The
British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, in his 12-volume
magnum opus A Study of History (1961), theorized that all
civilizations pass through several distinct stages: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration. (
Carroll Quigley would expand on this theory in his
The Evolution of Civilizations.)
Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by
loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or
attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great
expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by
overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.
The fixation on the old methods of the "Creative Minority" leads it
to eventually cease to be creative and degenerates into merely a "
Dominant minority"
(that forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience), failing
to recognize new ways of thinking. He argues that creative minorities
deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they
become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they
face.
He argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is
when the dominant minority forms a "Universal State," which stifles
political creativity. He states:
| “ |
First the
Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force - against all right and
reason - a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit;
and then the Proletariat
repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with
violence when it executes its acts of secession. Yet the whole movement
ends in positive acts of creation - and this on the part of all the
actors in the tragedy of disintegration. The Dominant Minority creates a
universal state, the Internal Proletariat a universal church, and the
External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands. |
” |
He argues that, as civilizations decay, they form an "Internal
Proletariat" and an "External Proletariat." The Internal proletariat is
held in subjugation by the dominant minority inside the civilization,
and grows bitter; the external proletariat exists outside the
civilization in poverty and chaos, and grows envious. He argues that as
civilizations decay, there is a "schism in the body social," whereby:
- abandon and self-control together replace creativity, and
- truancy and martyrdom together replace discipleship by the creative minority.
He argues that in this environment, people resort to
archaism (idealization of the past),
futurism (idealization of the future),
detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and
transcendence
(meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight,
as a Prophet). He argues that those who Transcend during a period of
social decay give birth to a new Church with new and stronger spiritual
insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form after
the old has died.
Toynbee's use of the word 'church' refers to the collective spiritual
bond of a common worship, or the same unity found in some kind of
social order.
(From wikipedia)
