Can History Predict the Future? – The Atlantic
One of Turchin s most unwelcome conclusions is that complex societies arise through war. The effect of war is to reward communities that organize themselves to fight and survive, and it tends to wipe out ones that are simple and small-scale. No one wants to accept that we live in the societies we do rich, complex ones with universities and museums and philosophy and art because of an ugly thing like war, he said. But the data are clear: Darwinian processes select for complex societies because they kill off simpler ones. The notion that democracy finds its strength in its essential goodness and moral improvement over its rival systems is likewise fanciful. Instead, democratic societies flourish because they have a memory of being nearly obliterated by an external enemy. They avoided extinction only through collective action, and the memory of that collective action makes democratic politics easier to conduct in the present, Turchin said. There is a very close correlation between adopting democratic institutions and having to fight a war for survival.
I’m tempted to say, Analysis: True. But instead I’ll just say, just a sad “Ai chihuahua.”