Easter Island

In Jared Diamond's "Twilight at Easter," we travel across the mysterious Easter Island as he describes the most intriguing fact about this place: the island consists of monolithic stone statues that had once been found all over the island despite the apparent lack of means to create them or ways of transporting them to their different coastal locations. This central mystery of standing statues had been explored since the earliest recorded European contact by Jacob Rogeveen in 1722. While the mystery initially centered on why and how the statues were built on this denuded island, Diamond explores the mystery in modern terms and focuses on the environmental context, in particular the lack of trees that would have been used to sustain life in this remote place. Yet apart from the historical and scientific explanation of these people - seemingly so remote from us -Diamond makes striking and apparently strange direct comparisons with our way of life. In particular he mentions competition among islanders due to limited natural and economic resources; a competition present in today's society. How does this unusual strategy work in detail? And how does this strategy relate to the author's stated intention of using Easter Island as a metaphor for our own times?

After Diamond talks of the Spanish exploration in the middle of the piece, we see a direct remark about Hollywood. Diamond directly relates Easter Island's boasting characteristics to those of Hollywood's. The statues on the island became a symbol to gain "bragging rights." This competition is similar to the competition in Hollywood. For example, superstars will not settle for a house that is as big as another superstar's. The better star always has the better house! Living in Hollywood puts expectations on a person. This is one of the reason's Diamond emphasizes this specific detail. People on Easter Island have to live by the expectations of their surroundings. Once these enormous statues started to be built, others had to make larger statues to compete. In Hollywood people are expected to "live large." On Easter Island, statues were meant to "be built large." This direct comparison of something far, Easter Island, to something we know very well, Hollywood, gives us a better understanding of Diamond's analysis. Diamond deliberately brings up this comparison to warn us of our society's unhealthy competition. This type of unhealthy competition is what can lead a society to destruction. Diamond uses this particular strategy of direct comparison to show that the islanders were always in competition with one another instead of collaborating with one another. It is this competition amongst knowledgeable islanders which played a major role in the down fall of their society. The act of battling one another for high social status, as the islanders did, will lead us to the destruction of our own society.

Throughout the piece we are bombarded with facts about conserving limited resources; at the end of the piece Diamond explicitly states that Easter Island is "the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by exploiting its own resources." Diamond acknowledges this deforestation because deforestation has been a topic of discussion among many environmentalists in society. According to Environmentalist Eric Bastin, if we continue cutting tree's at the rate we cut now, we only have enough trees for about two generations. In our society we do not acknowledge this deforestation much because we feel we have an endless supply. On Easter Island, natives did not know they were limited to the trees they had cut down. Diamond tells us there could me many excuses for why they cut down the last tree. These excuses are identical to those used in today's counter arguments to deforestation. Prior to the conclusion of the piece, Diamond uses sarcasm to express these ideas. He relates the loggers of Easter Island to the loggers of our society. This sarcastic technique is used toBy relating an obstacle Easter Island's society faced with our society, Diamond justifies their actions. Since we are close to the conlusion of the piece, Diamond wants to clear up any doubt on may have about the islanders. Diamond concludes with such a harsh statement to further imply how resource management in our society needs to be taken seriously. Though this comparison was only a paragraph long, the idea of our society collapsing because of limited resources is discussed throughout the entire piece. This topic is specifically depicted in the piece because after resources are gone, a society is doomed.

In the beginning of the piece we see another direct comparison when Diamond relates the setting on the quarry to that of a factory. Diamond makes this specific comparison to stimulate pictures in the reader's brain. After a first read of the paragraph, I saw pictures in my head of a sweat shop from the early 1900s with underpaid workers and no unions to help. If our society ends up like this, with overworked factory workers, the workers will quit and our society will be destructed, just as the statues. Diamond also brought this idea up to show us that if we do not treat our "blue-collar" workers properly, we will be moving back in time. When our society did take advantage of workers, it did not prosper. Diamond wants to reiterate that taking advantage of the middle class is not benefical to society as a whole. When the middle class stops working, the upper class can not function. Diamond talks of the factory in a very informal way in this paragraph to make it seem as if we have bonded with him. Though it has only been one page into the piece, we already feel a sense