Once More Exploring the Niall: A Review of Niall Ferguson's Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

 

Niall Ferguson, as I noted a few years ago in my review of The Great Derangement, seems to consist of two or more authorial personas. Having now read Doom, his most recent book, I can confirm and expand this observation. Ferguson indeed has multiple authorial personalities, and I believe that he gives voice to most of them in this book. (Although it's thoroughly footnoted and referenced, I find the archive-digging, monograph-writing historian is the missing persona in this book). But we do experience the scholar-data-digger; the purveyor of sweeping narrative; the innovative analyst; the philosopher of (and about) history; and the political commentator. Reading this book, I sensed that while quarantined by the pandemic, Ferguson performed a mind-dump into this book. But I say this not by way of criticism. The contents of Ferguson's mind never prove boring. Aggravating at times, yes; but never dull. When I went back in my blog over the last twelve years, I find many considerations of his work, some enthusiastic and some critical; but--at least to my mind at the time--certainly worth having read and commenting upon. This work doesn't disappoint, even if it is a bit unwieldy and unfocused. 

The overarching theme of the book concerns the human reactions to catastrophes and how responses can vary for good or ill. Catastrophes happen; some are natural disasters, some man-made. We can't control earthquakes or volcanic reactions in the least bit, nor can we hope to completely tame droughts and floods and hurricanes, although we've certainly--if unwittingly--learned how to exacerbate them. So while we have little or no control over the occurrence of some events, we do have a measure of control over how we humans anticipate and respond to natural and man-made disasters. ("Man-made"? Think "accidents" like Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, Fukushima, Bhopal, mining disasters, plane crashes, and famines as examples.) Ferguson provides abundant examples and analyses of such occasions. Ferguson sometimes gets a bit long-winded with statistics and lists, but you come away with a comparative appreciation of the many events that have challenged humankind. 

As Ferguson turns to the recent pandemic (now likely to morph into endemic status), he compares it to the 1957 "Asian flu." The comparisons and contrasts are intriguing. The response to the arrival of the Asian flu in the U.S. was more or less business as usual in terms of risk avoidance and daily life. Of course, in writing about COVID-19, Ferguson must shift from history to the journalism of current events (he completed his manuscript in late summer 2020), so some of these observations and anticipations don't have the benefit of hindsight that history offers. Here he treads on less solid ground, and he allows his contrarian and (politically) conservative instincts freer rein. 

Toward the end, Ferguson explores The Three-Body Problem as manifest not only in Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel but also as a metaphor for the rise of China and its relation to the U.S. and the rest of the world. He also wonders (not unprofitably) off into Mary Shelley's The Last Man, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam Trilogy, and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, among others. Even the very learned historian must turn to the imagination of fiction, especially science fiction, to try to peer more deeply into the fog of the future. 

I also want to mention that Ferguson talks about some who've written about the patterns of history. Of course, there is the older school, represented by the likes of Spengler and Toynbee. But more recently we find the work of sociologist Jack Goldstone and biologist-turned-historical theorist, Peter Turchin, both of whom have promoted the "structural-demographic theory" of social and political patterns of historical events. Ferguson thinks highly of this line of thinking, but he notes (correctly, in my opinion) that such patterns are not inevitabilities but likelihoods, given the "black swan" nature of events outside the dynamics of the patters, such as natural catastrophes (earthquakes, volcanos, droughts, floods, etc.) or wars. Ferguson also touches on the recent work of investor Ray Dalio, who's posted his claim of identifying a pattern of political-economic change. The same reservations--about the effects of exogenous shocks to the system (pattern)could modify or even destroy the pattern Dalio identifies (assuming he's in some measure accurate). Ferguson, as a historian and someone who seems to appreciate history as a way of knowing, has developed some interesting ideas of his own about the contingency of history and the use of counterfactuals. (In a future blog, I intend to explore more deeply Ferguson's ideas about history, his relation to the work of R.G. Collingwood (whom he's often cited), and criticisms of Ferguson's work in relation to Collingwood's, especially as set forth by my fellow Collingwood enthusiast, David Pierce (here and here). 

Doom is a big, detailed work about what has and will no doubt continue to go seriously wrong in our world. It displays Ferguson's skills as an analyst, the breadth of his knowledge, his narrative skill, and his willingness to wade into controversy. It's classic Ferguson in one big book. And given that catastrophes of various sorts are unlikely to disappear by some magic of good fortune, we'd do well to consider what Ferguson has revealed, take heed, and govern ourselves accordingly. I don't recommend adopting a sense of doom, but we certainly could use a strong dose of prudence. 

"The Year of the Flood" & "Maddaddam" by Margaret Atwood

2009, #2 in the trilogy

2013, # 3 in the trilogy

These two novels are the successors to Atwood's 2003 Oryx & Crake. These two later novels complete this dystopian trilogy. 

I wrote how horrifying Oryx and Crake was for me. Not in a horror story fashion, but in the way that Orwell's 1984 and such can be labeled "horror." That is, not by the fright elements of some supernatural or embodied form of metaphysical evil, but by the plausibility of the evil described, the banality of some future state that conjures up a more mundane but no less lethal evil. But these two later journies give us some respite from what struck me as the overweening sense of doom in the first novel. 

