Toynbee AJ civilization before the court of history. Audiobook A. J. Toynbee - Civilization before the court of history

When analyzing the current geopolitical situation in the world, I would like to recall the famous English author, whose formation took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries - Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), historian and sociologist, professor at the University of London in 1919-1924, in 1925-1955 - London School of Economics. From 1925-1955 he was one of the directors of the Royal Institute of International Affairs; compiled (together with V. M. Boulter) annual reviews of political events in the world.

In his famous work “Civilization before the Judgment of History,” he wrote: “What is the state of humanity in 1947 of the Christian era? This question applies, no doubt, to the entire generation living on Earth; however, if we conducted a worldwide Gallup poll, the answers would not be unanimous. On this topic, like no other (quot homines, tot sententiae - as many people, so many opinions); Therefore, we must first of all ask ourselves: to whom exactly are we addressing this question? For example, the author of this essay is an Englishman of fifty-eight years old, a representative of the middle class. It is obvious that his nationality, social environment, age - all together will significantly affect the point of view from which he views the panorama of the world. Actually, like each and every one of us, he is, to a greater or lesser extent, a slave of historical relativism. His only personal advantage is that he is also a historian and therefore at least aware that he himself is just a living shipwreck in the turbulent stream of time, aware that his unstable and fragmentary vision of current events does not more than a caricature of a historical topographical map. Only God knows the true picture. Our individual human judgments are shooting at random” (Toynbee A. Civilization before the court of history. The World and the West (access date 01/03/2015).

In the same book, he wrote, assessing the world of his time: “problems that have always worsened life and plagued previous civilizations have come to the fore in today’s world. We invented atomic weapons in a world divided between two superpowers; both the United States and the Soviet Union espouse such polar opposite ideologies that they appear completely irreconcilable. To whom should we turn for salvation in this most dangerous situation, when in our hands not only our own life and death, but also the fate of the entire human race? Salvation probably lies - as it most often does - in finding a middle path. In politics, this golden mean will not mean either the unlimited sovereignty of individual states or the complete despotism of a central world government; in economics it will also be something different from uncontrolled private initiative or, on the contrary, explicit socialism. In the opinion of one Western European observer, a man of the middle class and middle age, Salvation will come neither from the East nor from the West.

In 1947 of the Christian era, the United States and the Soviet Union represent an alternative embodiment of the enormous material power of modern humanity; “the border between them passed through the entire Earth, and their voice reached the ends of the world,” but among these loud voices one cannot hear a voice that is still quiet. The key to understanding can be given to us through the Christian message<...>, and saving words and deeds can come from unexpected quarters” (Toynbee A. Op. cit.).

Almost seventy years after they were written, these words, despite the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War and the difficulties that Russia is experiencing on the path of its revival, have not lost their relevance; the same problems that A.D. drew attention to. Toynbee are even more obvious.

Today, when the processes of globalization are extremely sharpened, when the Anglo-Saxon world is spreading its influence through cultural imperialism, this experience is valuable as an indicator of the points of contact and rupture between globalism and tradition, which can become the basis for understanding the processes taking place at the beginning of the third millennium.

The book is devoted to the issues of the clash of civilizations in the twentieth century, the problem of the global expansion of the West and the responsibility of Western civilization for the current state of affairs on our planet.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee is an outstanding English historian and humanist thinker. The author of the theory of “cyclicality”, according to which world history is viewed as a successive series of individual, unique and closed civilizations going through certain identical phases of historical existence (“emergence”, “growth”, “breakdown”, “decline”, “decay”). Toynbee considered the driving force behind their development to be a “creative elite” responding to various historical “challenges” and dragging along the “inert majority.” The uniqueness of these “challenges” and “responses” determines the specifics of each civilization. The progress of humanity, according to A. Toynbee, lies in spiritual improvement, evolution from primitive animistic beliefs through universal religions to a unified religion of the future. The scientist saw a way out of the contradictions and conflicts of society in spiritual renewal.

Modern moment in history

Is history repeating itself?

Greco-Roman civilization

Unification of the world and change in historical perspective

Europe is shrinking

The future of the global community

Civilization on trial

Byzantine heritage of Russia

Islam, the West and the future

Clash of Civilizations

Christianity and civilization

The meaning of history for the soul

Publisher: ARDIS
Year of manufacture: 2007
Genre: historical and social research
Audio codec: MP3
Audio bitrate: 128 kbps
Performer: Vyacheslav Gerasimov
Duration: 11 hours 9 minutes

Civilization is the main concept that Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) used to organize all concrete historical material. Civilizations are divided into three generations. The first generation are primitive, small, unliterate cultures. There are many of them, and their age is small. They are distinguished by one-sided specialization, adapted to life in a specific geographic environment; superstructural elements - statehood, education, church, and even more so science and art - are absent from them. These cultures multiply like rabbits and die spontaneously if they do not merge through a creative act into a more powerful civilization of the second generation.

