#guy middleton

“The stories of the Maya and climate change, and the Easter Islanders’ ecocidal self-destruction, suit those who want to make a dramatic argument about our own mistreatment of the environment in modern times, and the possible fate of our own civilisation. They are dramatic, media-friendly, soundbite stories that convey moral and practical lessons, hence they are commonly found in environmental literature and the mass media. There has been a trend to explain other collapses in the same way. But such stories appropriate the histories of past and indigenous peoples, and construct them as modern Western-focused parables. They dwell on the supposed failures of pre-modern and non-Western societies rather than stressing their resilience in the face of difficulties or recalling the Western role in their eventual cultural destruction.”