Civilizations and time 5 (the driving force that changes history and dynamic system)

6 About the driving force that changes history

I first touched on Spengler and Toynbee because they are historical researchers who place more emphasis on the time axis (which is also a bridge to the future), and Spengler and Toynbee also have many shortcomings. I also pointed out While paying attention to such points, we will think about the driving force that will change history, but for the time being, it will have nothing to do with Spengler. Qualitatively, Spengler is still inaccessible at this point, and it seems that Spengler may deepen in relation to the theory of value. This time, I would like to think about the time axis, and later, I would like to think about the theory of value. Therefore, in considering the driving force of historical change here, if anything, the relationship with Toynbee will often come up. In a sense, I think that Toynbee's theory of history can serve as a signpost for expressing the human world as a dynamic system.

 

 

(2) Approach to motive force analysis based on time

1 When thinking about the driving force of civilizational change, I am reminded of Ranke's interesting point*1. Ranke regarded world history as a place of conflict of spiritual energy, but he said that spiritual energy could not be defined. This trend may come from Hegel. Or perhaps the great event of the French Revolution created the atmosphere of that era. This led to Marx's historical materialism, and Weber's "Ethics of Capitalism and Protestantism" and "Sociology of Religion." So to speak, from Kant to Hegel was the origin, Ranke, Marx, and Weber were also their cultural descendants, and Spengler was ahead of them. Because Ranke was a historian, unlike a philosopher, he would have seen something more individual with spiritual energy. Spengler's era also passed through such an era, and it was the era of the philosophy of "life" that occurred as a reaction to the age of physics. Thinking about values is very important, but in natural philosophy it is the same as thinking about the existence of "God", which is the last thing to think about before looking at each civilization individually. However, at this stage, let's set aside "value" for the time being and, based on the definition of "force," let's approach Newton's position, who unraveled the structure and function of the natural world.

 

However, as I thought earlier, German culturalism (a flower that bloomed because political and economic liberalism was not recognized for a long time) seems to have a big hint when thinking about "value". It was no coincidence that Weber turned to the study of Protestantism as an ethic of capitalism, and to the sociology of religion in civilizations other than European civilization. Even if it is a negative thing *2.

 

*1 Ranke's theory of spiritual energy "Great Powers"

"What we perceive in the development of world history are the forces, especially the spiritual power, the creative power which gives rise to life, and life itself, that is, the spiritual energy. This Power cannot be defined or abstracted, but we can intuitively perceive it and empathize with its existence. Enchanting, appearing to us in various forms, fighting, restraining, and overcoming each other, in the interaction and succession of these forces, in their birth and death or revival, that is, greater fulfillment and greater significance. In those resurrections which envelop the vast expanses, the secrets of world history lie hidden."

Ranke is a historian who believes in the importance of verifying historical facts and their causal relationships, and was the first historian to try to grasp the flow of world history. As the background of the development of world history, it is said that some "various powers" are taken as the driving force. Among them, mental energy is the greatest driving force, but it seems that he also thought that it was impossible to define or abstract this power. What should be remembered here is that the position of mental energy dominance in the West is indicated. An image like a dynamic system of various forces is shown. Nevertheless, it is abandoning the definition of mental energy. In the first place, is mental energy something that cannot be defined? In modern times, the digitization and accumulation of data has finally progressed, and it seems that it is becoming possible.

 

*2 Weber's Sociology of Religion, Kenichi Tominaga, "Max Weber and the Modernization of Asia," 

In Weber's sociology of religion, it was written from the perspective of why religions in civilized spheres other than Europe did not give birth to capitalism and the industrial revolution, so the expression was negative. But in modern times there is a big breakthrough in the Asian region, and this needs to be explained.

