I have dubbed this post of the Global Sustainability series as Societal Survival, not as a nod to so-called survivalists, but instead to address the question of what allows a society to survive and succeed.
For a possible answer to this question, I turn to a concept from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (no relation), which looks at the reasons why some societies were more successful at surviving than others. The premise of the book as a whole is that the development and success of any particular society was largely based on the specific geography surrounding the society.
But what does that mean in terms of contemporary society, which arguably covers the entire globe, and therefore has access to all of the geography on the planet? For this, I will focus on the author's suggestion about what happens as a society grows in population and population density. The suggestion is that in order for a society to survive for any length of time, it must - first and foremost - ensure that the primary means of conflict resolution is not violence (at least not to the extent of death). If the primary means of conflict resolution is such violence, the society would tend to die off through self-destruction.
As an example, we will start at the smallest scale, a society can be (and in the ancient past often was) only a few people who are related to each other (i.e. a family). In this case, the society would probably be about 2-10 people, which have enough in the way of outside forces to contend with (i.e. nature and neighboring families) in order to survive, so regularly killing each other to resolve conflicts would quickly result in the weakening of the group as a whole, making it less likely to survive. That is, if it did not reduce the group down to just a single individual following a series of conflicts. Thus, at least in the past, societies that for whatever reason honored family/blood/relational ties were more likely to survive.
As population and population density in an area increases, it becomes less possible for an individual family to only resolve conflicts internally. Instead, it becomes necessary for multiple families to interact and resolve conflicts while analogously not killing each other. On the smallest version of this scale, the same institution of 'family' can simply be adapted and expanded through inter-marriage. A society consisting of three or four families can easily have members of each family married to one another. Thus, no new institution needs to be established to allow the society to survive.
But what happens in a case where there are so many families in a society that it is impractical for everyone to be related to one another? The institution of family is no longer sufficient to ensure societal survival, because it is entirely possible for two people to come in conflict who have no familial relation to one another (and therefore no reason not to kill each other). Unfortunately, at this scale, conflicts are never isolated. Brothers, cousins, and other family members are likely to come to the aid of one another during the conflict or in search of revenge if family-ties are the sole institution dissuading the use of violence. Again, the possible result being the weakening or destruction of the society.
In cases, where societies were successfully able to develop beyond this scale of population, the author points to other institutions such as religion and/or forms of patriotism, which gave members of the society some additional motivation to not kill one another. Now, I will not go into the specifics of any particular religion or try to reference any particularly patriotic group. However, as far as I know, one of the factors common to all modern religions that have lasted any amount of time and have any extensive following is that they suggest that it is wrong or evil to kill others (or at least to kill others who also believe in the same religion). Thus, the institution of religion can help a society survive.
Although, just as a society can grow to the extent that the institution of family is not sufficient to ensure the non-destruction of its population, a further increase in population and/or population density often results in a society with multiple religions! What institution comes next?
Extrapolating the line of reasoning and following historical precedent, it seems as though at each scale of population growth a new institution is introduced, developed, created, or at least utilized in order to help with the survival of (and success of) the society. In addition to the institutions of family and religion, two other institutions are readily evident in our contemporary global society and obviously serve the same function: government and the economy.
In the next post, I will take some time to expand upon what I mean by an 'institution of societal survival' before I begin discussing the institutions of government and the economy.
Cheers,
Sean
Table of Contents for the Global Sustainability series:
- Introduction
- Societal Survival <-- you are here
- Institutionality
- Democratic Necessity
- Economic Disconnect
- (In)Conclusion
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