What always disappoints me in analyses like the one by Mr Morris is the apparently inevitable inclusion of a final "optimistic" assertion that for "us" things may be different because "we are so much more able to understand and counter the forces that threaten us—if we have the wit and purpose to do so."
Why do we assume that "our" wit and "our" wisdom is in anyway more fit to the task at hand than was that of the Romans to their task, or that of the good burghers of the Song Dynasty to theirs? This myopic assumption that we have somehow finally arrived at a final objective, level field of self awareness and self determination is not just a specious attempt to Pollyanna a happy ending for the precious contemporary reader, more seriously it actually contradicts and invalidates the main thrust of the argument of the author.
The reality is there are booms and busts even in the realm of ideas, and they operate at levels above and beyond the reach of our wit and our wisdom. We, the Romans and the Song are all "us" and statistically, inevitably, macroscopic events of overthrow and senescence will eventually overwhelm us too, just as it did them.
Comment originally posted to The Economist
