How Civilizations Die, According to Arnold Toynbee
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” according to 20th-century historian Arnold Toynbee. He claimed every culture collapses internally due to a divergence in values between the ruling class and the common people…
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Of course every civilization also tends to believe they are immune from making the same mistakes of past civilizations.
They are not. Not because people are stupid, but because, these so called 'mistakes' aren't mistakes. These are natural and perfectly rational response to situation. Every civilization does these before their demise because they go through the same approximate situations.
The rulers don't get corrupt. Rulers are always corrupt. Examine closely and you'll see that Arnold's 'creative minority' are often more corrupt than the later 'self worshipping dominant minority'. It's just that the so called 'creative minority' has many 'lands to conquer' and expand their dominance, creating all the tales of glory. The later 'dominant minority' just doesn't have any room left to conquer. So, they 'conquer' their own people, give them the taste of what's was happening to those vanquished people they treated like animal so far.
The one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history…
Of cause we are not immune. But we have a new tool to keeping the leadership of our societies healthy in most of the west: democracy. If our leaders become irrelevant and if we are competent voters, we will get better leaders.
This is an ongoing process in much of the EU. The US is another story. We also see post-truth elements in EU but nothing like D. Trump.
Same as every other form of government, democracy has its downsides. There is nothing that suggests that democracies are somehow gonna exist forever, people/countries change and though it seems hard to imagine now, but west might make 180 turn and turn into 1984 mode, or maybe no. What I'm saying is we don't know, nothing is given, and even thought democracies seem the best option right now, it is not guaranteed that this thinking will exist in future.
@@erenliebert4576 You know the largest problem with Democracy is? The problem is - what is Democracy in the first place? In practice it's the rule of parliament and bureaucracy. But then, how does it differs from feudalism? Far back in 2600 yrs ago, Cyrus the great ruled using his parliament and bureaucracy. If you're talking about election, we the masses can only vote for who gets party nomination. But do we has any control over who gets nomination? Then do we actually elect at all?
The ideal definition says that - Democracy is the govt. of the people, by the people and for the people. But does even any sliver of that exists in reality? How's what exists in reality not a feudalism wearing a new vest?
He might well have been describing the modern elites of the west
Ironically, I think many in the current elites are trying to avoid this very problem by championing certain racial and sexual minorities as well as certain women. They do this at the expense of undermining the family and the traditions and customs of the society that these elites influenced by a radical egalitarianism see as "oppressive," but are necessary to coordinate and inspire most people in their daily lives.
Without these informal means of social coordination and preserving the inspiring stories that give a culture a vision rooted in its past as it preserves it and extends it into the future, the society will gradually disintegrate.
He is
Or China today.
This is one of the faults of Arnold's model. The elites are always self-worshipping dominant minority. It's just when there's no more land to conquer, or, not much market to win, etc, this self-worshipping dominant minority gets no way to grow their riches, and starts to 'conquer' their own people. Nothing else.
@@gwang3103Do you really think there is the same disconnect between the Chinese ruling cadre as there is with the Western equivalent, from polls, ~95% of the Chinese support their government and it's policies, maybe 40% support the policies of Westrrn governments?
Welcome to the West in 2024. Never thought id live to see its fall, but here i am in the thick of it. The grand sweep of history and of change is palpable today. Historians of the future reading this, we grew up in the greatest time to be alive, took it for granted, and squandered it.
Welcome to the Arab Wirld! 😬🤥🤐
Mmm
It was only "the greatest time" for the colonialist powers. Most of the world suffered horribly from our brutal reign.
@@kateoneal4215 bullshit. Keep your fake virtue signaling to yourself.
@@kateoneal4215lol, coming from a white woman no less.
As Voltaire writes... "History never repeats itself. Man always does."
Mark Twain said: "History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes."
Human nature does not change.
Exactly=We are currently in the last days of the Roman empire cycle.
Next up the Greek city states ethos.
Than the agrarian societies with a greater focus on simple living & a deeper connection to the earth as THE MOTHER.
Of course the AGRARIAN AGE comes about after a huge population decrease.
@@bitbucketcynic True but human culture does change.
I'm at the detachment faze. Constant incompetence by the ruling class makes it impossible to be enthusiastic about a society with no direction or ability to execute a winning plan.