The creative act is complicated by the static nature of primitive societies: in them the social connection (imitation), which regulates the uniformity of actions and the stability of relationships, is directed towards deceased ancestors and the older generation. In such societies, custom rules and innovation is difficult. With a sharp change in living conditions, which Toynbee calls a “challenge,” society cannot give an adequate response, rebuild itself and change its lifestyle. Continuing to live and act as if there was no “challenge”, as if nothing had happened, the culture moves towards the abyss and perishes. Some societies, however, distinguish from their environment a “creative minority” who are aware of the “challenge” of the environment and are able to give a satisfactory response to it. This handful of enthusiasts - prophets, priests, philosophers, scientists, politicians - with the example of their own selfless service, carries the inert mass along with them, and society moves onto new tracks. The formation of a daughter civilization begins, inheriting the experience of its predecessor, but much more flexible and multilateral. According to Toynbee, cultures living in comfortable conditions that do not receive a “challenge” from the Environment are in a state of stagnation. Only where difficulties arise, where the minds of people are excited in search of a way out and new forms of survival, are conditions created for the birth of a civilization of a higher level.

According to Toynbee's law of the golden mean, the challenge should be neither too weak nor too severe. In the first case, there will be no active response, and in the second, insurmountable difficulties can completely stop the emergence of civilization. Specific examples of “challenges” known from history are associated with drying out or waterlogging of soils, the offensive of hostile tribes, and a forced change of place of residence. The most common answers: the transition to a new type of management, the creation of irrigation systems, the formation of powerful power structures capable of mobilizing the energy of society, the creation of a new religion, science, and technology.

In second-generation civilizations, social communication is aimed at creative individuals who lead the pioneers of a new social order. Second-generation civilizations are dynamic, they create large cities, like Rome and Babylon, and the division of labor, commodity exchange, and market develop in them. Layers of artisans, scientists, traders, and people of mental labor emerge. A complex system of ranks and statuses is being approved. Here the attributes of democracy can develop: elected bodies, legal system, self-government, separation of powers.

The emergence of a full-fledged secondary civilization is not a foregone conclusion. In order for it to appear, a number of conditions must meet. Since this is not always the case, some civilizations turn out to be frozen, or “underdeveloped.” Toynbee considers the society of the Polynesians and Eskimos to be the latter. He examined in detail the question of the emergence of centers of civilization of the second generation, of which he counts four: Egyptian-Sumerian, Minoan, Chinese and South American. The problem of the birth of civilizations is one of the central ones for Toynbee. He believes that neither racial type, nor environment, nor economic system play a decisive role in the genesis of civilizations: they arise as a result of mutations of primitive cultures that occur depending on combinations of many causes. Predicting a mutation is as difficult as the outcome of a card game.

Civilizations of the third generation are formed on the basis of churches: from the primary Minoan the secondary Hellenic is born, and from it - on the basis of Christianity that arose in its depths - the tertiary, Western European is formed. In total, according to Toynbee, by the middle of the 20th century. Of the three dozen existing civilizations, seven or eight have survived: Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.

Like his predecessors, Toynbee recognizes the cyclical pattern of development of civilizations: birth, growth, flourishing, breakdown and decay. But this scheme is not fatal; the death of civilizations is probable, but not inevitable. Civilizations, like people, are short-sighted: they are not fully aware of the spring of their own actions and the most important conditions that ensure their prosperity. The narrow-mindedness and selfishness of the ruling elites, combined with the laziness and conservatism of the majority, lead to the degeneration of civilization. However, as history progresses, people's awareness of the consequences of their actions increases. The degree of influence of thought on the historical process is increasing. The authority of scientists and their influence on political life are becoming increasingly significant. Religions extend their influence into politics, economics and everyday life.

Understanding history from a Christian perspective, Toynbee uses completely realistic ideas to understand historical processes. The main one is the “challenge-response” mechanism, which has already been discussed. Another idea is the difference between the creative minority and the passive majority, which Toynbee calls the proletariat. Culture develops until the “challenge-response” chain is broken. When the elite is unable to give an effective response to the proletariat, then the breakdown of civilization begins. During this period, the creative position of the elite and the trust of the proletariat in it are replaced by “spiritual drift”, “split of the soul”. Toynbee considers the way out of this situation to be “transfiguration,” i.e., spiritual restructuring, which should lead to the formation of a new, higher religion and provide an answer to the questions of the suffering soul, an impulse for a new series of creative acts. But whether spiritual restructuring will be realized or not depends on many factors, including the art and dedication of the ruling elites, the degree of spirituality of the proletariat. The latter can seek and demand a new true religion, or be satisfied with some kind of surrogate, which was, for example, Marxism, which over the course of one generation turned into a proletarian religion.

