DECLINE AND FALL, OR EVOLUTION?

The Sack of Rome by Louis de Sylvestre (French,1847-1926)

There is speculation that lead in Rome's water supply contributed to that city-state's decline and fall. Makes sense. Lead is a deadly poison. Lead pipes were standard in Western cities into the 20th century. They still convey public water today in many places.

Our Western Civilization is in decline, according to some Cassandras. Some declare that atheism's undermining of Christianity is the culprit. Some say it is corporate capitalism. Others say it is simply a cyclic inevitability, amply explained by human history. I call the latter "The Tower of Babel Hypothesis". 

As a habitual skeptic, I have to question the panic some seem to experience at the prospect of a reshaping of our civilization. Yes, civilizations come and go in terms of their superficial trappings. That is clear from looking at human history. But humanity itself, as a whole, is evolving as well. Today's electronic audio-visual communication and other STEM developments have accelerated that evolution. 

Western Civilization, in my opinion, is wobbling, not falling. The wobble comes from too much change too fast in too many places on the planet. Change is no longer localized. A smaller world is a more labile world. A wave in a pond cannot grow into a tsunami. But a wave in a world that is interconnected by a global ocean of communication, trade and travel can have multiple tsunamis at any given time.

The up side is this: The whole world seems to want to join in The West's prosperity. I intentionally say "join" rather than "plunder". I am being optimistic here. 

The Gauls, Visigoths, Huns and Vandals who sacked Rome eventually ended up building our current Western Civilization from Rome's recycled parts. Western Civilization is Greco-Roman. So, Roman civilization never disappeared. This is a realization that should inspire hope in the more pessimistic. 

Our Muslim fellow humans who are now pouring into Western Europe are not barbarians, despite the barbarous evils of the fundamentalists of their religion. The caravans of under-educated Latinos trying to enter the U.S. may lack good English or good manners, but they are initiated into Western culture. They are not barbarians. Information technology has unified all of us. It may also be the key to averting a collapse of  our better Western ideals and technology.

Those of us who speak and write English fluently have both privilege and responsibility in this unifying global civilization. We are privileged regardless of race or ethnicity. English is well established as the global language of STEM fields which provide the technology which is absolutely indispensable to keep this world of 7+ billion humans functioning. 

I believe The West has been stingy in its sharing of that technology. Yes, Western businesses have sold it at great profit, but how much of it has been shared? Obviously, not enough. If more had been shared, the waves of fleeing migrants would not be so overwhelmingly large.

Perhaps the cries of socialism in today's politics in The West are simply a reminder from the lower echelons of prosperity that the downward economic flow of technology's finest benefits, such as available education and public infrastructure, has been too restricted by those who have profited so greatly from selling it. The fabled "free market" does not and cannot exist in our current world. Wealth accumulation is a fixed game, linked to heredity and political corruption. 

Western Civilization is morphing with Eastern Civilization to form a Global Civilization. Neither will be left the same, but that is not a failing. That is evolution. Those at the top of that Global Civilization have the power to improve the transition from its current chaotic state of war and mass migration. Right now, they are doing a pretty poor job of it. And they prefer to blame those who are left behind.