Healing A Civilization, Before It Dies

CIVILIZATIONS ARE LIKE MACHINES. The more complicated they become, the more likely they are to break down. But there is a big difference between machines and humans, other than the obvious organic, living nature of humans. Machines just sit there, broken and silent. People respond by withdrawing from reality (whatever that might be), going into denial. In modern America, our wealthy elite build mansions and surround them with iron clad fences, blocking out the world, blocking out the lesser levels of society, and sit inside with high def big screen TVs, amid other forms of hedonism and consumerism. The lesser sorts, the teeming masses, escape into cheap thrills and drugs. Entertainment is cheap in America, packaged and sold according to all income levels; escape is easy, escape is a profit making business for our corporate masters, who control our culture. Meanwhile, society's resources are spent and exhausted amid ever concentrating wealth, a new gilded age, until the hollowed out shell shatters and collapses. Ancient Rome went from a population of one million in the third century A.D. to about ten thousand in less than two hundred years, as the birthrate declined, and Romans fled the city, looking for opportunity, any opportunity, elswehere. When opportunity is not here, it might be elsewhere, and people flock into and out of cities as they see a better chance for survival - somewhere, anywhere else. The same happened to the Mayans. Fragmentation, decreasing efficiency, increasing disorganization and inefficiency of resource allotment, societal collapse. In America, the gilded age of the late nineteenth century was followed by the "progressive era", when society changed course, and directed more resources into areas where they were more needed. Corporate criminal behavior was regulated and outlawed, the income tax was introduced, wealth started flowing a bit more towards the working class, which produced it. Our hope now may well be the coming of age of solar energy, new technologies to improve our health and environment, and a growing awareness for the need for social activism. Societal healing is always possible, in spite of the lessons of the Romans, the Mayans, and others before and since. The question is: how sick does a civilization become, when does the healing start, if it ever starts, and how much healing takes place?