In contrast to the fatalistic and relativistic theories of Spengler and his followers, Toynbee is looking for a solid foundation for the unification of humanity, trying to find ways for a peaceful transition to a “universal church” and a “universal state.” The pinnacle of earthly progress would be, according to Toynbee, the creation of a “community of saints.” Its members would be free from sin and capable, cooperating with God, even at the cost of hard effort, to transform human nature. Only a new religion, built in the spirit of pantheism, could, according to Toynbee, reconcile warring groups of people, form an ecologically healthy attitude towards nature, and thereby save humanity from destruction.

Arnold J. Toynbee

Of the thirteen essays included in this book, ten were self-published, and the author and publishers take this opportunity to thank the original publishers for their kind permission to reprint these materials.

My View of History was first published in England in the Contact collection Britain Between East and West; “The Modern Moment in History” - in 1947 in the magazine “Foreign Affairs”; “Does History Repeat itself” - in 1947 in the journal International Affairs, based on lectures given at Harvard University on April 7, 1947, in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa - at the branches of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs - in mid-April and at the Royal Institute of International Affairs relations in London on May 22 of the same year; “Civilization on Trial” - in 1947 in the Atlantic Monthly, based on a lecture given at Princeton University on February 20, 1947; the essay “The Byzantine Heritage of Russia,” published in Horizon magazine in August 1947, is based on a course of two lectures given at the University of Toronto for the Armstrong Foundation; the essay "Clash Between Civilizations," published in Harper's Magazine in April 1947, is based on the first of a series of lectures given at Bryn Moor College in February and March 1947 for the Mary Flexner Foundation; The essay "Christianity and Civilization", published in 1947 in Pendle Hill Publications, is based on the memorial lecture in memory of Burge, given in Oxford on May 23, 1940 - at a turning point in history, as it turned out, not only for the author's homeland, but also for the whole world. The essay “The Significance of History for the Soul,” published in 1947 in Christianity and Crisis, is based on a lecture given on March 19, 1947, at the Theological Seminary in New York; "Greco-Roman Civilization" is based on a lecture given at Oxford University during one of the summer terms in a course given by Professor Gilbert Murray as an introduction to the various subjects studied at the Oxford school of Literae Humaniores; "The Shrinking of Europe" - an essay based on a lecture given in London on October 27, 1926, in the chair of Dr. Hugh Dalton in a series of lectures organized by the Fabian Society on the topic: "The Shrinking World - Difficulties and Prospects"; Finally, the essay “The Unification of the World and the Change of Historical Perspective” is based on the Creighton lecture given at the University of London in 1947.

January 1948 A.J. Toynbee

CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE COURT OF HISTORY

PREFACE

Despite the fact that the essays collected in this volume were written at different times - most in the last year and a half, but some even twenty years ago - the book nevertheless, in the opinion of the author, has a unity of view, purpose and purpose, and one hopes that the reader will feel it too. The unity of view lies in the position of the historian who views the Universe and all that is contained in it - spirit and flesh, events and human experience - in forward motion through space and time. The common goal running through the entire series of these essays is an attempt to penetrate at least a little into the meaning of this mysterious and enigmatic performance. The dominant idea here is the well-known idea that the Universe is knowable to the extent that our ability to comprehend it as a whole is great. This idea also has some practical consequences for the development of the historical method of knowledge. An understandable field of historical research cannot be limited by any national framework; we must expand our historical horizon to thinking in terms of an entire civilization. However, even these broader frameworks are still too narrow, for civilizations, like nations, are multiple, not singular; there are different civilizations that come into contact and collide, and from these collisions a different kind of society is born: the higher religions. And this, nevertheless, is not the limit of the field of historical research, for none of the higher religions can be known within the boundaries of our world alone. The earthly history of the highest religions is only one aspect of the life of the Kingdom of Heaven, in which our world is only a small province. This is how history turns into theology. “To Him every one of us will return.”

MY VIEW ON HISTORY

My view of history is itself a tiny piece of history; and mostly the stories of other people, not my own, for the life's work of a scientist is to add his pitcher of water to the great and ever-expanding river of knowledge, which is fed by water from countless similar pitchers. In order for my individual view of history to be in any way instructive and truly enlightening, it must be presented in its entirety, including its very origins, development, influence of social environment and personal environment.

