Dark Age Ahead

Does Jane Jacobs really think that we are facing a breakdown in society like unto that described in her first chapter? People starving on the highways, a breakdown in social cohesion, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria? It is hard to tell from the rest of her book. Ultimately, it seems the coming "dark age" described by Jacobs is in reality more of a "period of rolling blackouts."

She identifies five "pillars of society" that she sees as showing signs of cultural decay, but fails to adequately explain why the failure of those five pillars leads to the Dark Ages, or define those five clearly, or present more than anecdotal support for her views of their decay. If she truly sees a breakdown in society profound enough to be called show more a "Dark Age," she fails to explain the nature of the threat with any clarity (unless poor traffic management is the hitherto unknown Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse). Jacobs further fails, except in very limited fashion, to even address contrary views of society's progression.

Ultimately, this is a longish essay masquerading as a profound book, a tract instead of a treatise. It is sloppily organized, poorly expounded, and the supporting notes are underwhelming. Yet I would not have picked up this book if I were not concerned that there is a chance we are on the brink of a collapse, or at least a great change in Western Civilization. If my own fears are any indicator, there is a serious study to be made of the decay of our society, and the potential dangers we face. If this book was supposed to be taken as a serious review of this possibility, it should have been better devised and its arguments better supported. As it is, I am oddly comforted by this book's failure to convince me. show less

Due to my current borderline obsession with social collapse, I was intrigued when I saw this recommended on the Multnomah County Library's website. So I placed a hold and received a copy not long after and got to reading.

I liked it. Hence the three stars. I didn't quite love it. Not because of any lack of good information and ideas or a lack of quality writing, but more because I wanted it to be a little more riled up. A bit more emotional. It was very straightforward and even, which is perfectly commendable but doesn't get my blood flowing.

Jacobs basically claims that North America (the U.S. and Canada, that is) is teetering dangerously close on the brink of sliding into a Dark Age. She cites five major reasons why: the continuing show more degradation of community and family, our higher education system, misuse of science and technology, governmental representation that has become disconnected from local needs, and the failure of self-regulation of the learned professions.

I found all the points really intriguing, with quite a number of viewpoints offered that I hadn't before heard or considered. Her talk of the degradation of community and family was a great section, not focusing on ranting moralistic concerns so much as on the ever-worsening economic brutalities that households face while trying to support themselves, as well as the destruction of community (in its most holistic sense) brought about by those economic hardships as well as poor planning practices. For instance, she takes suburban design to task. Again, this is not in some kind of moralistic view in which she proclaims suburbs evil, but rather she simply points out the ways in which thought-processes behind their planning have been terribly misguided and destructive, often leading to neighborhoods that lack any real sense of community.

Her taking to task of most of the universities in North America was also quite compelling. It comes across as a somewhat more dispassionate version of [a:Wendell Berry|8567|Wendell Berry|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1209652700p2/8567.jpg]'s arguments in [b:Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition|76732|Life Is a Miracle An Essay Against Modern Superstition|Wendell Berry|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1236228896s/76732.jpg|74220], although the substance of the arguments do have their differences, as well. Still, she quite convincingly argues that universities have become little more than credentialing agencies, rather than institutions that work to create fully formed human beings via comprehensive education (that fosters and creates the ability of critical and independent thought) and mentoring.

Those are just a few of the intriguing arguments Jacobs makes in the book, and if they sound interesting, I certainly would recommend reading it. I perhaps prefer this sort of information to come to me via a more agitated voice--someone railing, though ideally not to the degree of incoherence. That Dark Age Ahead doesn't come in that exact voice is no condemnation of it as a fine bit of writing. Hell, for some, it's probably a much more palatable approach to a topic that can easily become very emotionally charged. For me, I would have preferred a bit more Berry-type anger.

But then, I have Berry for that. Jacobs fulfills her own niche quite nicely. show less

This is the last book Jane Jacobs wrote. It was written in 2003 and she was born in 1916 so she was 87 at the time. How wonderful to have the mental acuity and wide-ranging curiosity at that age to bring together such divergent fields as city planning, economics, history, politics and education.
Jacobs takes us through a discussion of various Dark Ages and how they resulted in a cultural amnesia into a dissection of five pillars that show signs of a coming Dark Age and finally into a prescription for forestalling this. The five pillars are:
1. Community and family
2. Higher education
3. Science and technology
4. Governmental representation
5. Self-governing professions
Although I can’t speak authoritatively about any of these pillars I do show more know a little bit more about science and technology than the others. Jacobs describes the way the scientific process works better than anyone else I have ever read. At page 69 she says “In sum, the scientific state of mind works along two slightly different avenues, one abstract, the other feeling its way more concretely and pragmatically. Both approaches demand integrity, awareness of evidence and respect for it, and attention to new questions that arise as immediate practical problems to be grappled with, or else as more abstract and postponable. Both avenues are valid and effective. They work together so well that they frequently shift back and forth in the course of an investigation or they overlap.” She then goes on to say “If a body of enquiry becomes disconnected from the scientific state of mind, that unfortunate segment of knowledge is no longer scientific.” She cites three examples of supposed scientific thinking that became disconnected from the scientific state of mind. The fact that she saw this as an issue in 2003, long before the Harper Government started to wage its war on science strikes me as remarkably prescient. The federal government has muzzled its own scientists and attacked non-governmental science groups with everything from audits to lies.
If Jacobs was as correct about her other arguments as she was about science and technology then we are probably further down the road to a Dark Age than we were a decade ago. Let us hope we are not too late to unwind the vicious spiral (the title of Chapter Seven). show less