 

2. Now, if we set aside the issues of culture and value and explain the human world, not the natural world, with "power," what would be the hint? One approach would be to look at it from the perspective of economics and material civilization. France's Braudel and America's Wallerstein seem to be close to this position. In Braudel's case, he himself disclaimed that his approach was a limitation*1. Moreover, it was said that there are three time axes*2. Braudel must have had the eyesight to be worthy of the pope of history, but there was one thing he couldn't do*3. Wallerstein took over Braudel's work, and although there were moves to incorporate his methods into historical studies , they were not enough to supplement Braudel's missing parts.  The reason why this has happened is that no theory or concept that could be put into perspective or has been discovered.

 

Braudel himself did not have a Weberian view of the establishment of capitalism, and it seems that modern times are also in the midst of such a trend. The missing part of Braudel is the elegant history (as Braudel puts it) that Lucien Faivre intended to write, the thought or philosophy, the ``theory of value,'' as it were. And more than others. , but it is about the "world and economy" of various civilizations before the establishment of capitalism. Futuristic studies. Looking at it in this way, it seems that Wallerstein's theory and problem posing* are very useful in the present age, but it is undeniable that there are still some missing parts. What will fill that void? One of them is Toynbee's view.

 

Why is Toynbee qualitative? It is qualitative because there is almost no quantitative consideration, and in the secular sense it does not necessarily mean that it is popular, but its theory is easier to understand than, for example, culturalist Spengler. would be in Toynbee's theory of civilization is that civilization is first challenged by the environment and the outside, to which a creative minority appears and reacts, and many imitators appear, but eventually the creative rule deteriorates. It is said that they will become a dominant minority, which will give rise to an internal proletariat, an external proletariat, and a world empire, a world church, and a fighting group.

First, there is the pressure exerted by the environment, external civilizations and forces, and second, the ability of the creative minority. capacity as the susceptibility and comprehension of many imitators. A shift in the energy of creative faculties. Self-development capacity of the inner proletariat. The capacity for self-development of the external proletariat. The inner proletariat, the outer proletariat, or the world empire as a controlling force against environmental change, the world church, as a counteracting force against it, the fighting group. In this way, Toynbee's theory of civilization can be read as a dynamic system in a qualitative sense.

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civilizations and time 4 (what Spengler and Toynbee were missing)

5 What were Spengler and Toynbee missing?

 

What Spengler overlooked was his failure to explore more deeply the meaning*1 of "time," which is one of the resources for human beings. In his way of thinking, civilization is consequently represented only as a life cycle. He showed how the form of civilization can be transformed by the involvement of time in terms of trends (life cycles) and examples of how mental conditions have affected culture and civilization. However, it was not possible to explain the structure well.

 

What Toynbee overlooked, I think, was that he was unable to investigate more deeply the trends in the activity of the mental energy behind the historical changes. He also focused on mental energy. It can be said that the development of civilization is caused by the emergence of creative individuals and imitation by the masses, and the decline of civilization is caused by the deterioration of creative individuals. However, it is less persuasive because it lacks consideration of "what kind of efficiency and organization led to such an individual's mental energy." However, Toynbee partially explained the causes of efficiency and organization with the concept of "challenge and response".

 

*1 For Spengler, the meaning that time has for civilization is simply the process of decreasing life energy, and he finds many detailed descriptions of this process in art and culture (including mathematics). However, even though culture represents value, it cannot be said that culture alone is the world, and there should be value in economics and politics, but Spengler, being German, does not touch economics and politics very much.  In that sense, Spengler's explanation lacks detailed analysis and is biased in its coverage.

 

*2 Spengler, like *1, but probably more intuitive than Toynbee. One of them is that the Western concept of time is calculus. However, despite Spengler's argument, as a result, he did not consider the changes in civilization in terms of calculus, but ended up with fatalism. Spengler's thought was surrounded by many intuitions that grasped the truth, but it tended to be fragmentary and stop there.

