Jared Diamond’s Collapse – How societies choose to fail or succeed (2005) lists five factors that he considers central to the ability of human groups to survive over time:
- Inadvertent environmental damage: Based on the fragility of the environment or misuse of environmental resources, the group degrades the environment they live in to such an extent that it is unable to support them.
- Climate change: The climate, in the form of temperature and the amount of rainfall, either supports the ability of human groups to provide resources (food, water and shelter) needed to survive and/or thrive. Extended droughts and cold spells have been shown to adversely effect large scale societies such as the Anasazi people of the American southwest to such an extent that their entire culture collapsed.
- Hostile neighbors: Chronic conflicts with adjoining groups (many times combined with the above factors) weaken the group’s ability to survive. These conflicts may lead to the group’s being conquered by the hostile neighbor.
- Decreased support by friendly neighbors: Very few societies have access to all the resources needed to survive and grow. Trade with other groups provides these, and without it, societies fail.
- Society’s responses to its problems: The choices the group makes to cope with the above conditions ultimately determines their success or failure over time. Diamond covers both in his book. Paradoxically, he points out that clinging to the decisions that made the group viable previously, often led to their downfall.
(Diamond, 2005)
I see these factors as central to identifying the crises that groups face. The ways that human organizations handle their environmental resources and their relationships with others directly determine their success or failure. At each stage of development, the decisions the group makes to respond to these factors seem critical to survival as well as organizing at higher levels of complexity.
Diamond never uses the term epigenetic, however, his descriptions of the factors which influence the human groups he explores and the decisions they make in the face of their environmental challenges are examples of the epigenetic process in action. I urge followers of this blog to read Collapse, and Diamond's earlier work, Guns, Germs and Steel.
Diamond, Jared (2005) Collapse – How societies choose to fail or succeed. Penguin,
