American Atlantis

This month I’d like to return to some of the themes that started this series. Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new status report on global warming, and the news was not good, as the report again concluded, with fresh evidence, that the consequences of inaction in stemming the production of greenhouse gas emissions will be catastrophic. Meanwhile, the search for a missing airliner brought to light the sorry state of the world’s oceans, as various supposed signs of the aircraft’s remains turned out to be massive agglomerations of floating garbage. The impending ecological collapse of the world’s oceans, of which greenhouse gas emissions is only one of several causes, would lead to the collapse of the world’s ecosystem as a whole, and that would be a disaster that no form of technological adaptation could protect us from.

Another recent news item was that astronomers have discovered, in a distant star system, a planet similar to the Earth that has a very high probability of sustaining life. This is just the latest of a growing number of these types of discoveries, and many scientists have concluded that there are an uncountable number of earth-like planets throughout the universe, and that therefore it is very likely that life has evolved on other worlds, including intelligent life. As I have pondered over this, I have wondered if planets such as these (including our own) are, in a sense wombs, fostering the growth and development of a life force that eventually becomes – through its most intelligent species – self-aware. It would seem that a successful birth would constitute the ability of that species to free itself from the bonds of its mother world, thereby ensuring its permanent survival, and its ability to grow and thrive beyond the confines of its home and its “mother”. But as with human births, success is not ensured. A species that was unable to free itself in this manner – a species that exhausted the resources within its womb without being able to escape it – would be like a stillbirth. And, in the worst cases, the tragedy would kill child and mother alike, leaving the world incapable of supporting new life that might succeed where this species had failed.

We seem to be reaching a critical state in our own “birthing” as a species, and I see a number of distinct outcomes. First, there is always the possibility that our collective wisdom will actually catch up with our technological capabilities, we will restore a healthy equilibrium within our ecosystem, and a collective pattern of behavior will be adopted in which we foster the health and sustainability of all systems of life on this planet. If and when we do develop the means to leave the bounds of this planet in any permanent sort of way, it will not be because we are fleeing from it, but rather because we have proven ourselves capable of living harmoniously and sustainably within the ecosystem of which we are a part, and can take that wisdom with us in our colonizing expeditions into the expanses of interstellar space. Second, there is the possibility that while we are headed for catastrophe, it is not one that will destroy us as a species, but will merely throw us into another dark age. According to Plato, the Egyptian high priests of his day believed that the civilizations of the world, including their own, had already gone through several such cycles: civilization, catastrophe, dark age (in which all of the collective learning and wisdom of the previous civilization had been forgotten), and re-emergence. A third outcome is that the human species will produce a catastrophe on a global scale of such severity that it – along with many other species of life on the planet – will be destroyed, but the earth, after a sufficiently long expanse of time, will be able to regenerate a new ecology, with entirely new life forms, including, perhaps, one that will become self-aware: a younger “sibling” (but one that need not be humanoid) which will have the opportunity to succeed in the birthing process where we failed. And of course, the greatest catastrophe would be one which left the earth completely barren and lifeless, with no capacity to produce new life forms of any kind. (There is a fifth possibility, which is the stuff of science fiction, and which I call “Intervention”. In this scenario, there are other intelligent species in the universe, more advanced than our own, at least one of which is aware of our existence, and this other species will, when it becomes apparent that global catastrophe is inevitable, forcibly prevent this catastrophe from occurring. Assuming that it is a species more enlightened than our own, I imagine that it would refrain from doing this until the last possible moment, because it would understand the deep trauma that such an action would have on a world civilization which believes that its members are the only sentient beings in the universe.)

Given America’s unique place in modern civilization – having the world’s largest economy, the most powerful military, and an ubiquitous presence and level of global influence due to American television and cinema – it is rational to assume that the fate of our civilization will be inextricably linked to the fate of America. And if the outcome is an unpleasant one, then there will be many among the survivors (if any) who will lay much of the blame on the United States for it. They will point out that in spite of harboring only one-twentieth of the world’s population, the U.S. consumed at least one-fifth of its energy output and its extracted natural resources, and that about one-fourth of cumulative man-made greenhouse gases emitted since the dawn of the industrial revolution came from the U.S. Of course, those countries in the world currently under the sway of religious extremism would add the less tangible – but to them more damning – complaint that America’s moral decadence poisoned civilization, and planted the seeds of its eventual universal decay. If the second of my five outcomes is the one that lies in our future, then it is not unlikely that America will loom large in the dimmed memory of the great civilization that had fallen, like the legendary Atlantis, believed to have been the most powerful nation of its day, which, after reaching the height of its powers and the depths of its moral decadence, collapsed and disappeared in the wake of a single, powerful, cataclysmic event.

In this future Dark Age, in a world stripped of technology, and with only scant surviving records of the time before the catastrophe (much of which might be incomprehensible to most of the population), the history passed on from generation to generation would consist mainly of a collection of legends and tall tales, colorfully told by village elders. Children would be told that a great and powerful kingdom once existed where all of the races of the world lived together in harmony. The people were not oppressed: there were no tyrants, and no fear of foreign invasion. The civilization of that age had developed a powerful sorcery, with flying boats in which people could soar through the air at very high speeds, crossing a continent or an ocean in just a matter of hours. A person living in that time could communicate with any other person, any place in the world, instantly. Cures had been found for many of the most debilitating diseases. People living in this kingdom did so in great comfort, in shelters that were never too cold or too hot, and they had abundant food from all types of animals, even though most of them had never seen a farm – never had to raise a crop or hunt and kill prey. Of course, there would be even more far-fetched tales, shared by some of the more colorful storytellers. America, they would claim, was so powerful that it possessed weapons that could destroy entire cities. And some of its men, they would insist, had even walked on the surface of the moon. 