I don't think the present dilemma of the countries of the global west is incompetence. I think it is a concerted effort to impose the WEFs Global Socialism. That is such a bad idea that it might be considered incompetence, but I do believe it is purposeful.
It’s beyond incompetence, it’s deliberate retardation.
@@AL-ku1zqI think there's a basic misunderstanding of socialism, what the WEF is proposing is much closer to fascism, they want everyone controlled by the corporate elites. It will be a small club, and you won't be in it.
Purposeful or incompetence, doesn’t matter much at the end of the day. When you are responsible for the fate of hundreds of millions of lives, incompetence isn’t a defense to save your skin either way.
I'm 73 and am not about to give up and roll over. My conscience won't allow an abdication of social responsibility.
I've carefully vetted JILL STEIN and am supporting her revolutionary platform in every way I can.
Self-respect is critical to my well-being.
This is exactly what is happening in society and religion.
And it’s being fueled by the elites !
It's beyond saving at this point
What are you here for?
If you live in the collective West, your geopolitical rivials are convincing you (and your fellow citizens) things are worse off than they actually are. In reality, you and your luxuriant life would be the envy of virtually every human living before you.
@@BuddyLee23You (and many) only believe that technology means a thriving culture because you have been told so by that very society - it’s actually the opposite.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana,
But if history has taught us one thing, it's that we never learn from it.
We never learn and we just repeat it over and over again, like a simple software running in a loop. It almost looks like a cheap simulation
Those who mindlessly repeat quotes and paste them on youtube are nincompoops - Crazy Frog
Toynbee also held that Concentration of Wealth within the Ruling Class played a large role in Civilizational Collapse, with the Dynamic being that the Ruling Class would absolve themselves from the obligation to pay taxes, at the same time as most income would be in their own coffers. Therefore the Government would not be able to maintain the Public Infrastructures for Irrigation, Education or Defense against Barbarian Invasion. One example was given which sounds amazing, that in China the Ruling Class first absolved their Class of having to pay any taxes at all, and then the Political Leadership put in a policy that Taxes would fall exclusively upon the Property Owners not of the absolved Ruling Class. Then the Ruling Class went to the Tax Paying Property Owners with the proposition that they could sell their Land to the Ruling Class and the Ruling Class would Lease the Land back to them, so that NOBODY had to pay any Taxes. Nobody paying any taxes turned into a very significant problem, but the Ruling Class owning virtually everything was thought to make the consequences worthwhile, but as Toynbee pointed out, that no matter how wealthy the Ruling Classes became, they generally did not survive the Collapse of their Civilizations. Thumbs Up.
Monopolism - a societal ideology where the rule enforcing framework benefits a few at the cost of the rest - long term unsustainable. This happens because of 'our nature of being living beings' coupled with 'our societies always being based on a monopol on force' that is being captured by individual living beings.
I will have to look into this Toynbee guy.
@@joansparky4439 Yes, Toynbee has the standing of being the most influential Historian in History. And, yes, thank you for the new term, that is, for me, that is, "Monopolism" where I'd always just referred to Concentration of Wealth. But keep in mind the Principle of Chesterton's Gate (that Institutions that we hold in doubt have probably come into being because they served a purpose). Concentration of Wealth results from an Accumulation of Wealth, that is, enough Wealth to invest is Trade, Industry, Roads, Infrastructures, Colonialism, Arts, Sciences, etc. In Europe one of the most significant driving engines for Accumulation of Wealth was the Institution of Primogeniture, that is, where the Estates would descend to the First Born Male Heirs, keeping Estates intact. Primogeniture wouild also encourage Second and Third Sons to go into the Church, or the Army, Law and Business. Britain became a Global Empire on the back of Primogeniture.
