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What can I know (if trust in knowledge has been lost)? | 19 unlimited replaceability of dwindling natural resources, the less said about them, the better. Confusing questions, arise, however, even regarding the common concept of development itself. The above-mentioned criteria of development fit the history of the cultures familiar to us: their pattern differentiates as they move forward in time. It enables the given people — or even several successive peoples — to reach ever more complex and particular achievements. But what explains their decline, the process of disintegration and collapse? Why should internal tensions and external effects, which until that point had acted in one way or another as a stimulus to the development of the given civilisation, lead beyond that point to the collapse of the seemingly solid structures, exposing their inability to renew themselves? ‘The examination of this exciting question would lead us far from our subject, but it is perhaps obvious that decline and destruction are just as much a part of the life of civilisations as of living organisms. Take modern Europe and the current Cosmopolis built on the European pattern (the monumental second flowering of the ancient civilisation that developed around the Eastern Mediterranean Basin). Despite its relatively young age, has it not already reached the stage of decadence? Must it not collapse under the weight of the internal contradictions precipitated by its unprecedentedly rapid development and aggressive expansion? We can avoid the troublesome question in two ways. We can say, first of all, that our knowledge is superior and our achievement is of a higher order than that of the others, which is why we were able to defeat and incorporate all other civilisations. The problem with this answer is that we lack the outside perspective and unit of measurement which would enable us to compare the performance of the various civilisations. We can be sure that the sages of the Egyptian New Kingdom or of the Golden Age of Athens could bring up several points that prove the paltriness of our knowledge and the lowliness of our way of life compared to theirs. Confucius and Lao-Tse would note in despair that everything from which they tried to protect the people has come to pass. We might find their reasoning risible, but this is exactly what I am talking about: every great civilisation is superior to the others in its own ways, according to its own system of values. As for our global expansion, that is not exactly proof of success. It is not only the common destiny of invasive species and rapidly disappearing empires that make me say this, but rather the aforementioned destructive processes that have already escaped from our control, such
