Jared Diamond on How Nations Overcome Crises

JARED DIAMOND, AUTHOR, “UPHEAVAL: TURNING POINTS FOR NATIONS IN CRISIS”: I discussed six crises that have unfolded in six nations where one can draw the conclusions. But my book concludes by looking at four crises in the process of unfolding where we cannot yet say what the outcome is. Japan today, the United States today, and the world today. In the case of the United States, the problems that the United States now faces are familiar to Americans, they are the deterioration of political compromise, the restrictions on voting that mean the decline of American democracy, increasing inequality and decreasing government investment.

What might lead us to hope for a good outcome for the United States and what might lead us to hope for a bad outcome, well, people derive confidence from crises met previously. The United States has a long track record of having dealt successfully with difficult things such as World War II and the Civil War, that gives one optimism for the United States.

Something giving one pessimism for the United States is that people can get through personal crises by using other people as models. When my first marriage broke down, I went out and talked to friends who had gotten divorced, and learned from my friends about how they had conducted their marriages more successfully.

The United States has a belief in what’s called American exceptionalism, the belief that the United States is exceptional, is so different from any other country, that there’s nothing that we can learn from another country. But the fact is that the United States is wrestling with problems of education, health, prisons and development, problems that face Canada and Western Europe and Japan, other democracies, and yet, we refuse to learn from our neighbor Canada or from Western European countries, in the belief that we are so unique that there’s nothing we can learn, even when other countries are dealing more successfully with these problems.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: That’s really interesting. And you also sort of lay it out in a sort of a 12-step process, which is very AA, isn’t it? I mean, it is something that many people in those kinds of dire straits are familiar with, and you say that there are certain, you know, factors that you have to actually accept. For instance, you say “acknowledge that one is entering a crisis, acceptance of responsibility, honest self-appraisal.” How do you rate the United States on those three factors?

DIAMOND: On those three factors, I have to rate the United States today as not doing very well. Many Americans, perhaps most Americans, don’t yet acknowledge that we are spiraling into a crisis. The next step in dealing with a personal crisis or a national crisis is to acknowledge that you can do something about it, you have responsibility. It’s not just pitting yourself as a victim of those bad people or bad countries out there.