But, yes, if we are worried of a Few Wealthy over Many Poor, well, why are we not blaming the propagation of poverty. Where are any institutions designed to discourage Propertyless People from breeding like rats. I( would have an Institution where people would need to pay for a License to have a Child the same way they buy houses, that a Mortgage would have to be taken out, so that when any child arrives at the age of 30 then he or she will be presented with a sizeable Annuity Income Account. Also, we can look at the Medieval Lawa and catch some hint of how they held down the Population of Poverty, that many Penalties in the Law were Capital, that they would execute Criminals for damned near everything (where we get the quaint phrase "Might as well be hanged for stealing a Sheep as a Lamb". Yes, even hunters poaching game birds or rabbits upon some Lord's Estate could get one hanged or shot dead on the spot. So, yes, our problem is not with Too Much Wealth, but with Too Much Poverty. The War on Poverty should be construed as being a War on the Poor, to keep their numbers down. Yes, the Law of Economics had been that a great many Poor would translate into Cheap Labor, but now with Machine Intelligence and Affordable Robotics, that Dynamic has come to its Sunset, and now the Magnitudes of the Poor are only a Risk for Uprisings of Anarchist Revolution, from both the Right (Fascism) or the Left (Communism).
@@leovolontReducing the numbers of the poor is indeed possible, as history shows, Earths population has increasingly grown wealthier and the gap between the wealthy and super poor has shrunk dramatically. However, this will often be a slow process and eradication of the lower class will have to mean the eradication of the very real genetic and cultural circumstances that leads to within country poverty.
I.e genetic disability or abusive households. Absolving poverty completely in this case is almost impossible unless you want to adopt very archaic policies. You’ll likely have better success by maximizing the economic efficiency of the middle class and somehow reducing the need for the “destined to be poor” to not participate in the workforce at all.
@@COLDoCLINCHER37 Medieval Systems have used Religious Monasteries to regulate population. Monasteries would catch the population overflow, and then, with the rules against procreating, Poverty would die without leaving a trace. On my Channel, one of my best series of videos (to be found in my Playlist Menu, was the series "the Material Mechanics of Spirituality, in which (in the last or second to last video in the series) I explain that the Monasteries were probably not primarily intended to be Religious Retreats at all, but had been functionally intended to be Orphanages for illegitimate children, and catch alls for those in Disgrace, or those facing Poverty. Really, as Machine Intelligence and Robotics create more and more unemployment, we will need to rethink the Institutions of Monastic Celebacy, but not in strictly Religious Settings, as one can build up a type of
Religious Dovotion, for Golf, Sports, Boating, Riding, Arts, or whatever... the idea is to give unemployed people something that will fascinate them and keep them busy, and keep them from having babies. Not so much Concentration Camps as Summer Camps that go year round.
@@leovolont Possibly. But one must realise is the massive administration constraints that may prevent this from being successful. Atleast In the manner you described. To truly prevent the poor or I'd prefer to say the "destined to be poor" families or genetic lineages from procreating you must do so in a way that is self autonomous. In which the destined to be poor actually revel in the idea of no children, and unserious relationships and most important the lack of need of a nuclear family. Unfortunately, this is seen more frequently in highly developed and intelligent countries such as East Asia, mainly South Korea which now has a birth rate of less than 0.8 an order of nearly 2 below the recommended societal replacement level.
Knowing this, to create an autonomous sense of need of or lack of desire to procreate we must try and replicate the societal conditions that have resulted in such low infertility within East Asian communities and somehow actively and purposely propagate these depressive, unfamily friendly conditions within the masses of not so much the poor, but the people and genetic lineages who are destined to be poor or I should say more likely to be complacent in poverty as genetic and cultural determinants of poverty are not always easily predictable.
Its possoble, and weve already seen real world examples existing right now, we just need to find a way to Propogate such conditons without any resistance from the poor. Simply distracting them with enjoyances of modern life such as sport and, s3x may work in the begining, however, because of the innate human desire for novelty, every addiction whether good or bad will need to be reinforced with more extreme supports of that addiction in question. Look up the human dopamine response in the brain and why addicts continuously seek new and desires that fulfil their crave for dopamine spikes.
Also I apologise for spelling and grammatical mistakes as I'm typing this on phone.
He's pretty much nailed exactly what is happening now.
The kiss of death for any civilization is the feeling that they've arrived - that they can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their past successes. I see this attitude all over the place these days.
Societies function when everyone mutually benefits, and die when the needs of the many are subordinated to the greed of the rulers. Though the slow decay and decline this brings is usually punctuated by a crisis that the now-enfeebled society can't withstand anymore, which brings on a sudden and rapid collapse.
