Future recurrence of preindustrial society
The concept of a future recurrence of preindustrial society explores the potential return to a lifestyle characterized by agrarian customs and smaller environmental footprints, in contrast to the mechanized and rationalized existence of industrialized societies. Emerging from the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, the rapid urbanization and technological advancements drastically transformed social structures, employment patterns, and living conditions, often leading to increased environmental degradation. Preindustrial societies, defined by their slower pace of life and lesser reliance on technology, are often viewed nostalgically by some critics who argue that a return to such lifestyles could mitigate climate change effects.
However, while these societies may have had a smaller environmental impact, they were not immune to ecological challenges and abrupt climate changes that could disrupt agricultural practices and population stability. Historical instances demonstrate that preindustrial civilizations faced significant vulnerabilities due to climatic shifts, affecting their sustainability. Critics contend that the complex interplay of population growth, health, and nutrition in modern times complicates the idea of reverting to preindustrial practices. Ultimately, discussions surrounding the future of human society often grapple with balancing environmental concerns, technological progress, and the lessons learned from both preindustrial and industrial eras.
Subject Terms
Future recurrence of preindustrial society
Definition
Beginning about the second half of the eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution ushered in the age of machine technology, driven by engines powered through steam and the combustion of wood, coal, and eventually oil. Social life, initially in Europe and ultimately throughout the world, was radically transformed. All aspects of human culture became increasingly mechanized and rationalized. The era of the factory, urban congestion, rapid transportation, and agricultural modification had begun. Patterns of employment and housing fell into line. It was no longer necessary to live so close to the source of food, and a gradual abandonment of agrarian customs for the higher energy consumption lifestyle of city and suburb began.
Preindustrial society came to be defined in retrospect in terms of its differences from industrialized society. In particular, it came to be seen as characterized by a slower lifestyle and one less rigorously rationalized by time clocks and assembly lines and cities planned to maximize traffic circulation. From a conservationist standpoint, the environmental footprint of preindustrial societies was radically smaller than that of a fully industrialized twenty-first century (or even nineteenth-century) nation.
Significance for Climate Change
Estimates indicate that the atmospheric concentration of has roughly doubled since the last ice age, with half of that increase occurring in the two centuries since the Industrial Revolution. Many scientists would relate that change (and the global warming it arguably promotes) to the burning of wood, coal, and oil as fuels. Industrialization has meant a vast increase in the release of into the atmosphere, as well as environmental pollution of soil and stream.
Some critics feel nostalgia for the world they see as having been lost to industrialization, and some foresee an inevitable recurrence of preindustrial circumstances in a “postindustrial” future. Still other critics emphasize that preindustrial societies did not necessarily engage in environmentally friendly practices, but were small enough, in terms of human population, that their impact on the environment was insignificant.
Preindustrial societies were nonetheless affected by sometimes abrupt climate change. They were extremely vulnerable in the event of sudden, extreme, or prolonged shifts in climatic conditions, which could affect the success of established agricultural practices, alter vectors of disease transmission, and encourage or obstruct population movement (with ensuing cultural and biological effects). As climate historian Hubert Horace Lamb soberly notes, for example, the
drying up of the north African, Arabian, northwest Indian and central Asian deserts ended the human activities and cultures there and must have caused at first famines and ultimately …shift of populations.
The environmental habits of preindustrial societies may have been virtuous, or they may have been noxious but inconsequential in practice. In either case, their small scale guaranteed limited impact. The primary change in recent centuries has been the increasingly rapid growth of the human population. Whatever the initiating causes of that growth—improvements in nutrition and health are often mentioned, but the issue is complicated—there is little doubt that the lapse of key features of preindustrial life has helped produce high, expanding, and perhaps unsustainable levels of human population.
It may be difficult to address climate change effectively as long as the human population continues to expand exponentially. On the other hand, if population in traditional societies was kept in check by high mortality because of disease, famine, and war, it would be hard to argue for the reinstatement of such factors.
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