Two kinds of climate change

[GliderGuider]

It's ironic that American Republicans deny the evidence of global climate change, while they are themselves evidence of a parallel and equally threatening change in the human climate of the planet. It's also worrying but not surprising that these changes in both the physical and cultural climates can be traced back to the same root cause: our global culture of endless growth.

Where did our culture of endless growth come from? Why is it so hard to combat?

IMO it arose largely from a combination of two factors.

The first is the fact that we are social animals, for whom status is one of the most significant psychosocial markers. It is part of our normal behaviour to seek to raise our social status. How we do that, what behaviors we engage in to raise our status, is a key to defining a society's culture. That is where the second factor comes in to play.

Whereas in an indigenous culture the accumulation and dissemination of wisdom might confer social status, in the Eurasian dominator culture that has swept the world, status comes primarily from material wealth and the social power that wealth enables. Since seeking and maintaining status is one of the most powerful human social urges, our cultures are characterized, shaped and driven by our socially agreed status symbols.

Wisdom acknowledges limits; wealth does not. I speculate that a cultural shift from wisdom to wealth as a status symbol began in about 3,500 BC, and was part of the spread of warlike, patristic, dominator cultures out of the Middle East, North Africa and Western Asia. My speculation is in line with James DeMeo's "Saharasia" hypothesis, that links this culture shift to a severe climatic aridification event in that region.

People who who seek social status have to do it in terms of what their society agrees raises their status. It doesn't matter how intelligent or stupid they are. In order to reject the concept of growth, or even recognize its dangers, you have to reject the social definition of wealth as status. If you can't do that, you're stuck in the cultural paradigm. We are now reaping the final rewards of of that unfortunate 5,500 year old redefinition of status.

And it all started with climate change.

The Saharasia Hypothesis

[2naSalit]

1. Some very good points there...

and i agree that climate is what drove/drives many social shifts.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I dont think it was a shift from wisdom to wealth

Consider other species, say, chimanzees for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Social_structure

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Chimpanzees live in large multi-male and multi-female social groups, which are called communities. Within a community, the position of an individual and the influence the individual has on others dictates a definite social hierarchy. Chimpanzees live in a leaner hierarchy wherein more than one individual may be dominant enough to dominate other members of lower rank. Typically, a dominant male is referred to as the alpha male. The alpha male is the highest-ranking male that controls the group and maintains order during disputes. In chimpanzee society, the 'dominant male' sometimes is not the largest or strongest male but rather the most manipulative and political male that can influence the goings on within a group. Male chimpanzees typically attain dominance by cultivating allies who will support that individual during future ambitions for power. The alpha male regularly displays by puffing his normally slim coat up to increase view size and charge to seem as threatening and as powerful as possible; this behaviour serves to intimidate other members and thereby maintain power and authority, and it may be fundamental to the alpha male's holding on to his status. Lower-ranking chimpanzees will show respect by submissively gesturing in body language or reaching out their hands while grunting. Female chimpanzees will show deference to the alpha male by presenting their hindquarters.

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