Is civilization sustainable? How long do civilizations last?

The end of civilization — societal collapse — is a scary concept. But, what is the lifestyle we call “civilization” and is it worth preserving? The answers are important for moving from our dysfunctional status quo to a future of thriving on one planet’s worth of resources — one planet thriving. Increased resilience during the transition so that we can build that future is critical. Building relationships and community are two social technologies necessary for one planet thriving. Is civilization itself a solution or part of the problem?

“The problems are not new. This culture has been killing the planet for 6000 to 10000 years…Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels.” – Derrick Jensen, “Is the World a Better Place Because You Were Born?“

The culture Derrick Jensen is speaking of is civilization. In this interview,  Jensen, author of Deep Green Resistance and many other books, defines civilization as

“a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts—that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil : from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state).”

His definition of cities:

“so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life.”

Is civilization sustainable? Implicit in these definitions is the answer to the question. The answer is no.

It may sound strange to think about an alternative to civilization since we tend to associate civilization with progress, health, sophistication, and many other good things. Some argue that civilization, itself, as a way of organizing people, is unethical in addition to being unsustainable (see this article for why our current civilization is the largest, most unethical failure in human history). The following patterns emerge from civilizations:

When you think of the plains and hillsides of Iraq, is the first thing that you think of normally cedar forests so thick that sunlight never touches the ground? That’s how they were.

The first written myth of this culture is Gilgamesh going in and deforesting those hills to make cities. When you think of the Arabian peninsula, is the first thing that you think of oak savannah? That’s what it used to be. Let’s move a little bit west, and you get the cedars of Lebanon. They still have one on their flag. Greece was heavily forested. Plato commented on how deforestation was destroying the water quality in Greece. And I’m sure that those in power said, Well, we need to study it a little bit longer first, to make sure there’s a connection. Italy was heavily forested, North Africa was heavily forested. The forests of North Africa went down to make the Egyptian and Phoenician navies.

The story of any civilization is the story of the rise of city-states, which means it is the story of the funneling of resources toward these centers (in order to sustain them and cause them to grow), which means it is the story of an increasing region of unsustainability surrounded by an increasingly exploited countryside.

Because of issues like these, organizations, like Deep Green Resistance, are interested in building alternatives to civilization, capitalism, and patriarchy as a necessary condition for a just and sustainable world.

That said, the only ways of living that have ever been sustainable have been those that have been local and that have emerged from the land where they live. In other words, a social structure that might serve a people well in the deserts of what is now Arizona might not serve people well in the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. Here, life revolved around salmon. There are no salmon in the deserts of the Southwest. So what we want is for 10,000 cultures to emerge from their own landbases.

Carrying capacity of the planet and population:

notice the language: overpopulation, zero population growth. How different would our discourse be if we spoke instead of overconsumption and zero consumption growth? This shift in discourse won’t happen, of course, because zero consumption growth would destroy the capitalist economy.

Food is central to civilization, a way of life integral to cities and specialization. Civilization necessitates empire. Empire is oppressive and unsustainable. Thus, civilization is unsustainable. Put another way, civilizations end — that is the norm, not the exception.

How Long Do Civilizations Last? What is the oldest civilization?

This is an interesting article on how long civilizations last. This author has some inaccuracies (which have been corrected in the data below), but we owe him a debt of gratitude for assembling the data on 68 ancient civilizations that existed all over the world between 3000 BC and 0 BC. By the way, there’s a fun mathematical equation published by J. Richard Gott III that some claim can make predictions about the duration of any event (this method predicts about 760 years more for human existence). But, here we take an empirical approach and start with summary statistics.

	Years
Mean Duration	368
Median Duration	307.5
Max	1100
Min	14
SD	253

And now the data with no comments about nuance or complications here (but with corrected duration calculations):

Duration	Civilization Name
552	Egypt’s Old Kingdom
400	Egypt’s Middle Kingdom
108	Egypt’s New Kingdom
400	Kerma Civilization (Sudan)
210	Kushite Kingdom, Early Kingdom (Sudan)
940	Kushite Kingdom, Late Kingdom (Sudan)
302	Ptolemaic Egypt
429	Carthage (Tunisia)
156	Numidia (Algeria/Tunisia)
1100	Aksumite Empire (Ethiopia)
187	Akkadian Empire (Sumer)
46	Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumer)
299	First Babylonian Dynasty
241	Early Assyrian Empire
313	Middle Assyrian Empire
325	Neo-Assyrian Empire
87	Chaldean Dynasty (Babylon)
250	Old Empire Hittites
70	Middle Hittites
220	New Hittites
144	Lydia
43	Phrygia
800	Harappan Civilization (Indus Valley Civilization)
1000	Vedic Civilization (India)
200	Mahanjanapadas (India)
364	Magadha Empire (India)
100	Nanda Empire (India)
137	Maurya Empire (India)
500	First Chera Empire (India)
112	Sunga Empire (India)
45	Kanva Dynasty (India)
430	Satavahana Dynasty (India)
157	Awan Dynasty – Elam Civilization (Iran)
210	Eparti Dynasty – Elam Civilization (Iran)
342	Middle Elamite Period – Elam Civilization (Iran)
203	Neo-Elamite Period – Elam Civilization (Iran)
66	Medean Empire (Iran)
220	Achaemenid Empire (Iran)
249	Seleucid Empire (Iran)
469	Parthian Empire (Iran)
500	Xia Dynasty (China)
478	Shang Dynasty (China)
351	Western Zhou period – Zhou Dynasty (China)
330	1st half of Eastern Zhou Period – Zhou Dynasty (China)
14	Last half of Eastern Zhou period – Zhou Dynasty (China)
215	Western period – Han Dynasty (China)
195	Eastern Han Dynasty (China)
500	Protopalatial Period – Minoan Civilization (Greece)
250	Neopalatial Period – Minoan Civilization (Greece)
400	Mycenae (Greece)
453	Classical Greek Civilization
177	Hellenistic Civilization (Greece)
243	Ancient Rome (Italy)
404	Etruscans (Italy)
466	Roman Republic (Italy)
520	Roman Empire (Italy)
225	Urartu (Armenia)
684	Orontid Dynasty (Armenia)
442	Kingdom of Armenia
661	Phoenicians (Middle East)
298	Kingdom of Israel and Judah
800	Scythians (Central Asia/Eastern Europe)
184	Xiongnu Empire (Mongolia)
725	Three Kingdoms of Korea
800	Olmecs (Mexico)
735	Teotihuacans (Mexico)
827	Norte Chico Civilization (Peru)
700	Chavin Culture (Peru)

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