“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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What do Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Otto von Bismarck all have in common?
They knew that in order to rule effectively, one must shun ideology.
Instead, they embraced realpolitik: rule based on facts, not lofty ideals…🧵
So what is realpolitik?
Realpolitik, as it is understood today, is the approach of making political or diplomatic decisions based on the given circumstances of a matter, not on moral or ethical considerations.
It’s political pragmatism to the nth degree.
The 19th century German writer Ludwig von Rochau first coined the term. He described it as the implementation of the idea that “the law of power governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world.”
If you like Greek or Roman classics, you can thank a monk.
Just as much as on any battlefield, Western civilization was safeguarded within the quiet confines of a monastery...🧵
In the 6th century, the fate of western Europe was uncertain.
Barbarians had deposed the Roman emperor; age-old institutions were left decaying; the flame of civilization almost gone…
But at a monastery in Calabria, a monk named Cassiodorus toiled to keep this flame alight.
Born into an aristocratic family, Cassiodorus’ early career was a far cry from his later vocation.
He rose through the ranks of the Roman political scene, ultimately reaching Praetorian Prefect, the highest administrative role in the empire directly under Theodoric the Great.
Despite wielding absolute power, they used their authority to maintain peace and stability throughout the Roman empire and ushered in an age of unparalleled cultural heights🧵
In order, they were:
Nerva (reign 96–98 AD)
Trajan (98–117)
Hadrian (117–138)
Antoninus Pius (138–161)
Marcus Aurelius (161–180)
Notably, they were not a bloodline. All were either adopted, or in Nerva’s case, raised to power by assassins of Domitian (the previous emperor).
Machiavelli coined the term the “good emperors,” claiming their quality as leaders was a direct result of them being adopted and not inheriting the throne via blood.
He maintained that those who were raised to power by virtue of mere blood usually ended up being poor leaders.
Rome was the preeminent engineering civilization. Its roads, bridges, and aqueducts ensured an unmatched quality of life for its citizens.
Yet its greatest engineering feat wasn’t about providing a comfortable life—the Colosseum was built for a dramatic death🧵
The Colosseum became famous for its gladiatorial contests, executions, reenactments of famous battles, and even mock sea fights.
It was a theater designed with two things in mind: death and spectacle.
Constructed between 72-80 AD under Vespasian, the Colosseum was the largest amphitheater in the Roman world. Holding a capacity of 65000 spectators, the building project required extraordinary human ingenuity.
Of course, such a massive undertaking required a lot of money…
In 1831, French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the US to study democracy.
He saw some positives, but also noted a few flaws such as:
-tyranny of the majority
-isolated individuals
-materialism
He claimed religion was essential to prevent these dangers...🧵
Alexis de Tocqueville was a diplomat sent by the French government to learn about the prison system in America.
While abroad, he used the opportunity to investigate American society as a whole, penning his most famous work ”Democracy in America.”
Traveling during the height of the industrial revolution, he believed democracy and industrialization went hand-in-hand—American democracy was the embodiment of this unification.
De Tocqueville described America as “a democratic revolution caused by industrialization.”
We’ve all seen gargoyles before — ghoulish carvings set outside old churches.
But why pair such ugly images with sacred buildings?
Well, to protect something priceless, you need something *monstrous*.
They teach us a lesson about defending what we love…🧵
First off, what is a gargoyle?
The word gargoyle comes from the French gargouille meaning “gullet” or “throat.”
A gargoyle, then, is a decorated water spout. They were used for a utilitarian purpose: to prevent water from flowing down the sides of buildings, causing erosion.
Not all the monstrous sculptures outside of cathedrals are gargoyles, though. Many are technically grotesques since they don’t funnel any water. A grotesque is simply a fantastic stone carving that’s secured to the wall or roof of a building.