JANUARY 24 2016
DARK AGE AHEAD
I bought the book on May 18 2004, paid $29.95 plus tax, and never read it until this past week. The book? DARK AGE AHEAD, written by Jane Jacobs, an expatriate American then living in Toronto and famous for writing THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES.
So why did I suddenly pay attention to DARK AGE AHEAD which has lingered among my many volumes for a dozen years?
It now looks that we have a DARK AGE AHEAD. This was confirmed by a remark of Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the WEF, the World Economic Forum, meeting this past week in Davos, Switzerland. There some 2000 people, able to pay the $40,000 – thus quite rich, mostly the billionaires of this world, and people on expense accounts such as Justin Trudeau – gather to listen, talk and network.
Mr. Schwab said that, “As the crash in commodities prices spreads economic woe across the developing world, Europe could face a wave of migration that will eclipse today’s refugee crisis. Look how many countries in Africa, for example, depend on the income from oil exports. Now imagine 1 billion inhabitants, imagine they all move north.”
North, of course, means Europe, already overcrowded and itself in a deep financial fall and experiencing immense political turmoil, its union ready to fall apart, according to financier George Soros.
Last week these rich folk in DAVOS, probably controlling more than 50 percent of the world’s wealth, were asked what they thought were the five elements they feared the most. Not surprisingly INVOLUNTARY MIGRATION, as outlined above, was number 1. Also quite understandable was the fear for EXTREME WEATHER, now happening along the Atlantic Seaboard in the USA, indicating the direct effects of CLIMATE CHANGE. The third most feared possibility was a FAILED CLIMATIC MITIGATION. In other words, people in charge of the money tap fear that COP 21 and the climate decisions taken in Paris have no real bite. Number 4 on the most dreaded list was INTERSTATE CONFLICT. With the Sunnis battling the Shiites, or Iran versus Saudi Arabia, that is a real possibility. The fifth choice was A MAJOR NATURAL CATASTROPHE. Yes, a major earthquake is overdue on the west coast of the North America.
Basically all five dangers are climate related. The refugee crisis has been speeded up by desertification of Africa, exacerbated by lack of rain and too many people. The same is true for Interstate conflict, while weather and natural catastrophes too are caused by humans. Yes, brace yourself: there is a DARK AGE AHEAD.
There is a deep connection between THE DARK AGE and mass migration. Jane Jacobs writes, “The collapse of Rome and the onset of its famous Dark Age coincided with a great migration of peoples.”
This reminded me of my grade school days at the J. C. Wirtz Christian School in Groningen in the mid 1930’s.
In my youth learning was different. History, for instance, was partly taught by rote, memorizing important dates. These most memorable happenings were drilled into us by the entire class reciting such dates as, “In the year 400 A. D. massive people movements took place when the Romans retreated and the Franks and Sachs replaced them.” That was in a world where the entire European population could be counted in the low tens of millions.
Now imagine 1 billion moving north, that is into Europe. Fact is that oil comprises the major income for African nations, of which the price is down by 60 percent. Combine that with extensive drought in many African regions causing real famine and there is a recipe for disaster, and a clear incentive to move to seemingly greener pasture: a true sign of THE DARK AGE TO COME.
Jane Jacobs’ book does not mention such causes as Climate Change, political turmoil, or overpopulation. Instead she focuses on the disappearance of cultural facets, of which today there are plenty indications. Take, for instance, the onslaught on the family structure, evident today in the Trump tragedy, which is fueled by disorientation and plain revolt against authority. Or look at education. It should prepare for the future, and how to cope with a changed economic, cultural and atmospheric climate. Christian Education should especially prepare the youth foremost for the New Creation to come. Is that happening?
The Dark Ages that followed the Fall of Rome caused mass amnesia: all too evident today as well. Then people simply forgot the accomplishments of the past. They lost the vitality of the Roman culture and ‘dwelt in darkness’, a well-known biblical term too: the Bible says that people who no longer care for God and his commands ‘live in darkness’. She writes how in the Dark Age, the years from 500 to 1000 A.D., everything disappeared: education for the children; religions and rituals; the composition of households and societies; crafts, skills, – everything was gone
Jacobs feels that our headlong rushing into the Internet Age gives a false sense of security about the permanence of our culture. Suppose, by some act of terrorism, the entire Internet collapses, or a solar storm eliminates all electricity – as happened in September 1859 when flares from the sun melted all transformers – we suddenly are sunk: there is no back-up system. In 1859 society did not depend on electricity: now it cannot do without it.
Back to what’s going on in the USA on the electoral front. There, politically THE DARK AGE has arrived. The 2 political parties are on a self-destructive path. With the primary season now upon them, so far none of the self-appointed candidates for the Presidency have given an inkling of what is to be done in an age of desperation for many, with the middle class disappearing, the money-market in free fall, and the climate in disarray. And now, to top all the nonsense Sarah Palin is blabbing her baloney. Yes, we certainly already live in THE DARK AGE.