Not that anything is "good" in these novels, except the few people in it who survive and attempt some modicum of humanity. The Year of the Flood focuses on two female characters in the story, Ren and Toby (and to a lesser extent on a third, Amanda). Their stories draw us in and arouse a sense of sympathy with their struggles to survive and thrive. Thus, unlike Oryx & Crake, which overwhelmed me with foreboding of inevitable doom,in The Year of the Flood I didn't feel plagued by this sense, bad as situations were in this novel for these lead characters. The main characters come from the world of corporate gated communities and corporate enterprises (the nation-state is non-existent), as opposed to those who live and work in the "pleeblands."  Also, the main characters all become involved with "God's Gardners" an eco-apocalyptic Christian group. (Cult? Perhaps.) The group is led by the charismatic Adam One, and they prepare for the "waterless flood" that will soon overtake the earth. In the meantime, the group squirrels away provisions in "arhats." Their calendar is marked with a unique panoply of saints, such as "Saint Euell Gibbons" (for those old enough: the Grapenuts guy), "Saint Jane Goodall," "Saint Rachel Carson," and the like. The Gardners are pacific but not without guile. 

The concluding book, Maddaddam, takes one of the peripheral characters in The Year of the Flood, Zeb, and focuses on his story and those who survive what became the "waterless flood." Zeb is the scoundrel and survivor, and he contrasts to the pacifist-prone Adam One. In addition to learning Zeb's backstory (via a clumsy but perhaps necessary plot device), we learn about those who survived into the post-flood world. These groups include a band of post-Gardner humans; super-intelligent "pigoons" (genetically altered pigs); "Crakers," genetically modified humans with pacific and randy traits; and "Painballers," debased criminals who have survived the punishment turned spectacle of "Painball," an experience much like the hunger games of Susan Collins's series of that name. And while this post-apocalyptic novel has cruelties and horrors abounding, it is a tale of survival and learning and of the human enterprise. 

It seems to me that dystopian fiction always has a prophetic element inherent in it. And by prophetic, I don't mean foretelling the future, like a soothsayer or fortune teller, but of providing a moral exhortation in the form of an implied "if-then" proposition, in the manner of Old Testament prophets or Cassandra in Greek mythology. Perhaps the reason that the year 1984 was not too much like the Orwell's 1984 is that we heeded, even in the slightest echos, Orwell's implicit prophecy. So it should be with Atwood's trilogy. Inherent in this extended tale is a vision of the future that I hope no sane person would want. Yet it is all too plausible. The dis-ease with which one leaves this trilogy should remain with us and give us pause as we choose our future. 

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

We humans like to be scared, even in our reading. Ghost stories, tales of Gothic horror, thrillers—in all sorts of circumstances we want to have ourselves scared. But there is another form of fiction that we don’t typically categorize along these lines, but that I find really scary, or perhaps creepy is the right word. These are books that I recognize as revealing something to me in the now, something about me or my world. Those books that take what seems quite normal and then reveal that the situation harbors frightening consequences. Dystopias of the near future can do this very well. Think of the classics, Brave New World and 1984: what makes them so disturbing? Not any thrills in the plotline, but the familiarity they contain, the plausibility they reveal. Indeed, we can think of dystopian writers as the prophets of today—not in the mistaken sense of those who predict the future successfully. Quite the opposite: you don’t want the prophet’s vision to come to pass. The prophet—exemplified by the Old Testament messengers of God—foretells a future that will arrive if the people don’t turn away from the error of their current ways. A successful prophet’s vision of the future does not come to a realization. The successful prophet turns the people away from disaster. Thus, we can label Orwell a successful prophet because (or to the extent) that we don’t live in a world of 1984. (The NSA isn’t reading this, right, Big Bro?) In this century, writers of dystopian visions of the future serve as our prophets, and we must count Margaret Atwood among them. 

Oryx and Crake is the first of a trilogy of books set in the near future. (MaddAddam, published in 2013, completes the trilogy.) Atwood sets the story in the near, recognizable future; a future with genetic engineering, gated and guarded compounds, and (continued) international sex trade. The tale deals with how one person, Snowman, once known as Jimmy, arrived at a Robinson Crusoe-like existence from that original, familiar setting. While surviving (one could hardly call it more than that) in this new world, the narration recounts the events that led him to his current circumstance. Crucial in the story are two others, the girl Oryx, first seen by Jimmy on a computer screen, and his friend Crake, a genius who rises quickly in the world of genetic engineering. 

Atwood writes from Snowman’s point of view, alternating between his current dire circumstances and the tale of his life that led him into this new world. Atwood persuasively captures a sense of alienated, increasingly nihilistic teenage boys who turn into alienated, nihilistic young men. This is one of those creepy aspects of the book. One can believe that a young Jimmy (young Snowman) and a young Crake (the nickname of his friend) exist in multitudes today. How do young men, endowed with the awesome power of science, especially with the power of biology to alter life, deal with this power? Might they abuse it? When we think about gun violence, as we all too often must, we realize that we readily allow young males (nearly always the culprits) easy access to guns. Look what happens. What if we allow them access to the ability to create and alter life at the most basic levels? Do you feel comfortable with that thought? This part of the tale is as old as that of Victor Frankenstein, but today we have powers that Mary Shelley would never have dreamed of. Who was the greater threat: young Victor or his creation? 

Atwood also plays with the idea of abundance and scarcity, including the problem of jealousy and violence. Will this new world—perhaps not so brave as Shakespeare hoped and not so soporific as Huxley mocked—still engender violence and jealousy? Will the abundance of computer porn and accessible “sex workers,” along with genetic engineering, alleviate the violence created by male rivalry and quests for status? In this aspect of the book, the character of Oryx, a young woman brought to the world of Jimmy and Crake from the sex trade of south Asia, provides an enigmatic key. A wisp of a woman, she remains a mystery of sorts, even to the two men, Jimmy and Crake, with whom she becomes involved.

Atwood’s tale moves fast. Her imagination streams quickly from here to there via a light, deft prose that keeps the tale moving while describing this new world and the characters in it. Atwood doesn’t ruminate. She keeps the plot moving, but the lively pace of events allows Atwood to shine her high-intensity flashlight into as many aspects of these worlds as she can. She doesn’t need to explain; the spotlight of her imagination reveals enough.