Editor’s note:
In the following interview Jared Diamond, a world-famous historian of societal crises and collapses who currently lives in selfimposed quarantine in California, says that when he’s not writing papers on the birds of New Guinea or playing Beethoven sonatas on the piano, he is concerned about the effect the current pandemic will have on his country and the world. The interview is conducted by Michael Wiederstein, an executive editor at getAbstract. Visit journal. getabstract.com for the original interview.
Q: Mr Diamond, as of today, you are 82 years old. In this COVID-19 pandemic, you belong to the socalled “high-risk group.” How did you prepare for the current situation — where and how do you protect yourself?
A: In this situation as in every other situation in my life, I practice the attitude of constructive paranoia that I’ve learned from my lifetime of working in New Guinea. That is, I think of everything that could possibly go wrong, I prepare for it, and then I go on to enjoy life. In the current situation I am staying in my house except to take a bird-watching walk each morning.
Q: Your most recent book is “Upheaval — Turning Points for Nations in Crisis,” but with “Collapse — How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” you became world-famous. Is what we are currently facing with the COVID-19 pandemic still a crisis or already the beginning of a collapse?
A: It’s already a crisis, and it won’t lead to a collapse. The death toll is mild. Instead, the distinctive thing about the current pandemic is that jet planes help it spread quickly, so this disease is in the process of spreading around the world.
Q: What does human history tell us about the right and wrong way to deal with pandemics?
A: The last few months have told us a lot about the right way and the wrong way! For example, here in the United States, health policy is largely determined by our 50 states rather than by our federal government.
Our 50 state governors differ greatly: Some of them make a practice of doing things the wrong way, and others do things the right way. The governor of my state of California, Governor Newsom, has been careful: He imposed the first state lockdown in the United States, and as a result the case buildup in California has been much slower than in other populous states.
Q: In “Upheaval” you devoted much of your analysis to the US today. In the
A: Indeed, one of the most puzzling features of the US, difficult for nonAmericans as well as for many Americans themselves to understand, is why the country with the most advanced science and technology in the world is also the first-world country with the most opposition or indifference to science.
Q: You wrote that “denial” was and is one of American society’s biggest problems, that there was and is no consensus at all that the country was already in a threatening crisis before the pandemic. You demonstrated that social inequality is an additional and significant risk for American society and that violent unrest is, therefore, very likely in the foreseeable future.
A: That’s right. Political and social polarization, and resulting unrest, are major problems in the US today — perhaps the most fundamental problem.
Q: So, will the current pandemic lead to a renewed convergence of culture — or accelerate its disintegration?
A: Will this lead to a search for unity, or instead to further disintegration? Come back in two years and ask me that question again!
If the president of the United States