 

*3 I will explain about efficiency and organization later. Toynbee focused on mental energy as the driving force of history. But it was in his later years. Newton tried to explain the natural world with the "concept of force" and succeeded in doing so, but did not dare to mention the subject that caused it. And post-Newtonian scientists never questioned it. On the other hand, in the human world, we knew the beginning that the "force" was being generated, and it was humans. There are changes in the environment, but it is certain that human beings are the subject of change in history. It seems that Toynbee realized that there was a faint "force" at work there. Challenge → Birth of the creative individual → Creative dominance and mimesis ( imitation of the masses) → Change to the dominant minority → Rise of the internal and external proletariat → Respond In this scheme is the power of influence and adaptability. It seems that Toynbee did not have the idea to propose and explain some new concepts of force. However, it is felt that he was trying to describe the human world or civilization by "some kind of dynamical system." The reason why Toynbee was unable to depict the dynamic system of the human world may be that the various forces in the human world were not recognized in ordinary life. However, even in the human world, there is the power of value, technology, and organizational innovation, and responses to challenges will be born through this.

 

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civilizations and time 3 (world seen through time axis)

3 What Toynbee and Spengler have in common

Despite their differences, Spengler and Toynbee were beginning an interesting study. The two of them are often regarded as the originators of the relativization of European civilization, often beginning their research with the unit of civilization, but it seems that the starting point of their research was thinking about the future of European civilization. It seems that the research was oriented toward the future . This is a major difference from other historians who have explained various historical phenomena . These two are not strictly historians, nor are they different from modern social scientists (political scientists, economists, sociologists). However, there may be other researchers who have viewed European civilization mainly as the history of capitalism, not the history of Europe. Marx, Hicks, Braudel, Wallerstein, etc. seem to be such people. These four people have drawn up Europe's past, present and future from economic and material life*1.

 

*1 Marx and Hicks categorized the periods of European history chronologically according to the production system. Marx's ancient production system, feudal production system, market production system, capital production system, and socialist production system. Hicks describes the command economy, the market economy, the city-state economy, the national economy, and the command economy again. Although these are based on the realm of nations, Braudel and Wallerstein have the "world and economy" in mind as a viewpoint of the present age. Their perspective is how this "world economy" has changed over the long, medium, and short term, and it is said that this was established because capitalism was born as a result of the development of the market economy. These two schools do not merely examine history, but both seem to have the aspect of theory that can predict the future. If anything, Braudel and Wallerstein may be more important in modern times. This is because there is still little to see from a global and economic perspective. Compared to Braudel and Wallerstein, Wallerstein is too biased toward economics, which is a difficult point for future studies. It seems that Braudel at least understood his difficulty. This is so in the sense that the world economy existed before 16th-century Europe.

 

The second thing that Spengler and Toynbee have in common is that they were both strongly aware of the "time axis." The obvious difference between these two and other historians (including those who emphasize capitalism and material life) is that historians have investigated historical facts and their causal relationships to weave history and historical views. On the other hand, it may be that he placed greater importance on the existence of the time axis than on the chain of historical facts*1. It means that they felt something (spirit or creativity) that faded with time.

 

*1 In addition to Spengler and Toynbee, there is Braudel as a person who pondered deeply about time. In a sense, Braudel was more than the former two. Braudel divides time into three parts. Long term time: geography, environment. Medium-term time: economy. Short Time: as a political and event history .Braudel wrote "Mediterranean Sea in the Time of Felipe II". However, it is quite different from the "time axis" here. From now on, time is considered to be one of the "resources", and even though it is a resource, people, ethnic spirits, and creativity deteriorate with the passage of time, and civilization eventually declines. I think of that figure as a time axis (it flows past, present, and future), and in the sense that I look at it, it is similar to Spengler's and Toynbee's time, but has a point that is different from Braudel's time. 

