HAVE WE AS A SPECIES REACHED OUR INTELLECTUAL ZENITH?

HAVE WE AS A SPECIES REACHED OUR INTELLECTUAL ZENITH?

Too Much Magic by James Howard Kunstler

A Book Review

            James Howard Kunstler, in Too Much Magic, literally predicts the demise of Western culture due to waning supplies of oil.  He foresees that when the expected diminution of energy is combined with the effects of Global Warming, society, as we know it, will cease to exist.  We will be relegated to small, isolated, essentially self-sufficient communities.               

            Kunstler’s pessimism is based upon two assumptions: First, that oil and energy resources are limited.  With that there is little disagreement.  Certainly, he is correct that the Earth’s resources are limited. There are climatological effects that have and are impacting the environment, sometimes catastrophically. 

           He is correct that much of humanity’s success is due to what has been essentially an unlimited supply of cheap energy.  He also “believes” that humanity’s ability to create, innovate and manage itself is inherently capped.  That is the issue and question!  Have we as a species reached our intellectual zenith?  It may appear as if humanity has achieved or reached its full potential.  This conclusion is tenible because the next step is difficult to envision.  Of course, that is always the case until someone conceives and takes the next step.  Who could envision the printing press until Gutenberg invented it?  Who visualized the internet before it became commonplace?  We do not know the next step until we see it!

            A collateral concept that Kunstler asserts is that we, as a species, will not be able to self-correct.  He predicts that we will follow, on a Global scale, the fatal paths of self-consumption that led to self-destruction in societies investigated by Jared Diamond in Collapse.  Kunstler concludes that hunger and starvation will become the norm even as he observes that the food available today is totally unsatisfactory. For example, he observes that:  “the processed food industry is killing the public by a steady overdose of corn syrup derivatives… the evolution of cultural habits has erased the memory of what it is like to eat real food.  Eating has…become a furtive, solitary pursuit, a sugar addiction…fried food sheds and convenience stores promotes relief seeking via mindless snacking.”    His thesis is that humanity can not overcome diminishing energy and food resources, the effects of which are being magnified by Climate Change.

             A third consideration, not addressed by Kunstler but just as important because we are global, is whether we, as a species, can confront our prejudices and begin to learn to cohabit peacefully.  Greed and selfishness are obvious comfounding factors especially by those who are unwilling to comprimise even where it would be of substantial benefit to everyone alike.  For example, the arms manufacturers are willing to accept carnage throughout the world, including in the USA, so long as they continue to receive their revenue and dividends.  Selfishness is compounded by racial and religious intolerance in the perpetuation of armed chaos globally.  If we destroy each other, there will be no need to be concerned with either energy sources or global warming.

            If, however, we develop tolerance and control greed, then the energy issue must be confronted. Then, the issue of  humanity’s intellectual and creative limits will be broached and put to the test. Kunstler is either right or he is not. Regardless his timetable, the bottom line is that the energy resources are finite. The true question, however, is whether our intellectual capabilities limited.  This writer is an optimist and of the opinion that “the sky is the limit”!  That optimism is tempered by considerations of genetically driven selfishness, which, if Easter Island and the Mayan societies are any example, is more dominant.