The legends would tell how this mythical nation had risen to global preeminence after playing a critical role in a war of epic proportions, affecting all of the peoples on the earth, in which the forces of good and evil had been pitted against each other. In the aftermath of the final victory, this nation offered hope, as the guarantor of freedom, prosperity, and universal goodwill for all future generations, all over the world. But then something went wrong. To many peoples living outside of its borders, it seemed that it was exercising its power abroad not to support these ideals, but to maintain the level of comfort and security that its own citizens had grown accustomed to. And these citizens seemed to inculcate a growing insularity to the rest of the world, limiting their attention to their own escapist entertainments, and in petty personal dramas that were only of real importance to themselves. As they distracted themselves in these ways, the richest and most powerful among them pursued a cynical course of self-aggrandizement. A growing divide emerged between the wealthy and the poor, and the wealthy, through their pawns who led the nation on their behalf, came up with increasingly draconian ways to keep the poor in check. Those who would not be satisfied with the meager alms and entertainments offered to them were imprisoned, or marginalized in other ways. But as the ranks of the poor and destitute grew, it became increasingly difficult to keep their growing discontent at bay. 

And this American Atlantis found itself facing external problems as well. Although it was by far the most powerful nation of any on the planet, it soon found its resources overextended, as former allies, disillusioned by its policies, could no longer be counted upon to support it, while the ranks of its foreign enemies continued to grow. It found itself increasingly isolated, and shocked at its growing impotence to effectively manage crises beyond its borders and, eventually, within its borders as well. As the end times approached, it tried to withdraw from the affairs of the world, and concentrate its powers on domestic matters. But by then, these, too, had become irrevocably tattered, divided between a wealthy minority and a mass of discontented, impoverished, angry peasants, with an increasingly militarized police force keeping the precarious peace.

The legends would be unclear on how the final fall happened. It seemed to come about as the result of both global calamities and internal upheaval. All that would be certain to posterity is that when this great nation fell, there were few that mourned its passing. But there had been no room for celebration either, because with the collapse of this former beacon of hope, and guarantor of peace and safety, the world itself descended into chaos. Within a single generation, the magic disappeared, and the destitute survivors were left to ponder only how to fill their bellies from one day to the next.

Centuries had passed since the great cataclysm, and the brief Golden Age that had preceded it. The nations that existed then had become only unrecognizable names to the survivors now, and their boundaries long forgotten. But many still held a special reverence for this great semi-mythical land – this America – that had once been the crown jewel of the diadem of human civilization’s greatest era. Some even fancied themselves direct descendants of the remnant of its survivors, and felt a special sense of mission to reclaim its past glory. 

What had been the cause of America’s greatness? Did it simply come about as the result of a fortunate endowment of resources? Or was there a way of life, a code, a religion, or some other system of ethics and practices that was responsible? Was it the wisdom of its leaders that shaped its destiny, or the character of its people? What did its people believe? What precepts did they live by? How did they conduct their day-to-day lives? How were their ideals and standards different than those held and practiced by the uncountable generations of peoples that had lived before them?

And, of equal importance, what had gone wrong? Had America merely been a victim of its own success, following the inexorable path of growth, dominance, and decline that beset every other empire still vaguely remembered in the patchwork history of this future age? Had hubris destroyed it, or corruption brought on by an excess of wealth and power? Was there some defect latent in the American character that had lain dormant during the younger and more vigorous phase of its history, which had finally emerged when there were no longer any external checks to keep it at bay? Had something been lost: an idea, or an ideal, or a set of guiding principles? Or, on the other hand, had some dangerous innovation taken place – the introduction of some pernicious new idea or practice that acted like a toxin or a virus, invading the body, weakening it, sickening it, and then destroying it, as well as all with whom it came into contact?

In this distant, post-apocalyptic Dark Age, the primitive, semi-barbaric remnant might despair of ever rediscovering the powerful magic once practiced by their ancestors, if they believed that such magic had ever really existed at all. But the more intelligent among them – the more enlightened – would want to try to preserve and study whatever could be retrieved from the oral and written remnant of that Golden Age, and its America, hoping that with patient diligence, they might someday understand the wisdom in this legacy, and by doing so bring back to the world a method for resurrecting at least a rudiment of the former greatness, purged of the poisons that had brought that greatness to a disastrous and calamitous end.

As I envision this dark scenario of a post-apocalyptic future, I can’t help but remember the climactic scene in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, when Ebenezer Scrooge is presented with a vision of his own end by the Ghost of Christmas Future. He is shown a group of businessmen who have learned of the death of a “wretched man”, and say that they will attend the funeral only if lunch is provided. He is also shown former servants plundering the bedroom fixtures of the deceased. None, it seems, genuinely lament the passing of this man. And finally, when Scrooge is taken to the neglected tombstone with his own name written upon it, he begs the silent spirit to tell him if the things that he has been shown are images of an inevitable future, or if it is still possible to change it. The book has a happy ending, as Scrooge awakens to find himself safely in his own bed, alive and well, on Christmas morning, happily prepared to live the life of a repentant man. I can only hope that we – as a nation and as a civilization – after fully appreciating the disastrous course that we have currently set ourselves upon, will have a similar epiphany, and find ourselves facing a new morning, with fresh possibilities for writing a happier ending, and a corresponding resolve to do so.