robbed on trading voyages to Christian countries. That apparently cut through all the discussion about Odin and Jesus and the merchant carried his point. If even Vikings appreciate the safety of a common ideology….
But when confronted by change, the West has often seen opportunity and not potential disaster. It has said: Let ‘er rip. Things are going to change anyway, so let’s ride that wave. From the spice craze of medieval times to smartphones, we have gone after change before it could come after us. And there’s a crazy realism there that obviously produces results.
But choosing the path of change doesn’t free us from the risks that other civilizations have rightly pointed out. Instead, it intensifies those risks and possibly makes them non-linear. The West’s strategy has been successful—if you don’t look too closely—but glorying in our success we now deny that there were ever any risks! But there were, and there still are.
And living in a society that mostly discounts the cost of change is stressful and alienating, because it’s a denial of reality. Our inability to govern change almost destroyed our civilization during the twentieth century. We lived in continuous danger from 1914 until the end of the Cold War, and the respite we got from the fall of communism was welcome, but only temporary.
As I write this, in September 2016, there is a chance Donald Trump will be the next president. In a civilization that can reasonably channel the forces of change, my last sentence could never have been written.
And if the West, which has ridden change from success to success for six centuries, can no longer produce success through change, then what? What is the basis of our civilization?
The Socialist Investor 