While I would like your comment to be true, many, if not most, civilizations are made up of the exploited majority and a small elite ruling class. A large powerful middle class is a relatively new development.
Our elites are despicable, noone wants to imitate them, they are only despised in our time.
My late dad was a historian and a fervent admirer of Toynbee's works. This analysis of civilisation is so simple and so true. You do not need fancy stuff to figure things out. A competent responsible meritocracy like the "Founding Fathers" in the USA gives way to an incompetent undeserving Inheritocracy. This Inheritocracy will have to use force to keep its grip on things as it becomes no longer relevant to the needs and concerns of the majority of people or the " working moral majority of people"?! Yet new factors are shaping civilizations now, which are technology, automation and hyper-productivity! Their impact is left to be seen.
Read, "Rise Of The Meritocracy" or, "The Tyranny of Merit" by Young and Sandel respectively. The Framers weren't creating a, "meritocracy" (the term would have no meaning in their times). This is a, "noble lie" or, "Veblenism" that we use to justify inequality which comes as a natural result of the functioning of a free and open society. It's worth noting the Framers were, "elitist" in the classicists sense. The vast majority of Americans weren't invited to vote in the state assemblies after the war. The Framers were influenced by Tacitus and Aristotle. They didn't view, "democracy" the way we do. They felt responsible for governing and educating, "those who could not govern and educate themselves" which in their times was the great majority of people. There are deep reasons why compulsory education isn't, "unconstitutional" in the United States
The sentiments of a great many while being worth examining are usually in the mode of, "despite things being much, much better in the past I feel humiliated by envy and the greed that comes from coveting the things and status of others." Deplorable poor people that want to hurt others out of envy and greed aren't idealists or revolutionaries. They're bitter criminals-- and just like the Founders said, "it's not hard to put down mobs." Look at the Paris Commune, the French Revolution, and the failed German revolution in 1918. We can put mobs down. We must address why they exist in the first place. This was Jefferson's advice.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/voting-rights-throughout-history/
www.nationalguard.com
Anyone who prefers meritocracy over democracy either hasn't thought things trough or is an elitist. All meritocracies are elitist societies ultimately ruled by those who determine what the merits are (and not by the meritorious). If that doesn't create a divide between the ruling class (who set the goals by determining what the merits are) and the commoners (who have to be meritorious by acting like the ruling class prescribed) I don't know what will. Edit: and by the way, having a lot of money can be a merit too, it certainly is in the US.
@@JerehmiaBoazMerit, or proficiency in a specialism is easily determined by rigorous examinations. These have been dumbed down, and also replaced by coursework which is open to fraudulent submissions because they are not done in controlled conditions. People can get others to do the work for them. Moral merit is another matter entirely. Regardless of technical merit, it seems that most of our rulers are motivated entirely by greed and the lust for power. Lack of technical merit means that even the "good" people are easily turned into useful idiots by clever self interested people because they lack knowledge and critical thinking ability. The decline in my 69 year lifespan has been incredible to watch.
@@ericrawson2909 Merit isn't defined as proficiency in a specialism at all, it means possessing a superior amount or degree of an attribute worthy of praise or approval. Greed can be a merit too, for instance in Ayn Rand's philosophy (that's where Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" speech comes from).
@@JerehmiaBoazIf the merit is determined by feedback from the populace, as it is in China, that clears up the idiocy of Rand's definition of merit. Merit in the context of a ruling body must have feedback from the masses to determine what qualifies as meritorious, only that which benefits the majority qualify. It seems to have worked there so far, and it did, to whatever extent in the West until the greed of the elites and their wealth became sufficient that it no longer matters, just like it did in Rome.
Civilizations die when those of sound mind waste their time thinking and analyzing things that are self evident instead of taking action against the forces eating away at society.
Good point but modern thinkers can make a lot of money from talking points in the culture. And to focus more on actions can lead to cancellation etc.
@@richardc861 Even more of a reason why taking action instead of talking is needed so much. Expecting evil to become less evil over time is pure folly. Things will get a LOT worse.
@@khatack yes, my concern though as you state, the time for talking and dialogue seemed wasted on society in the west now and any action imo will lead to violence. Almost feels like we are just waiting now for a some event to light a match and violence is the order of the day. Secondly, I think apathy is rife in the west.
