Soon after it was published, I listened to an audiobook (abridged) version of Collapse (2005) by Jared Diamond. It is about how several societies destroyed their ecosystem and died. One example was Easter Island; the islanders cut down all the trees, and disappeared. The whole book was meant as a warning, of course: This can happen to us. At first I liked it — interesting stories. Then I heard that Jane Jacobs didn’t like it. I was unable to find out why. I began to wonder what I’d missed.
Now I can guess what she’d say: “ Collapse doesn’t make clear that overexploitation has been avoided countless times. That is the usual outcome. Even before cities, humans were constantly creating new ways to make a living, which decreased reliance on the old ways.”
I could make a video that shows Michael Jordan missing 20 free throws in a row. Every moment would be true but the whole thing would be false. That’s not far from what Collapse does — at least the audiobook version.
this is a really lame ‘criticism’.
it’s like the “you’re not reporting on the _good_ news” criticism of media coverage of Iraq. The analogy is too close for comfort, and i’m very surprised – possibly even disappointed – to read it here.
I believe that most of the people who criticize Diamond and his work are jealous that he’s achieved remarkable success and popularity, and his work stands up, which makes a lot of people who think they are really smart – look bad. Lots of other people, however, _love_ Diamond, and for good reason. He’s not petty – he just does what he does, and reading what he’s written and watching the shows he’s been on – it’s very clear that he does his work, at least in part, in the service of humanity.
Of course, the book is titled ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed”. Now, I’m not a very educated person – I don’t have a PhD – and I don’t know much about anthropology and literary criticism, but the title leads me to think that this particular book might be about the _collapse_ of civilizations, as opposed to maybe the _triumph_ of civilizations. But that’s just me. I wouldn’t expect a book on bicycles, or on the nature of clowns, and I wouldn’t be so pretentious as to tell someone they wrote their book ‘incorrectly’ – they should have talked to _me_, first. Instead, I would write it myself. And if i couldn’t write it myself, I would not lob hand grenades in a ham-handed attempt to try to bolster my own public image.
If I just didn’t like the book for some inconsequential reason – like it didn’t use the proper font or something – I would just tell the truth. I would say:
“You know, this is a good book, but I did not like it because I prefer books that avoid attempting to drive home the seriousness of the situation so as to act as a warning, but instead try to alleviate our fears about our collapsing environment so that we can be lulled back to sleep, if we weren’t already. But that’s just me.”
Or…
“You know, this is probably a great book for some people, but I hated it. It spent far too much time talking about how the occupation of Iraq was being lost, and not nearly enough time talking about how the occupation of Iraq was being _won_. But, you know, that’s just my opinion.”
There are lots of books about the Romans. This book, however, seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of those factors which lead to the collapse of any civilization. It is _not_, obviously, intended to act as a cheerleader for civilizations that have managed to continue to exist either by design or by chance. This book is a warning and reference and analysis that can be used by regular people, citizens, public policy planners, central planners, and politicians to stave off the collapse of one particular country/society – the good old US of A.
Now, if Diamond is wrong – say so. If his logic is flawed or his theories nonsensical or his writing just utter crap, then say so, but don’t waste my time with some overly-qualitative, essentially-meaningless, personal preference that has nothing to do with the central theme of the book. It’s petty, bad style, and it does not help ‘the cause’. You’d be better off criticizing the color of the book jacket.
Would we take seriously criticism of the Shangri La Diet that suggested that it did not spend enough time talking about how thin people stay thin without the need for dieting? It’s absurd. If we want to read everything about everything without diving too deeply, we go to Wikipedia, not the local book store.
>8-(
Peter, okay, why do you think Jane Jacobs didn’t like Collapse? It’s quite possible I’m wrong, that she had a different reason. I’m sure it wasn’t jealousy, however.
Not only is it lame criticism, it’s actually wrong. Maybe Diamond didn’t emphasize the point enough for your liking, but he does discuss why Greenland failed and Iceland and the Faeroes didn’t, and which differing factors amongst Polynesian Islands led to success or failure which sounds like….exactly what you were saying he should have written about.