Writes Jim Kunstler in his recent column: “The Republican Party may be closer to outright blowup since the rank and file will never accept Donald Trump as their legitimate candidate, and Trump has nothing but contempt for the rank and file. If Trump manages to win enough primaries and collect a big mass of delegate votes, the July convention in Cleveland will be the site of a mass political suicide. The party brass, including governors, congressmen, senators and their donor cronies will find some device to deprive Trump of his prize, and the Trump groundlings will revolt against that move, and the whole nomination process will be turned over to the courts, and the result will be a broken organization. The Federal Election Commission may then have to appeal to Capitol Hill to postpone the general election. The obvious further result will be a constitutional crisis. Political legitimacy is shattered. Enter, some Pentagon general on a white horse.”
Matters are no better on the Democrat ticket. It seems that at the very time when bi-partisan cooperation is urgently needed and a united front established, chaos reigns.
It no longer looks like Hillary is a shoo-in for the presidency. Bernie Sanders runs on the Socialist ticket which works in Canada but is a dirty word in the USA, as bad as being a communist. That Europe and Canada have done well under Socialism means nothing in the USA where ignorance reigns. Jane Jacobs calls that Social Amnesia, an affliction that affects a good portion of its population.
So what does the USA population want? The TRUMP phenomenon is proof that a good portion of the American population wants a revolution, wants to kick out the current administration, the current political system, and wants to do away with whoever is calling the shots, forgetting that a true revolution always devours its own children first. This political disarray is a direct result of the collapse of the nuclear family, as divorce, single parenthood, creates disoriented people, shorn of all stability and portraying all the symptoms of the Coming Dark Age. Jane Jacobs sees the disappearance of the stable family as one reason for the Dark Age to come.
It is generally agreed that America, the world’s leading economy, is beset by complex, intractable problems that don’t have a clear villain: technological change displaces workers; globalization and the rapid movement of people destabilize communities; family structures have dissolved. Add that the political order in the Middle East is teetering, that the Chinese economy is cratering and inequality rising, and the entire global order is fraying. None of the candidates addresses these factors: lots of accusations, but no solutions, lots of pretending, but no positive proposals.
Fact is that the problems we now face are systemic: they cannot be solved anymore: in a word we are approaching A DARK AGE.
In the meantime Trump and his Republican cohorts feed on cultural xenophobia. Where Canada welcomes Syrian refugees, the ignorant South sees a terrorist behind each non-white face. A trip to Toronto, where non-whites dominate and live in perfect harmony, might be a good lesson is civics for them, but then their FAITH is closed to any change.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29: 18).
That is exactly the reason for darkness. Without a guiding light we wander aimlessly. American religious fundamentalism only creates more darkness. The coming DARK AGE is being fueled by a false religion. It is the Religious Right that propels the success of both Trump and Cruz, the two leading Republican candidates: it consists of the living dead: theirs is not the politics of hope grounded in a vision of a common good for all people and the betterment of creation, but a nihilistic cynicism driven by resentment and anxiety.
Of course money too is a cause, or the lack thereof. Jane Jacobs writes that one of the causes of the Roman Collapse as described in Gibbon’s DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE was the constant shortage of money in the treasury, insufficient to pay Rome’s legions. Ultimately chronic deficits and the debasement of money contributed to Rome’s downfall and the coming of the Dark Age. The reason for the current financial problems is DEBT. Basically debt will do us in, aided by global environmental degradation which will speed up the process exponentially.
Back to Davos, today’s center of the world’s interest.
The Bible talks about sharing pain: if one member of the human race suffers, then all members suffer. When progress and wellbeing is not shared then all wellbeing is under pressure. Politicians and business leaders gathered in the Swiss Alps this past week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running deeper than at any time in decades. Just 62 people, 53 of them men, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the entire world population and the richest 1 percent own more than the other 99 percent put together. That bodes ill for all.
Thomas L. Friedman last week Wednesday wrote a highly disturbing column in the New York Times. He wondered whether seismic shifts are occurring in the global system with immense unpredictable consequences. He asks “What if a bunch of eras are ending all at once? What if China’s growth is ending, which accounts for 50 percent of global growth when multiplier effect is taken into account? “What if…” and he lists a number of factors on which our world depends. “What if the $100-a-barrel era is over, devastating the many economies, including Canada, which need this range to survive? What if the robots, the software and the automation eliminate jobs and cause mass unemployment? What if Climate Change will advance unabated because cutting down the use of carbon fuels means higher unemployment?
So when I connect the dots between the question marks and the raw reality, the result is A NEW DARK AGE.
Is this just another one of my pessimistic pieces? Perhaps. I don’t say that this is going to be revealed this week, this month, even this year, but all trends point that way. Be forewarned, because this gives us time to prepare.
So what must we do? Is there a way out? Must we throw in the towel, become disheartened and slowly get sucked into the abyss? That a DARK AGE is upon us in the foreseeable future is beyond doubt. All signs point to severe financial and environmental degradation.
Next week I will attempt to present some positive thoughts on how to survive the coming cataclysm that might suddenly be upon us.