In many cultures, there is/was also the idea of cyclical history. Things don't go forward or backward, they just repeat themselves in slightly different ways infinitely.
In many cultures, there is/was also the idea of cyclical history. Things don't go forward or backward, they just repeat themselves in slightly different ways infinitely.
It reminds me of Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought trilogy, especially the observation the traders make in the second book that all planet-bound civilizations are doomed to collapse at some point. They are usually able to restore technological progress more quickly the more records they have, but without leaving the planet are still doomed to repeat the cycle. IIRC there is even more-or-less standardized "uplift" protocols - series of technological reveals for less-developed civilizations to rapidly advance/restore their capabilities.
I wonder if there is academic study comparing past-focused, future-focused, and cyclical views of human progress in literature.
"Collapse" is maybe hyperbole in this case, if it's building on our own history to extrapolate forward. For us, certain societies have collapsed, and with them have been lost certain practices or technologies, but human civilization as a whole has been largely steady or growing since the agricultural revolution (using population size as a heuristic). There's always the threat of ecological collapse, but that's something that has only happened a few times in the history of life on the planet, and we haven't really faced anything like it before at civilization-wide scale. There's always been another group to move in and take up the abandoned land. Without some major technological breakthroughs, yes, we're likely to face a collapse eventually, but as a biosphere, not merely a civilization. Short of that, people seem to keep on keeping on.
I think the mistake comes from something common to a lot of sci-fi, which is mistaking the scale of a planetary setting. It takes a lot of energy to disrupt life on a global scale (we're managing it, but it's taken hundreds of years). "At some point" is carrying a lot of weight in that observation.
> "Collapse" is maybe hyperbole in this case, if it's building on our own history to extrapolate forward.
In the story, "at some point" generally involved technologies we are currently incapable of; the greater technology actually facilitating the greater collapse. Which at the most obvious included nuclear catastrophe.
> always been another group to move in and take up the abandoned land
Completely agree with your points, but I think it’s worth mentioning that the collapsing populations may not have been aware of this depending on their level of isolation and cultural view on outsiders.
Sounds like Niven and Pournell's Moties civilization cycle from "The Mote in God's Eye"
Excellent books.
Though isn't progress inherent in that knowledge tends to increase over time? What's useful tends to get passed on to future generations, so there is an inherent advantage compared to earlier generations. Of course it's not perfect (as sometimes things get forgotten) and just knowledge/skills don't always translate to increase in living standards or productivity or well being, but by and large, in the long run, this should be true?
“ all this has happened before. All this shall happen again.”