Ben, thanks for those examples. Yes, I knew Diamond described successes as well as failures. If successes outnumber failures 1000-to-1, and a book describes 5 failures and 5 successes it’s not so obvious that book has done a good job. In any case, I was trying to figure out what Jacobs didn’t like about it. Do you have a better idea than mine?
I guess someone could always ask her why she didn’t like the book. Many comedies are based on one person wondering why another person did what they did, and drawing the wrong conclusion — which leads to an embarrassing culmination (A man suspects his wife of cheating on him based on a few snippets of odd behavior he exhibits. She hatches a plan to catch him in the act, and her plan unfolds only to discover he was planning a surprise birthday party for her which she ruins due to acting on her suspicions). Many tragedies are based on the same thing but with tragic results (Romeo & Juliet is a great example). Sometimes a direct confrontation can stave off useless or even misleading speculation. But the process of speculation (basically hypothesis generation) can be so much fun I guess we are all often tempted to engage in it!
Why did the chicken cross the road. (speculation: there must be a rooster on the other side!)
I wish I could ask her! But I don’t trust Ouiji boards.
Peter, okay, why do you think Jane Jacobs didn’t like Collapse?
As a commenter suggested, we should first try to figure out what she actually thought and or said about Collapse – if anything at all. We know something about what she thought about GG&S:
From p. 19 of ‘Dark Age Ahead’, Jane Jacobs writes:
“Diamond’s analysis of winners and losers, elegantly precise and predictable wherever the forces at work were geography, climate, plants, animals, microorganisms, and demography, turned mushy and unreliable as soon as human decisions entered the equation. Yet, as he himself was the first to admit, a science of human history that omits the behavior of human beings is an absurdity. His brilliant analysis, as is, explains most outcomes of unequal contests between cultural winners and losers. But I think he limited its explanatory power unnecessarily by the way he posed his initial question: ‘What are the advantages that enable cultural conquerors to win conflicts with losers?’
The first part of her book basically paints JD as the Second Coming, so I wouldn’t expect jealousy would get the better of her.
I only know about JJ what I read here, what I read in wiki, and what i’ve been unable to find via Google – any criticism of Collapse. I only know of critics of JD what I read all over the web a few months ago – dozens/hundreds of his colleagues crucifying him with anonymous comments at annual conferences.
The wiki review page talks about the anonymous review in the Economist that is ‘generally favorable’, but that criticizes the book on a couple of counts, one suggesting that Collapse is not ‘optimistic enough’. Does that actually mean anything at all?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)#The_Economist
https://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PVVVRJQ
So, given Jacobs’ heavy praise of Diamond in her book, Dark Age Ahead, the tone of this review does not seem like it would be her. But who knows?
More reviews, here:
https://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/diamondjared/collapse
So, let’s forget about whether Jane Jacobs said anything about Collapse or not, and concentrate on Seth’s review.
Does it make sense to criticize, say, a zombie movie because it has too much killing?
A hot fudge sundae because it has too many calories?
A book about the collapse of societies because it has too many stories of…collapsing societies?
I’m gonna argue ‘no’.
So, take this particular line:
“doesn’t make clear that overexploitation has been avoided countless times”
Should Diamond have gathered a count of Failed vs. Survived societies throughout the history of mankind, and then finding that more societies survived than failed (true? false?), provided a more reassuring message to the masses – “but don’t worry – this _probably_ won’t happen here”?
Should he have added to his book a analysis that would have provided a Pentagon-like statistical likelihood of the collapse of American society?
It just doesn’t strike me as valid criticism – or particularly meaningful criticism. It’s like criticizing your soon-to-be-daughter-in-law because she decided to attend Michigan instead of a true Ivy League school.
I could be wrong, no doubt – I often am – but a book is just a book – it can’t be all things to all people – and you wouldn’t want it to be – else you end up with an intractable tomb of pseudo-scientific babble – something not completely dissimilar from The World is Flat.
Had to get that dig in.
