Jared Diamond warns: Don't insulate yourself

Thursday night, my favorite non-fiction author, Jared Diamond, visited Flint for the second time in the last four years.

Both times the Pulitizer Prize winning author drew large crowds of adults and students (most of whom were getting some kind of extra college credit) for about a 45-minute lecture on environmental history.

Diamond is the author of what I consider to be the most influential book on history in the last 50 years. His work, Guns, Germs and Steel created a cottage industry of sorts for environmental history epics.

At its core, the book explains why history took one course over another. Why, for instance, peoples of Eurasian descent settled the New World by force of might rather than the reverse.

Diamond cites numerous factors, mostly involving very mundane environmental factors involved in food production and continental axes.

What he gives is a scientific explanation for inequality, in essence, debunking age-old theories turned stereotypes about human beings and their classifications.

Diamond, however, didn't spend much time talking about Guns, Germs and Steel on Thursday. He spoke extensively on his latest book entitled Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed

This book is not as earth-shattering as the former, but it's close. In it, are numerous case studies on failed societes (as well as successful ones) like Easter Island, the Western Roman Empire, the Empire of the Mayas, etc.

He gave several reasons for failures and successes, but the one that stands tallest, at least in my mind, is this: societies tend toward failure when leaders (be they kings, presidents, emperors, senators, shoguns, chiefs, etc.) insulate themselves from the problems that plague societies.

Environmental issues like deforestation, pollution, global warming, etc. came as no surprise to me nor did issues of geopolitical concern. But this concept of top-end insulation is brilliant.

The moral of the story is this: Societies collapse from within. The Barbarian hordes weren't responsible for the fall of Rome--Rome was. American society (read Western society) is not on the verge of collapse, but we are facing what amount to world-historic problems which require correct answers. Only time will tell if our leaders are close enough to the problems.