Civilizations and time 1 (Times of Spengler and Toynbee)

Serching for lost  civilizations theory

 

1   Times of  Spengler and Toynbee

Looking at various histories, we sometimes come across similar scenes despite being in different times and places. People such as Spengler and Toynbee, who were living in the twilight of European civilization in the early 20th century, were the first to notice it. They looked at the past civilizations as if they were "life" and warned of the future of European civilization. Looking at the sinking European civilization, they began to think about what civilization is.

This study seems to have had several characteristics. It seems to have appeared in a contradictory manner, especially in Spengler's book The Decline of the West. Spengler picked up Nietzsche's awareness of the problem and, in the process of overcoming the decline of Christian civilization, set out to explore the biological regularity of civilization (but,which Spengler calls morphology, not regularity). However, he chose Goethe's phenomenological methodology as a way to express his thoughts. Investigation of biological regularity and coexistence of phenomenological ethodology. ``Nietzsche gave me an awareness of the problem, and Goethe gave me a methodology.''*1 That may be what it means.

On the other hand, as far as Toynbee is concerned, I can see in his work "Study of History", rather than looking at phenomena, it seems that he collects historical facts as examples of his own theory, although it is an ambiguous theory. Moreover, Toynbee seems to have pursued various structures and functions of civilizations, rather than looking at it organically*2.

Civilization got attention as European civilization began to decline, but it was received differently. Germany's Spengler sees the way of mind (or morals) *3, while Toynbee of England, the mother country of Newtonian mechanics and economics, sees the structure and function of civilization *4. It seems that

 

*1 Spengler's motivation, Nietzsche and Goethe

Law and Witness. Both Spengler and Toynbee must have had a strong awareness of these two things. However, Toynbee seems to have been skeptical about the laws of human history (because, in Spengler's terms, the decline of European civilization would be inevitable) and that he was aware of the uncertainty. Spengler also advocated a new field of study called 'morphology' instead of 'law', and called it the last study of European civilization.

 

*2 Toynbee's motive, the mechanism of civilization

Toynbee's theory of civilization has something of a "dynamical system" to it, and it feels like many of its concepts involve something like power. The relationship between the "creative minority and mimesis" (the masses as imitators) lies behind the concept of "the growth and disintegration of civilization." A creative minority loses its creativity and becomes a dominant minority. “Internal proletariat, external proletariat”. It is a mechanism born in the midst of decline, the process of which is “challenge and response”, and the concept of “world nation, world church”. It seems that it is necessary to decipher them one by one.

 

*3 The state of mind

Spengler believed that the spirit as life, rooted in each land and ethnic group, goes through the ages of birth, youth, maturity, and senescence, just like humans, as it undergoes urbanization and globalization (generalization).

 

*4 Dynamic function of civilization

Toynbee's historical research touches on many historical facts as examples of theory. In that sense (although Toynbee himself may not have been conscious of it in that way), this "study of history", which seems to have attempted to interpret human society dynamically.  Newton didnt write "Principia" in calculus,Newton wrote it  in geometry which was mathematics at the time*. It seems that there are some similarities with Toynbee's case, there was still nothing like calculus for analyzing human society, and there is still none today. Perhaps, time is before Newton and Kepler, Tycho Brahe.  But big data may make it possible in the future.

* There are many classical expressions of Greece and Rome, or Bible which are traditional culture in writing expressions.

 

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