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258 The Origin of Cmlisation

images of televised news coverage, to remind us that social stress is part of life, not just part of history. Peter Jenkins said of Britain's 1985 riots:

It is a mistake to suppose that a riot is a futile exercise in violence. A riot is an attention gaining euent, one of the oldest political techniques known to roan. The 1981 riots (in Britain) resulted in Lord Scarraan, in morę money and some temporary improvement. The latest riots will yield similar results. ¹³⁹

The long run perspectiwe exposes trends which lie embedded in archaeologi-cal and histoncal evidence, but thev remain enigmatically obscure unless the To tal Culture System is recognised to exist as a comprehensiwe noneąuilibrium entity. It has been operating at least sińce the onset of the second cultural phase, with the advent and spread of global agriculture to replace hunter-gathering as the mainstream human economic base. Indeed, the climatic changes accompanying the retreat of the last Ice Age are consistent with an even longer period of extreme instability in the system, extending back over raore than 16,000 years. For the last ten thousand years the ratę of cultural change has been perceptibly accelerat ing, culminating some four hundred years ago, in the incipient emergence of industrial capitalism as the Italian Renaissance slowly pulled Europę away from a decaying feudal past towards the dawn of the modern era. Thus each generation wrestles with transition because the fuli modern age will not arriwe until global industrialisation is uni-yęrsally in force worldwide, although even then, the prospects for long-term stability are not encouraging. As Pngogine sagely remarks, "In the world that we are familiar with equilibrium is a rare and precarious state."¹⁴⁰

Culture tnertia and the Critical Zonę

Intense social stress may also be a manifestation of the perennial struggle be twe en change and continuity in human affairs. In chapter 3 we discussed the modę of adaptation by which an open responsive system might modify itself as it faces continuing internal and external fluctuating conditions. Dur ing the critical zonę phase on the classic culture curve the system might be expected to adjust vigorously to its changing situation. This is the crucial period when a 11 the factors dictating its futurę fate are com/erging towards a climacteric. The build-up of these conflicting pathways are clearly evident in the dramas of social events, for the forces supporting continuity and the 9tatus quo allow a cultural inertia to dewelop in tandem with the processes encouraging growth or change. While resiśteńce to change is dominant the trajectory is coerced to maintain its original course. However, if the forces promoting change insidiously gather, the smooth continuation of this course becomes increasingly threatened. Throughout the critical zonę phase the convergence of the original trajectory with the surreptitious responding elements may manage for a while to coexist in an uneasy truce. A stable eouanimity rarely ensues, howewer, for the confluence of the opposing forces

ultimately throws the system into a state of acute reactivity as a crisis adaptation unfolds. Minor adaptations may conatantly take place at the margins, but the inherent lack of responsiueness to incoming Information plus an inbuilt reluctance to face change constructiwely and in good order, tnean that crisis management has been the usual modę for changes to be mtroduced into cultural affairs. The difference in outcome between inching change and crisis disruption is Meli illuStrated by comparing a peasants' reuolt to a fuli blown reuolut ion. Thus, a peasants' reuolt would be an indication of mass dissent to accepted practices which is containable by the forces of the state. fhey may modify their behauiour on a modest scalę, once order is restored or, alternatively, may then entirely disregard the incident. A reuolution is an example of a major discontinuity exploding onto the centre stage during the critical zonę phase. Nom the forces demanding change will wrest the initiatiue away from the forces aiding cultural inertia, and the ultimate trajectory for futurę cultural deuelopment will moue decisiuely away from its original course.

Civilisation Failures

The record is replete with failed ciuilisations, but why should it abound with constant failures? The answer is surely to be sought in the Systems base of culture itself. Euery example remains a unique permutation of a uigoraus cultural efflorescence, expanding to a climactic peak of excellence before suffering an ultimate decline, but the underlying processes gowerning this sequence are astonishingly uniform. Ęvery case demonstrates a series of chain reaction euents and actiuities proceeding across a broad front, encompassing all five subsystems in fact, to reach a pinnacle of knowledge, political and socio-economic success exclusively characteristic of that society. Yet this brief moment of triumph frequently proued an ephemeral achieuement, all too swiftly lost, as a myriad of aduerse factors came into greater prorainence within a total equation of advances and setbacks.

Then, in reverse, a multi-uariate complex of factors conuerged into another chain reaction sequence of events, but this time, being mainly adverse, they helped to tip the whole edifice onto a downturn direction, perpetuating them-selues in spirals of decline. Professor Rostow writes, "In the whole sweep of human experience, the most natural image of man's fate as a social animal -in the life of families and great empires - is a cycle around some relatiuely static norm."¹⁴¹ Repeatedly, written records and the archaeology confirm this sequence, albeit in patchy fragments only, for the civilisations of the ancient world. This sorry fate befell the Sumerians, Harappans, Babylonians, Chinese, Assyrians, Mycenaeans, Pers i ans, Greeks and Romans. Euentually, it was repeated during the first millennium AD by the New World ciuilisations of Mesoamerica.