“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” according to 20th-century historian Arnold Toynbee.
He claimed every great culture collapses internally due to a divergence in values between the ruling class and the common people…🧵
Toynbee was an English historian and expert on international affairs who published the 12 volume work “A Study of History,” which traced the life cycle of about two dozen world civilizations.
Through his work he developed a model of how cultures develop and finally die…
Toynbee argued that civilizations are born primitive societies as a response to unique challenges—pressures from other cultures, difficult terrain or “hard country,” or warfare.
Toynbee writes:
“Civilizations, I believe, come to birth and proceed to grow by successfully responding to successive challenges.”
But each challenge must be a “golden mean” between excessive difficulty, which will crush a culture, and ease, which will allow it to stagnate.
He believed civilizations continued to grow so long as they meet and solve new challenges, one after the other, in a cycle he calls “Challenge and Response.”
Thus, each civilization develops differently because each confronts and overcomes different challenges.
But societies do not respond to challenges as a whole; rather, it's a unique class of elites within a society that are the problem solvers.
He calls them the "creative minorities" who find solutions to challenges, and inspire—rather than force—others to follow their lead.
The masses follow the solutions of the creative minorities by 'mimesis' or imitation, solutions they would have otherwise been incapable of discovering on their own.
This synchronicity between the creative minorities and the masses brings civilization to its height.
Toynbee did not attribute the breakdown of civilizations to environmental forces or external attacks by other civilizations. Rather, it is the decline of the creative minority that leads to a culture’s downfall.
Through moral decay or material prosperity, the creative minority degenerates. They are no longer the great men who solve society’s problems but are simply a ruling class intent on preserving their power.
They become what Toynbee calls the “dominant minority.”
Toynbee points to a kind of self worship that takes hold of the dominant minority.
They become prideful about their positions of authority yet are wholly inadequate to deal with the culture’s new challenges.
Ultimately the dominant minority, incapable of solving their culture’s actual problems, form a “universal state” in a gambit to shore up their power, but it stifles creativity and subjugates the proletariat (common people). Toynbee used the Roman Empire as a classic example.
Toynbee writes:
"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.”
As society deteriorates, four sentiments exist within the proletariat:
Archaism - idealization of the past
Futurism - idealization of the future
Detachment - removal of oneself from a decaying world
Transcendence - confronting the decaying world with a new worldview
From the disunity between the dominant minority and the proletariat, and between the different proletariat dispositions, a unified culture is impossible, and the civilization eventually ends.
Toynbee sums up the three aspects of failing cultures:
“...a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis (imitation) on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.”
It’s interesting to observe Toynbee’s formulation in light of the West’s current struggles.
What do you think—was Toynbee observing universal patterns of civilizational development that might shed light on our culture today?
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Before GPS, navigating the open ocean was a dangerous, uncertain adventure that often ended in disaster.
Yet early explorers sailed the ocean blue long before modern technology made it easy—how did they do it?
Early navigation was crude and borderline divination.
In Indo-Pacific island chains, short migratory voyages relied on the bird signs, tell-tale ocean swells, and positions of heavenly bodies. Songs, stories, and star charts stored navigational knowledge for the next generation
Navigation of open waters increased one’s power in trade and war. If you could move farther and faster, you could not only grow your coffers, but also strike your enemies in places previously impossible.
Mastery of the open ocean was a strategic advantage.
The design of a cathedral is theologically based and instructive in the faith. Though beautiful, its construction is not arbitrary—it wasn’t arranged simply to look pretty.
The layout, artwork, statues, and stained glass windows all serve an edifying purpose🧵
The plan of a cathedral is cruciform in shape and is usually oriented eastward—ad orientum. Worshippers face the rising sun, a daily reminder of Christ’s resurrection.
The north and south transepts or “arms” represent Christ’s right and left hands on the cross.
The entrance at the West end corresponds with His feet; one enters at the foot of the cross and proceeds upward as they approach the altar.
The layout is divided into three parts: the narthex/vestibule for catechumens, the nave for laymen, and the sanctuary for clergy.
In the 19th-century, America believed it had a divine mission to expand westward.
Rooted in American exceptionalism, this idea was known as Manifest Destiny.
It inspired settlers—and soldiers—to "spread democracy" to the ends of the earth🧵
The term “manifest destiny” first appeared in an article by newspaper editor John O'Sullivan in 1845.
O'Sullivan, described as "always full of grand and world-embracing schemes," used the phrase in the midst of the ongoing Oregon boundary dispute with Britain.
He wrote it was America’s destiny to control North America:
“And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…”
Christianity conquered Rome—not only spiritually and politically, but architecturally, too. Some of the most iconic churches in the world used to be pagan temples.
Here’s how they were transformed🧵 (thread)
In the early centuries after Christ, Christianity rapidly expanded throughout the Roman empire. Paganism receded, leaving temples without a clear purpose.
At the end of the 4th century, Theodosius I closed them by decree.
Though Christians often chose locations of martyrs’ deaths for their churches like "Saint Paul Outside the Walls," the empty temples of Rome’s defeated pantheon were prime real estate for prospective church builders.
Alexander Hamilton argued in 1787 that the United States should resemble an elective monarchy.
It might sound like heresy to modern Americans, but his idea had some merit.
Here’s how it would’ve worked🧵
Hamilton gave a long and impassioned speech at the constitutional convention in favor of his position, nevertheless it was resoundingly voted down in favor of the presidential system the US has today.
But what did Hamilton advocate for exactly?
A Revolutionary army captain who fought fiercely against the British, Hamilton was actually sympathetic to the British system of government.
Specifically, he admired its strong monarch, and his proposed system was likely influenced by his understanding of Britain’s government.
Zoom in on this map—what parts of the world can you identify?
(hint: it’s upside down)
It’s called the Fra Mauro Map, and it shows the entire world according to a 15th-century monk.
It was a huge leap forward in western cartography, changing how map-making was done…🧵
The history of maps goes way back to the Paleolithic era.
One of the earliest known maps is a carved mammoth tusk thought to depict a mountain, river, and travel routes in modern-day Czech Republic. It dates to about 25,000 BC.
But it’s not very detailed or clear is it?
In ancient Babylonia, cartography techniques were greatly improved with the introduction of surveying techniques.
One map from the 13th century BC shows walls and buildings in the holy city of Nippur. This map is clear and usable.