@@richardc861 I think you're correct on both accounts. Pacifism is an evolutionary death sentence.
jews...
I think we've all heard these ideas before, but I have never heard them expressed in such concentrated, concise and succinct manner. I just purchased Volume 1 of A Study of History on Amazon, arriving tomorrow. Can't wait. Thank You for this video. Liked & Subbed -
What a content you brought here. This book deserves a deeper analisys. It sumerizes what is taking place with the western civilization nowadays.
Nothing is permanent. Just like the Great Greek and the Mighty Roman civilization collapsed, the same would happen to Western civilization as well.
It's just the law of nature. Accept and fade away. It's too late now to save anything.
I tend to think the industrializing east will bail us out when we get our act together. We are intimately part of the wider world.
@@urrywest Nope. We shall hobble along and eventually supplant the weak, stifling chaff. It's coming, change is blowing in the wind. Does it bother you that some clamor for the fight against their neighbor rather than some propagandist created "other".
@@user-pq5rb8ju4w What I think you mean is that these societies that are in decline will eventually be over run by those who have stronger economies... That the cycle of imprialism will continue... I am not sure of that because China dosn't really have a recient history of imprialism and population growth rates in the east don't have the power to over run us.
Murica - undecided between Degeneration and Decadence
“Why not both?” Decadent degeneration.
But FULLY ENGAGED in self- destruction!
False choice.
Civilisations die from irreconcilable conflicts between different classes, greed and corruption
Gosh! This is on point.
Exactly what I've been observing regarding the UK
Wonderful video. My father really likes Toynbee’s books
GREAT PRESENTATION
This is happening now.
The word "Merit" ignited so much analysis and passion rightfully so. How do we define "Merit" then? I would say: Merit is integrity and a real sincere concern about the common good, backed by competence. Obviously, a successful civilization cannot leave its fate neither to the mob in the name of democracy, nor to an unscrupulously, tyrannical, exploitive self-serving "elite"! There must be an optimal way to serve the common good.
The definition of merit depends on your goal.
You can’t attempt to define merit. Merit is subjective, which is why we leaned on democracy in the first place. We can’t agree on what even IS merit.
@@Willsmiff1985Nor democracy
Yes, he was correct that there are definitely patterns of an evolutionary nature which repeat throughout historical rises and falls of societies. A society is in it's lethal final stage when one part wants to destroy the other part without awareness or care for the annihilation of the whole.
Sounds like the present.
@@occamsshavecream4541 EXACTLY. AND THE PAST TOO! PERHAPS WE'RE ALREADY LIVING IN THE BEGINNINGS OF "THE PAST?"
Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times..
And bullshitters produce bullshit Hard times kill people. Strong men create autocracies. Good times make people happy. Weak men realize that all men are weak and need society to thrive.
Weak men let the juice in
We're at the weak men stage right now. So I guess hard times are coming. Toward the end of the Roman empire, many men had also become very effeminate and morally and psychologically weak, like today's men.
@@miamiman196 We're not the roman empire and our civilization isn't collapsing just because the US is losing its hegemony. Western civilization was just fine before the US rose to dominance and it will be just fine after the US has waned.
@JerehmiaBoaz I did not mention the US at all. I am talking about Western civilization. The imposition and imitation of Western culture have been a civilizing factor throughout the world. Why did you think I was referring to the US? The US is just one of many countries in the "Western World."
Challenges, difficulties, failures and insecurity makes us understand our reality (the environment we live in).
Understanding and Learning keeps us sane, and sanity is essential for survival.
When there are no challenges, the sanity vanishes.
Perfect! Short and directly to the point!
I read that Toynbee was widely considered to be the pre-eminent historian of the twentieth century ( by other historians ). I can see why.
Him and Spengler, who directly influenced Toynbee by postulating civilizations have life cycles like organizms.
We have a new tool to keeping the leadership of our societies healthy in most of the west: democracy. If our leaders become irrelevant and we are competent voters, we will get better leaders. This is a dominating process in most of the EU.
@@jensstergard9380Is this is a joke or a prescriptive nostrum?
