The essence of a society is the reaction of its people to the climate that shapes it.

In other words, there is no separating the dynamics and ways of a social grouping of people from the environment from which it arises. People initially organize to contend with the challenges posed to them by the environment of the small part of the world in which they reside. Those organizations grow and evolve in direct response to their surroundings. And no matter how big or seemingly global a society may become, it still remains in essence a reaction to the environment where its foundations reside.

Mentioned in a previous essay is the example of how solar cycles drive the boom and bust cycles of various plant crops, specifically grains. Stocks of grain, or the lack thereof, determine whether or not -- and the extent to which there will be, if there is -- social stability, economic growth, or violent revolution. Other examples of how geography shapes the dynamics of a society abound.

Consider the rigors of life in a desert or an area with desert characteristics. Certainly the morality of the societies that are born in deserts will reflect the austerity of natural resources, the severity of the seasons, the unforgiving terrain and the panorama of the desert night sky. Cultures born in desert lands are thus conservative, severe, devout and yet still mystic. The cruel sun would represent the will of a vengeful Father God who would dominate a perhaps limited pantheon.

A totally different culture would arise on a tropical island, where trees bear fruit year round, the temperature is relatively constant, and rain falls regularly. A culture shaped by a tropical jungle might worship an array of gods due to the diversity of life in which the people find themselves surrounded. An Earth Mother goddess might be prominent among the pantheon and family lineage rights might favor the females. Morality would be relativistic, with possibly a diverse diet lending to an array of customs and festivities, and limited expectations of service from the individual to the government. In short, the abundance of foodstuffs found in tropical locales would make for a more lenient society.

Psychoactive plants shape culture, as William S. Burroughs has attested. And those plants require specific environments and geographic conditions to live. The legacy of the poppy is heard in sitar music and the phonetics of Arabic. Fertile plains and forests grazed by large herbivores would be the homes of mushroom cults, which were many and located in places as far away from one another as India and the Yucatan Peninsula. To this day the cow is seen as sacred by Hindus and some of the Mayan gods were named after mushrooms. Or perhaps it was the mushrooms named after the gods?

Geography and climate, more than the scheming of any greedy emperor and more than the velocity of any novel yet profound ideology, has dictated national boundaries and identities. Afghanistan has taken down (at least) five empires, if we are to include the United States on that list. Nothing but an expanse of semiarid and rugged mountains, Afghanistan always has been and always will be home to tribal wilderness survivalists. And, since we’re on the subject, before Europeans arrived in what is now the United States, the natives of this land bickered endlessly over its grounds and waters. The Native Americans were so divided that they couldn’t unite long enough to dispel the invader while he was too weak and ignorant to survive a single winter here. The U.S. technically has never been conquered and to this day no single ideology or identity unites its peoples.

Indeed anyone seriously plotting world empire is overlooking some of the most glaring and pronounced trends in history. As the Tao Te Ching points out: he who tries to control the world is like the child using the master carpenter’s tools. More likely than the creation of anything meaningful is the child injuring himself badly. Yet dreams of world empire will always abound. That is to say such schemes will be as grounded in hard history and gritty truth as are dreams.

Perhaps history will one day reveal that each era had themes of aspirations for those entertaining the illusion of power. And as the eras changed, and the geography of the planet changed with them, so changed those aspirations. One can hope.