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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