Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
0316409146
Jared Diamond
Notes
The challenge, for nations as for individuals in crisis, is to figure out which parts of their identities are already functioning well and don’t need changing, and which parts are no longer working and do need changing. Individuals or nations under pressure must take honest stock of their abilities and values. They must decide what of themselves still works, remains appropriate under the new changed circumstances, and thus can be retained. Conversely, they need the courage to recognize what must be changed in order to deal with the new solution. That requires the individuals or nations to find new solutions compatible with their abilities and with the rest of their being. At the same time, they have to draw a line and stress the elements so fundamental to their identities that they refuse to change them….shared among all those types of crisis, whatever their cause, is the sense that something important about one’s current approach to life isn’t working, and that one has to find a new approach.
Walden’s core message was: I should figure out what I really want in my life, and not be seduced by the vanity of recognition.
Why did the Finnish army prevail for so long in defending itself against the Soviet army’s overwhelming advantages of numbers and equipment? One reason was motivation: Finnish soldiers understood that they were fighting for their families, their country, and their independence, and they were willing to die for those goals…Finally, the Finnish army, like the Israeli army today, was effective far out of proportion to its numbers, because of its informality that emphasized soldiers’ taking initiative and making their own decisions rather than blindly obeying others.
Finland will never succeed in economic spheres dependent on a low standard of living and the resulting ability to pay workers the low wages still widespread outside Europe and North America. By world standards, Finland will always have few workers, who will always expect high wages. Hence Finland has had to make full use of its available workforce, and to develop industries earning high profits. In order to make use of its entire population , Finland’s school system aims to educate everybody well, unlike the U.S. school system, which now educates some people well but more people poorly…That strong focus on education yields a productive workforce.
Finland’s combined private and government investment in research and development equals 3.5% of its GDP, almost double the level of other European Union countries, and (along with the percentage of its GDP spent on education) close to the highest in the world. The result of that excellent educational system and those high investment in research and development is that, within just half-a-century, Finland went from being a poor country to being one of the richest in the world. Its average per-capita income is now equal to that of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, all of which have populations 10 times that of Finland and have been rich for a long time.
Any nation risks falling apart if its citizens do not feel joined by some unifying national ideology. Each nation has its own familiar ideals and phrases responding to that task of creating a unifying ideology.
Germany’s central geographic location surrounded by neighbors seems to me to have been the most important factor in German history. Of course, that location has not been without advantages: it has made Germany a crossroads for trade, technology, art, music, and culture. A cynic would note that Germany’s location also facilitated its invasion of many countries during World War Two.
In particular, the phasing out of arranged marriages in Japan in recent decades has coincided with the rise of electronic non face-to-face communication by e-mail, texting, and cell phones, and with the consequent decline of social skills.
In short, our American belief in the flexibility of rags to riches is a myth. The rags-to-riches path is less feasible in the U.S. than in other major democracies. The likely explanation is that wealthier American parents tend to be better educated, to invest more money in their children’s education, and to provide more useful career connections to their children than do poorer parents.
Average per-capita consumption rates of resources like oil and metals, and average per-capita production rates of wastes like plastics and greenhouse gasses, are about 32 times higher in the First World than in the developing world…we have come to realize that population is just one of two factors whose product is what really matters. That product is total world consumption, which is the sum (over the world) of local consumptions, which are products of two terms: local population (number of people) times the local average consumption rate per person.
Factors Related to outcomes of crisis (personal / national)
- Acknowledgement that one is in crisis. / National consensus that one’s nation is in crisis.
- Acceptance of one’s personal / national responsibility to do something.
- Building a fence, to delineate one’s individual / national problems needing to be solved.
- Getting material and emotional help from other individuals and groups / nations.
- Using other individuals / nations as models of how to solve problems.
- Ego strength / National identity
- Honest self / national-self appraisal
- Experience of personal crises. / Historical experience with previous national crises.
- Patience / Dealing with national failure
- Flexible personality / Situation specific national flexibility
- Individual / national core values
- Freedom from personal / geopolitical constraints.