  

4 What drives history

What I want to think about here is the driving force that changes history. Without human involvement, time by itself produces nothing. If so, what part of human activity is related to time and what creates creations and innovations? The new part of Spengler and Toynbee's thought that has not been paid attention to yet *1 is the theme of "What do humans create while consuming time as a resource?" Isn't it at the point? In this section, we will try to intuitively grasp the image of the driving force of historical change from the writings of past historians, look at some of its essences and structures, and deepen our thoughts on the concept of the time axis. I would like to consider a simple hypothetical model of historical change.

 

*1 Today, it takes patience to read the works of Spengler and Toynbee. Even the reduced version seems to be hard. Rather, Braudel and Wallerstein are much easier to approach. Its views are clear, concise, and all concrete because it is a reflection on material civilization. Braudel's sources are astonishing. Compared to this, the subjects of Spengler and Toynbee, especially Spengler, also deal with spiritual civilization, and are often abstract and self-righteous. Therefore, reading Spengler and Toynbee carefully will not give you a clear understanding of something. Spengler and Toynbee are mentioned here as founders of thought that attempts to grasp the world through the time axis that connects "past, present, and future." In this way they tried to explain the workings of all civilizations.

 

Looking at it from a different point of view, it can be said that it means recapturing the relationship between humans and resources. This is because the resources that are the source of all power are ultimately reduced to time, spiritual energy, and material energy, and the time axis is a world cut from one of these resources, time. This is because it can be said to be a view. It can be said that it is a world view that is constructed with time as a resource at the center*1 (When it comes to environmental issues, thinking backwards from the catastrophe will also become important). On the other hand, mental energy is all human thought energy and has various orientations. Material energy is kinetic energy and materials activated by petroleum, nuclear power, etc., and performs various activities and productions according to human will.

 

*1 The world cut out from the resource of time is, for example, the history of the Korean people and the Han people. South Korea and North Korea, China and Taiwan, and the 70 years since the end of the war are both unchanged, but completely different politics, economies, and cultures have been formed, and the products (including various things) that have been born from them. there was a clear difference. Differences in values and worldviews have resulted in differences in the distribution of resources, which in turn has resulted in differences in what is produced. We can look back on the past, but applying this idea to the future means that we need tools to predict what will happen and what will be produced in the next five years, for example. It can be said that thinking about such things is "the work of cutting out and digging up the world from time."

 

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civilization and time 2 (differences between Spengler and Toynbee)

2 What was Spengler

Spengler is difficult to call a historian. In 1918, the work DIcline of the West had a similar relationship to history*1 as Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra had to philosophy. Maybe. The work is more philosophical than historical. Spengler's morphology *2 seems to be a field of study that has the perspective of looking at how history changes over time. Spengler made an interesting point about the Western sense of time (a calculus image), but as a result, civilization was vitalistic and deterministic *3.

 

*1 Was Spengler a historian?

The historian Bernheim seems to include Spengler in the expressionist view of history in "What is history?" Spengler's concepts ``Faustian'', ``Magi-like'' and ``Apollonian'' were inspired by Nietzsche's ``Apollonian'' and ``Dionysian'' in ``The Birth of Tragedy''. It is thought that he was in the midst of the trend of "expressionist art" centered on Germany at the time of World War I.  "The Decline of the West" is similar in position to Nietzsche's "Also Thus sprach Zuarathustra." It is questionable whether Spengler can be called a historian in the present age of 2018, but even though he influenced historical studies, Wallerstein of ``World System Theory'' was a ``sociologist'' and Braudel was a ``historian'' who wrote ``Markets, Capitalism, and Material civilization''. However, Germany or European civilization at that time seemed to be in a state of historical mental tension, and there may actually be much more things to be learned from this.