@@DonaldDucksRevenge This is an observation. The US is an example of a weakening democracy because of voters mislead by the rich (to simplify things a lot).
The downfall of an empire is having wealth and comfort for too long and strive in self interest shellfish desire’s
Selfish
@@longestvideoever who can say these days? Most of these self destructive behaviors, lobsters wouldn't even engage in.
Take a look at the Achaemenids. They had competent statesmen like Cyrus and Darius at the beginning who created an effective government, infrastructure, economy, military, etc. At the end, the ruling class became engaged in luxuries thereby raising taxes, corruption, and the idea that Persia was invincible. They got whacked by a kid.
They got whacked because their army would rather flee than stand and fight bravely. Why fight for rulers who live lifestyles vastly different to yours? The same question applies today. Who would fight to protect their own country when it's rulers are nothing like its people?
Thanks for producing this short explainer video on Toynbee's still relevant concepts of historical cycles in civilizations. I devoted an entire chapter of my 2022 book, Words From the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, to Toynbee's brilliant book, A Study of History. Required reading.
How remarkably on point and enlightening.
Good job
Sounds pretty spot on.
I’m reading the decline of the west right now and boy it is a hard read.
Hope Toynbee is easier.
Don't waste your time
Toynbee writes more straightforward or conventional history with academic hypotheses, whereas Spengler has written a kind of philosophical or spiritual interpretation of history.
This describes the situation in much of the world, not just the West.
This presentation is just what I need to continue to form my opinion of what is going on with our country and culture. Thank you!
Yes, but what dished Rome was devaluing its citizenship, and in particular its eventual reliance on non-Romans for its defence.
And the huge influx of barbarians who overwhelmed Roman culture. Historian Peter Heather makes this point. We are seeing this today in America and Europe with the influx of people from the Third World. But the elites are not only doing nothing about this invasion but are championing those who are undercutting our folkways and traditions as did the ancient barbarians in Rome en masse.
"The border is secure.... the border is secure...."
[Vice consulate of the Roman emperor after the sacking of Rome by the barbarians]
Ever since the Punic Wars the Romans relied on foreign allies for their military
This is exactly what's happening in europe. Citizenship is devalued
And you would think a certain country would learn from that but NOOOOOOOOOOO
This by far is the greatest thing I’ve watched in the last couple months!!!😮❤🤔. This basically explains everything. The ruling elite primarily the liberals, Democrats Hollywood, academic modernist, etc. have lost complete creativity and degenerated into despotism and decadence. So I know the future of my country USA
Nailed modern-day America to a T, and perhaps Europe as well.
Excellent explanation! Thanks!
This happened in China for thousands of years too. It was called the dynastic cycle. There would be a corrupt empire, then rebellion and revolution, the new emperor would be good for awhile, then his descendants would get worse and worse, until another rebellion and revolt and then over and over and over again.
Typically, each dynasty would last from about 150-400 years.
Hits hard. Thoughtful content. Subbed.
Excellent correct summary
Thanx - Toynbee deserves a little more limelight for his life's works, insights and deductions.
It's all happening now.
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing it.
Great presentation! Tanks.
Civilizations die because they refuse to adapt. What works at one stage doesn't work at another, and if you try to fight the next war with the approach of the last war, as it were, you lose. Not because they lose their way and change.
Your video suggests that a civilization - any civilization - would do well to deliberately nurture the creativity that exists among the common people by fundamentally restructuring their educational system to ensure that the creative minority that is in power is continuously infused with new blood so that it remains innovative. That said, I won't hold my breath that this will happen in the West, and in particular the United States.
What do you suggest the reform to be?
I recently read of Dorothy Tillman who received a PhD at age 17. I believe the education structure can be much more efficient because of Dorothy's example. However, home life (parents) are most important and beyond the education industry's power.
@@tyranmcgrath6871 School reform cannot be one person’s solution. But your question deserves a response. Regardless of their number, it would help if most of the professionals charged with developing the reform strategy are parents; if some of the developers are actual “strategists” and some current or former teachers or technical education instructors; if the reform approach calls for and genuinely takes into account parental input; if at the end of each academic year administrators are required to formerly rate and document the learning-instilling aptitude of their teachers; and, as you seem to suggest, if the reform strategy requires ceasing to involve sanctioning those in authority to proclaim or enact edicts that authorize the mindset of the many annulling the exercise of individual agency of the one (the student) and depositing the delegated consent of the few (the student’s family) into school trash cans.