But seriously – is the book being unfair? Did Katrina not just happen? Did I not just see bodies floating in the streets? Are the polar ice caps not melting, and water levels rising, and islands disappearing, and societies already collapsing? Are we not locked into our horrendous suburban nightmare of asphalt and pollution and oil dependency? Are India and China not industrializing like crazy? Are people not starving? Are large swaths of the lower-48 not drying up? Is ocean pH not acidifying? Did Arnold not just declare a state of emergency because the salmon disappeared? Are many and serious scientists around the world not calling for drastic national policy changes across the board, across the world, to avoid complete ecological collapse? Is not ecological disaster already occurring – the only thing left to decide is whether or not it actually does wipe us out completely?
I don’t know Diamond’s intentions in writing the book, but I kinda doubt it was to suggest we should all tuck our heads between our legs and kiss it all goodbye. I prefer to think he wrote it in the spirit of humanity, which his previous book/articles/shows demonstrated. I have a feeling that Diamond believes that we can, in fact, survive.
The “has been avoided countless times” phrase, to me, is really just a repackaged “don’t worry about it, nothing to see here, keep consuming, move along”.
Anybody can write whatever book they want – and anyone can offer any criticism they want – but they should do it with an appreciation for the context of the times. If Collapse doesn’t go out of its way to give us all a warm fuzzy about how everything will _probably_ be alright, then I’m not gonna be all that upset about it, because I know this is exactly what the people who own this country would want – they want us to go back to sleep, to mind our own business, and stay out of the affairs of learned men.
Jacobs writes in Dark Age Ahead (p. 24-25):
“It may seem surprising that I do not single out such failings as racism, profligate environmental destruction, crime, voters’ distrust of politicians and thus low turnouts for elections, and the enlarging gulf between rich and poor along with attrition of the middle class. Why not those five, rather than the five [community and family; higher education; science and technology; taxes and governmental powers; self-policing by the learned professions] that I have selected to concentrate upon? Surely the second five indicate serious cultural dysfunction. Perhaps my judgment is wrong, but I think these second five are symptoms of breakdown in the five I have chosen to discuss.”
This suggests that Jacobs would not fault “Collapse” so much for its cherry-picking, but rather for misdiagnosing the nature of the problem.
Good point, Nansen.
Here’s a review that criticizes ‘Collapse’ for being too optimistic:
https://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/154
A second disappointment that readers already familiar with the subject matter may encounter with Collapse is the perception that, while the author is warning us that modern industrial civilization may be headed the way of the Classic Maya or the Easter Islanders, he seems satisfied with this warning. He offers, in essence, a message of the type we have come to expect: Humanity is undermining its ecological viability, but there are things we can do to turn the tide. Indeed, Diamond predictably devotes the last section of his last chapter to “reasons for hope,” leaving the reader with evidence for thinking that collapse will not occur in our own instance after all. …
Suggest that it’s possible to avert complete disaster, and you’re basically making the case that you’re OK with things as they are. But talk too much about collapse, and well, you’re not being optimistic enough. I guess winning the Pulitzer is a bit like winning the Heisman – something to be avoided.
One point to recognize, I think, is that Collapse focuses on collapses that have had at least an environmental component to their failure. It looks like Jacobs’ book ‘Dark Age Ahead’ considers all societal failures.
Seems like it might be a chicken/egg problem to a certain extent, too. Is our environment being wrecked because most Americans want it? No, of course not – but it helps that we have a dysfunctional government. Is our government more dysfunctional than any other has ever been?
I’ll have to read Jacobs’ books. Not crazy about those ’5 pillars’. To me, for instance, ‘family’ and ‘community’ are easily separable and are mostly mutually exclusive in America today. The ‘higher education’ and ‘intellectual subservience’ make me think we’re attempting to put too much stock in intellectuals to save us or any other society. Haven’t intellectuals always been servants of power?
Here’s Diamond at UCSB:
https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3641551737596451012
Isn’t Jacobs refering to “Guns Germs & Steel” in Dark Age Ahead?
Guns Germs & Steel might rightly be criticized for taking the social elements out of an examination of societies. However, Diamond bases his arguments on the assumption that cultures adapt to and become rooted in their specific environments. Collapse is the extension of Guns, Germs & Steel, an attempt to add human culture to the equation.,/p>
(In Guns, Germs & Steel, he does briefly address this topic, though, when he illustrates Australian aboriginals, who were given the technology for bows and arrows and rejected it.)