Western societies are ‘far more likely’ to collapse or fall into civil war than they have been for the last 100 years, an historian claims.
Peter Turchin, who trained in biology and developed statistical modelling, uses massive mathematical datasets to try to discover statistical patterns in the great flood of historical data that might predict future instabilities in societies. In his new book End Times: Elites, Counter Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, which has received considerable media coverage, he uses scores of expert collaborators from anthropology, archaeology and history to build the world’s largest collection of data on the prosperity and demise of societies, from upper Egypt to lower Manhattan.
The most common pattern he presents is ‘an alternation of integrative and disintegrative phases lasting for roughly a century’. His predictions have a special urgency because Western societies, and particularly America, are, he suggests, very near the end of that latter disintegrative phase, which makes the likelihood of civil war or potential systemic collapse far more likely.
Michael Haykin, Professor of Church History at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says: ‘There is undoubtedly some truth to Turchin’s argument, but it fails to take into account the vast array of personal, cultural, and political causes that precipitate the decline of great powers, and that are all but impossible to quantify. Moreover, from my vantage point as a Christian historian, I would also argue that he misses one vital dynamic of history, namely, the hand of God.’
Martyn Whittock, author and licensed Lay Minister in the Church of England, concurred, saying: ‘Data-driven analysis predicting social disintegration seems the stuff of dystopian novels, but combinations of key factors do make societies more, or less, stable. And this can be measured and assessed. Consequently, Turchin’s prognosis of imminent disintegration should be seriously considered when assessing the state of our fractious world.
‘However, “likely” is not “inevitable”, as those of us who believe in God’s gracious mercy would do well to remember. Societies do step back from the brink. And crises are not inevitably “End Times”, in eschatological terms. With many erroneous predictions behind us, Christians would do well to remember that too’.