With regards to the actual reform strategy, as an 80-year old, lifelong student, as a former teacher and retired civilian Federal government employee, and as a parent in progress my input would suggest that the fundamental lesson the reform plan developed and implemented must deliver to and instill in students is that everything in life, including life itself, is simultaneously a system and part of a system (a subsystem) and that all systems - organizations (e.g. civilizations, societies, governments, businesses, the observable universe, school districts, etc.) as well as organisms (i.e. individuals) - are “open structures”, and therefore exposed to the risks and opportunities generated by the environment in which they function and compete. Of course, the developers of the strategy would have to be required to demonstrably prove that the newly reformed system actually achieves preparing students to systemically analyze the risks and opportunities existing in their functional/competitive environment so that their lifelong problem solving capacity effectively delivers systemic-strategic solutions to the problems they encounter in life and must either face down or leverage to their competitive advantage in choosing to settle for “fated fate” or to conscientiously achieve “by design destiny”.
EXCELLENT video!! A very insightful description on the nature of civilizational decline.
Good presentation! I think Oswald Spengler model might highly intetest you and your viewers.
Reading Decline of the West now actually
Try reading Wikipedia
@ThinkingWest Excelent book, looking forward for a video on that!
@@tuckerbugeater village idiot will ALWAYS make their presence known.
@@ThinkingWesthow is that going? I tried to read it, but gave up at spme point.
I've heard of Toynbee before in connection with the Sumerians and he's a great historian and thinker. What this video describes is happening now in western civilization today.
The hubris of the ruling elite combined with other factors, like disease that does not discriminate, ecological disasters that had been brewing for years and ignored or misunderstood and the ambitions of foreign rulers along with rebellions from the masses, contribute to a civilization's downfall.
Toynbee was astute about the history of civilizations.
And of course we have Chaos Theory, which states that the larger and more complex a system is the more likely it is to either fail or break apart.
Awesome!
Peter Turchin at SUNY offers a very cogent analysis of how societies develop and decay. But seems similar to this.
thank you
Thanks!
Thank you Greg! 🙏
Can you do a deeper dive analyzing and sumamrizing the whole book
Great video. Subscribed.
This video is golden!
Exactly the same is happening in Canada as we speak...
Thanks
As I like to say, wealth is like manure, if you spread it around, a healthy garden will grow. If you concentrate it, you get a toxic pile of $h!t.
Spot on, nice.
I think that Toynbee was right on the 💰
❤❤❤Society n narion dies due greed.... Rather than share thr wealth w others....
Accumulation of unsustainable practices lead to death.
This explanation resonates.
I met Toynbee when I was very young. He was a big man with a big handshake. It was in a symposium with some of the greatest minds and I had the liberty to also shake hands with Einstein and Tagore. I also met my future wife that night. Had a wonderful woohoo in the hotel that night 💞💋💘
Civilizations wear out. The people drift away. They stop paying tribute. They apply their time and energy to new things.
Leaders, out of habit or desperation, simply lose control.
In the lead up to “the end”, sunny days and sweet innocence …
And then on one of those brilliant days the end starts …
Nice content ❤
This is very good.
I choose to believe that there is often order out of chaos. Things must breakdown to a certain degree before we can fix them. Bandaids won’t work
Violence is coming, words are meaningless presently.
Recommend checking out the Prophets of Doom by Neema Parvini for an overview of the other thinkers on cyclical history.
This is right on.
EXCELLENT! JUST SUBSCRIBED!
Exactly what's happening today!
NATURAL CYCLES MUST BE OBSERVED
not only that but empires also become a beast that needs to keep on feeding & devouring in order to keep existing, otherwise it collapses. Empires need to keep conquering territory (expansion) or to gain resources. like Rome needed more & more silver & gold to pay its military as it grew & expanded. It would have also needed more & more slaves to perform work.
Decadence leads to downfall.
One cannot expect creatives to thrive in a competitive market. Art dies when it has to mass appeal. Ideas rot when they must fit the popular narrative.
