That birds fly and pigs don’t is a consequence of laws of nature governing physics and biology. Nothing that transpires on physical planet Earth is any different: the laws of nature are inviolate. Always. [1]

This is a truism, and should be readily apparent, as it indeed often is in indigenous cultures where people are entirely dependent on natural forces and what is close at hand. But this truism is rendered invisible by technological and bureaucratic power, the delusional quality of human exceptionalism, and the complexity of civilizations, especially but not exclusively of recent industrialized civilization.

That is, we have imagined throughout the known history of the past ten thousand friendly-climate years that, because from time to time we have been able to use the laws of nature to our short- and long-term advantage, we are no longer subject to them. Current instances are encyclopedic: Use of fossil fuels, the Green Revolution, atomic energy, widespread dispersion of toxics, and entering the sixth great extinction are recent examples. We persistently act as if unintended consequences do not exist.

Nonetheless, such consequences abound, and are forcefully shaping our lives. If we are to address causes and consequences, whether we fully understand them or not, it’s essential to be open to and explore perspectives that may be very different from prevailing ones.

Cultures evolve because they provide us with effective ways of surviving the environmental hand we are dealt, but cultures are powerful regulators of human behavior and thought, and tend to persist despite changes which may render their central assumptions dysfunctional or lethal (e.g., we can pollute and desertify the planet to our heart’s content).

The culture which drives us, whether we deplore it or not, likes us to go around in activism circles whenever we threaten to question its most basic tenets — activism keeps us busy and harmless. Notwithstanding, the forbidden point to consider here is that collapse of civilizations, including ours, is inevitable and always has been. Hidden in plain sight, we have not grasped what will sooner or later become obvious: Civilizational collapse is not up to any of us, no matter what we do. As when faced with an unstoppable Hurricane Katrina, which is only obeying the laws of nature, the best we can do is to be prepared.

To elaborate a bit: there are indeed laws of nature that govern human groups, just as there are physical/biological laws that govern any living creature. This seems as if it should be obvious. These laws, particularly in relationship to civilizations, may not be so obvious as the laws governing the behavior of a falling apple, but they are every bit as inviolable.