Dark Age Ahead is not an impressive performance. Alice Sparbert Alexiou noted that Jacobs's last two books "received mixed reviews" and "do not in any way measure up to her great urban trilogy" (Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary [Rutgers UP, 2006], 198). Dark Age Ahead is little more than a jeremiad filtering her longtime preoccupations through a sort of world history lite. The author, 87 at the time of publication, relied on popular works, articles from the press, observations, experiences, memories, and her own imagination—but not research. Her insights are shallow ("Life is full of surprises" [25]; "survivors [of a heat wave] differed [from those who died] in having successfully kept cool" [82]; "The enemy of truth is untruth" [70]). show more Chapters are rambling. The text reads like table talk. The author oversimplifies. Her terms of analysis do not bear close inspection. She calls a community "a complex organism" (34), but this is a logical fallacy known as organicism. She personifies societies ("a society must be self-aware" [176]), and implies that a culture's progress can be rated or measured ("culture's trajectory pivoted upward" [102]). Jacobs is eager to pronounce cultures "winners" or "losers," as though history is some kind of Olympics. She overgeneralizes (the "purpose of life" [55-58]; the "scientific state of mind" [66-68]). She insists on representing abstractions spatially ("Interlocked problems, intractably spiraling downward and joining with other problems into amalgamated declines" [139]; "watch the vicious spirals go into action!" [160]). This book is a sad end to a distinguished oeuvre. show less

Due to my current borderline obsession with social collapse, I was intrigued when I saw this recommended on the Multnomah County Library's website. So I placed a hold and received a copy not long after and got to reading.I liked it. Hence the three stars. I didn't quite love it. Not because of any lack of good information and ideas or a lack of quality writing, but more because I wanted it to be a little more riled up. A bit more emotional. It was very straightforward and even, which is perfectly commendable but doesn't get my blood flowing.Jacobs basically claims that North America (the U.S. and Canada, that is) is teetering dangerously close on the brink of sliding into a Dark Age. She cites five major reasons why: the continuing show more degradation of community and family, our higher education system, misuse of science and technology, governmental representation that has become disconnected from local needs, and the failure of self-regulation of the learned professions.I found all the points really intriguing, with quite a number of viewpoints offered that I hadn't before heard or considered. Her talk of the degradation of community and family was a great section, not focusing on ranting moralistic concerns so much as on the ever-worsening economic brutalities that households face while trying to support themselves, as well as the destruction of community (in its most holistic sense) brought about by those economic hardships as well as poor planning practices. For instance, she takes suburban design to task. Again, this is not in some kind of moralistic view in which she proclaims suburbs evil, but rather she simply points out the ways in which thought-processes behind their planning have been terribly misguided and destructive, often leading to neighborhoods that lack any real sense of community.Her taking to task of most of the universities in North America was also quite compelling. It comes across as a somewhat more dispassionate version of [a:Wendell Berry|8567|Wendell Berry|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1209652700p2/8567.jpg]'s arguments in [b:Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition|76732|Life Is a Miracle An Essay Against Modern Superstition|Wendell Berry|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1236228896s/76732.jpg|74220], although the substance of the arguments do have their differences, as well. Still, she quite convincingly argues that universities have become little more than credentialing agencies, rather than institutions that work to create fully formed human beings via comprehensive education (that fosters and creates the ability of critical and independent thought) and mentoring.Those are just a few of the intriguing arguments Jacobs makes in the book, and if they sound interesting, I certainly would recommend reading it. I perhaps prefer this sort of information to come to me via a more agitated voice--someone railing, though ideally not to the degree of incoherence. That Dark Age Ahead doesn't come in that exact voice is no condemnation of it as a fine bit of writing. Hell, for some, it's probably a much more palatable approach to a topic that can easily become very emotionally charged. For me, I would have preferred a bit more Berry-type anger.But then, I have Berry for that. Jacobs fulfills her own niche quite nicely. show less

The great Jane Jacobs' last book, Dark Age Ahead, will be familiar territory to her many devoted fans. Jacobs ruminates on the potential for it all winding down and falling apart in the West . This downer of a thesis may seem like an inevitable topic for someone in her late 80s, when Jacobs wrote this -- but her pessimism is not without merit and foundation. She identifies a series of structural problems in western societies that are eroding the foundations of our culture: pressure on families/communities; credentialism overwhelming higher education; the slackening pursuit of real science; the unwise levying and use of taxation; and the lack of policing in the professions.

Jacobs' thoughts often wander back to her familiar passions -- show more at times it seems as if proper levels of urban density and some nice clean electric streetcars would solve just about any crisis -- but there's plenty here that's cogent and provocative as well.

The weakness of the book is her reliance on trendy but not very trustworthy popular 'scholars' such as Jared Diamond and Karen Armstrong for much of her background on what makes societies come apart. I'd rather have heard more of Jacobs' own ideas.

These quibbles aside, Dark Age Ahead is not a bad place to start if you want to get into Jacobs' work. Her blunt, inimitable style is on display; her maddeningly unplaceable political stance is maintained; and at under 200 pages (if you skip the discursive endnotes, which you most certainly can) it's a brief and accessible work, much more so than her bombshell signature book, The Death and Life of American Cities. show less

Jacobs is an interesting writer, and clearly very well-read. Also a fascinating person. This book contains some interesting ideas. She leans heavily on Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Dark Age Ahead, however, is not a very "focused" book. Kind of rambling. Well written rambling.