Liberal democracy runs the process of building a successful society backwards.
First comes the masses and the money, the creatives must then try to adapt to that society.
In a functioning society, the masses trust the creatives, that their ideas will blossom, given time. Now creatives sell their soul for a penny.
Great synthesis
So, from a perspective of usefulness ... we (humanity) are screwed. Our ability to survive will always depend on our ability to overcome greed. And we never will. Therefore, we exist only to perpetually fail in a civilizational "Groundhog Day" movie. Another MAJOR design flaw.
Suicide or Arrogance and ticking off the wrong enemies
the decadence of success to downright failure can be seen in corporations today. When they get too big they far too often make arrogant narcissism driven moves that outright brings a corporate empire to a dramatic & quick failure. Much like any empire or civilization, the problems are brought about from within.
Ah, so this is who _The Toynbee Convector_ was named for! (An excellent short story. Highly recommend.)
I think this theory overlooks the pressures from the masses that are historically exerted upon the status quo and ruling elites, and that are responsible for real change and growth. The peasant revolts in medieval Europe, the French Revolution, the abolitionist movement and slave revolts in the US, the successful slave rebellion in Haiti, the civil rights and antiwar movements in the US and elsewhere, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the current anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements in Africa -- the list goes on and on. Real change comes from the bottom, not the top. The ruling elites respond to those pressures. If they respond wisely -- as in abolishing slavery and Jim Crow -- the civilization grows. If they respond unwisely -- through autocratic crackdowns, surveillance and police states -- the civilization ultimately collapses. But the ruling elites are, either way, the responders, not the creators.
I didn’t know Toynbee talked about mimesis. I was just reading about that somewhere else (Rene Girard?), thinking that it was a concept that came after Toynbee.
“Challenge & response”; good grief, Toynbee is describing Chaos Theory as applied to civilizations!
Why did I watch this? Now I need to go build my apocalypse bunker
If Toynbee and Spengler had lunch together...they would drink a bit too much and get into a fistfight. I always considered Toynbee as an optimistic Spenglerian...risky to start a video with a quote from an optimist
I Googled 'civilization' and found that civilization is a series of strategy video games first released in 1991. Sounds about right.
So true!
My only problem is how do we determine that a civilization has ended? A joke goes “the Roman Empire ended in the year that you believe the Roman Empire ended”. I think the words “5uicid3” or “murd3r” (helping the algo) offer too much suddenness to a process that is more slow and transformative.
The decay and degeneracy is slow , I agree, but once a tipping point arrives, the collapse and loss of power is palpable. The success of a civilization is the seed of its eventual downfall.
I think that exterior conditions are much more influential than he projected and I would rate them number one . Look at the Irish , how foreign invasion stopped the internal development of society and directed toward something else .
I'm doing my best on the transcendant side
Basically the poor get sick of the rich....
Miss so dearly the age of meaningful 5 minute videos on youtube.
We are watching his formula unfold near exactly in today's "western world".
the first blow is suicide and then by murder. If you look at WRE in the later days ,you can tell by the historical writings of people of the times and the actions of famous people in those latter days that essentially one half of the populus has completely given up on 'Roman values' or even Romanness itself and largely the term was a catch phrase for things within the provinces of the empire not associated with its foundation, its story, its history or myth but rather a tacked on conglomeration of the various peoples the Romans had occupied recently, or had recently been pushed into the empire via migration, and you can see the Roman culture took on various aspects of these cultures in significant ways EG: adoption of military aesthetic, tactics and the warriors themselves in the foederati system as well as the cultural social and demographic changes they brought on very quickly led to a suicide and a murder, the murder was done by those of Roman title who enriched themselves using the foreign fighters and their influence culturally and systematically (within the roman system) to destroy the opposing side leading to the culture only being operated by strongmen, warlords and various foederati generals and it is very self evident that the actual army itself was made up of the same demographic in which they were fighting, that within itself is a betrayal of the base (the actual romans or latins) I believe when he refers to the upper class and lower class socially and culturally being un anchored from each other that appears to be where we are. Arnold Toynbee seems interesting in regards to the topic.
Vested interests' refusal to invest in innovative producer goods or methods to meet human wants is what brings civilizations down (Carroll Quigley).