 

*2 Spengler's morphology

Spengler wrote that he was inspired by Goethe about the method of witnessing. Goethe was also a naturalist, and by contemplating the life of nature, he tried to master the essence of life. The same is true of human beings and society and this thought is reflected in many of his novels on human beings, the highly abstracted expression of "Faust", and probably the "Wilhelm Meister" series on society. It is said that Goethe drew the flow to the future here. It may be necessary to interpret Spengler's morphology based on this. The driving force that changed Spengler's form was "life", and it was the moral "ethics", a code of conduct that disregarded the profit and loss accounting rooted in "land" and "ethnicity". In a nutshell, Spengler's morphology is to learn the form of "moral" change. It may be possible to view it as just an analogy. Toynbee's criticism of Spengler therefore seems somewhat irrelevant. Toynbee believes that human history is not destined, but something that can be changed, and that the decline of the West and the organic theory of civilization are false. As such, there are various changes, but they will eventually die, and I believe that there is a process between birth and death. In any case, it may be said that there is a difference between the British way of doing things and the German way of doing things, but considering these two together is actually of great significance.

 

*3 Vitalism and determinism

According to Bernheim, Spengler's vitalist and expressionist positions came from Bergson and Husserl. The difference in interest from the present is probably that while Europe in the latter half of the 19th century was the age of physics, the 20th century was becoming the age of reaction to it. Spengler's determinism seems to be a simple derivative of vitalism, as I considered in *2, but what Toynbee criticized was that he asserted, like a prophet, that the West would fall in the 21st century. It must have been Spirit or morality was Spengler's lifeblood.

For example, Toynbee writes in `` Studiy of histry'' . He believes that the relaxation of tension caused by the establishment of the world state of society has caused the decline of human qualities.

"One of the cancers of modern human mental life is the reduction of mental tension, and all of us, with the exception of a select few, lead a relaxed life. Even at work, we find distraction. Even in

is quoted. In Toynbee's later years, too, interest turned to the energy that drives civilization, but Spengler intuitively asserted that life-based energy would one day run out. Therefore, one of the themes we will explore would be how spiritual energy changes in individuals and societies. I plan to think of it as 'Civilization and Value'.

 

Toynbee rejected Spengler's determinism. Toynbee studied various structures and functions that change history, but as a result, he believed that history did not progress deterministically. Whereas Spengler saw primarily the spirit (e.g. Christianity, rationalism, democracy, nationalism) as the driving force that drives history, Toynbee drew on the tradition of British empiricism and focused more on the secular. He may have seen the driving force in the power of *1. However, there seems to be little consideration of the energy that drives history, probably because he was a people in the country where the industrial revolution originated, perhaps because they were unable to become conscious of it. Spengler deterministically advocated the decline of Europe because he placed too much weight on its "spirit," whereas Toynbee rejected determinism by focusing on something other than "spirit" *2. It seems that it was because he did not clearly understand what it was.

 

*1 As mentioned above, Toynbee also mentions the tension of mental energy. In Toynbee's case, mental energy is not specified. In response to the challenges of the times, creative individuals and creative minorities emerged, which eventually relaxed and transformed into ruling minorities, within which the internal proletariat and external proletariat emerged.  Toynbee does not seem to have used his own formula to explain how the Industrial Revolution occurred in England. However, it is possible to say that "the driving force in the world" is the spiritual energy that supports the response to the challenges of the times. And the challenges of the times are always mundane. In that sense, compared to Spengler's abstract energy view of vital energy aimed at the land and people, Toynbee's may be said to be secular.

*2 If Spengler's spirit is the feeling of life that is aimed at the land and the people, then the spirit of the people is finite, just like life. Even if it doesn't die, it may weaken. On the other hand, Toynbee finds a driving force in something other than the spirit, in the mundane, because history and environmental challenges collide with the vital feelings of the people, and history changes and develops by responding. This is probably because they think they will go. What is important here is the emergence of a creative minority in a wide range of genres and how the masses who imitate it (which Toynbee called mimesis*) will react. It does not mean that it is destined to decline because it exists, but it depends on how elements such as challenge, creative individual, creative minority, and response are involved as variables, and rather the relationship with the world. 

 

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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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