There are many angles from which the human mind views the Universe. Why am I a historian, and not a philosopher or physicist? For the same reason why I drink tea or coffee without sugar. These habits were formed at an early age under the influence of my mother. I am a historian because my mother was a historian; at the same time, I am aware that my school is different from her school. Why didn't I take my mother's views literally?

Firstly, because I belonged to a different generation and my views and convictions were not yet firmly established when history grabbed my generation by the throat in 1914; secondly, because my education turned out to be more conservative than that of my mother. My mother belonged to the first generation of women in England to receive a university education, and it was for this reason that they were given the most advanced knowledge of Western history at that time, in which the national history of England occupied a dominant place. Her son, while still a boy, was sent to an old-fashioned English private school and was brought up both there and later at Oxford, exclusively on the Greek and Latin classics.

For any future historian, especially those born in our time, a classical education is, in my deep conviction, an invaluable benefit. As a foundation, the history of the Greco-Roman world has very noticeable advantages. First of all, we see Greco-Roman history in perspective and thus can embrace it in its entirety, for it is a complete piece of history, unlike the history of our own Western world - an unfinished play, the end of which we do not know and which we cannot grasp in general: we are just bit players on this crowded and excited stage.

January 1948

A.J. Toynbee

CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE COURT OF HISTORY

PREFACE

MY VIEW ON HISTORY

In addition, the field of Greco-Roman history is not cluttered or clouded by an excess of information, allowing us to see the forest for the trees - fortunately, the trees were quite decisively thinned out during the transition period between the collapse of Greco-Roman society and the emergence of the current one. Moreover, the mass of surviving historical evidence quite acceptable for research is not overloaded with official documents of local parishes and authorities, like those that in our time in the Western world accumulated ton after ton during the last ten centuries of the pre-atomic era. The surviving materials from which one can study Greco-Roman history are not only convenient for processing and exquisite in quality, but also completely balanced in the nature of the material. Sculptures, poems, philosophical works can tell us much more than the texts of laws and treaties; and this gives rise in the soul of a historian, brought up on Greco-Roman history, a sense of proportion: for, just as it is easier for us to discern something distant from us in time, compared to what surrounds us directly in the life of our own generation, so are the works artists and writers are much more durable than the deeds of warriors and statesmen. Poets and philosophers surpass historians in this, and prophets and saints leave behind all the rest combined. The ghosts of Agamemnon and Pericles appear to the world today thanks to the magical texts of Homer and Thucydides; and when Homer and Thucydides are no longer read, we can safely predict that Christ, Buddha, and Socrates will still be fresh in the memory of generations almost incomprehensibly distant from us.

To narrow down the search results, you can refine your query by specifying the fields to search for. The list of fields is presented above. For example:

You can search in several fields at the same time:

Logical operators

The default operator is AND.
Operator AND means that the document must match all elements in the group:

research development

Operator OR means that the document must match one of the values in the group:

study OR development

Operator NOT excludes documents containing this element:

study NOT development

Search type

When writing a query, you can specify the method in which the phrase will be searched. Four methods are supported: search taking into account morphology, without morphology, prefix search, phrase search.
By default, the search is performed taking into account morphology.
To search without morphology, just put a “dollar” sign in front of the words in the phrase:

$ study $ development

To search for a prefix, you need to put an asterisk after the query:

study *

To search for a phrase, you need to enclose the query in double quotes:

" research and development "

Search by synonyms

To include synonyms of a word in the search results, you need to put a hash " # " before a word or before an expression in parentheses.
When applied to one word, up to three synonyms will be found for it.
When applied to a parenthetical expression, a synonym will be added to each word if one is found.
Not compatible with morphology-free search, prefix search, or phrase search.

# study

Grouping

In order to group search phrases you need to use brackets. This allows you to control the Boolean logic of the request.
For example, you need to make a request: find documents whose author is Ivanov or Petrov, and the title contains the words research or development:

Approximate word search

For an approximate search you need to put a tilde " ~ " at the end of a word from a phrase. For example:

bromine ~

When searching, words such as "bromine", "rum", "industrial", etc. will be found.
You can additionally specify the maximum number of possible edits: 0, 1 or 2. For example:

bromine ~1

By default, 2 edits are allowed.

Proximity criterion

To search by proximity criterion, you need to put a tilde " ~ " at the end of the phrase. For example, to find documents with the words research and development within 2 words, use the following query:

" research development "~2

Relevance of expressions

To change the relevance of individual expressions in the search, use the " sign ^ " at the end of the expression, followed by the level of relevance of this expression in relation to the others.
The higher the level, the more relevant the expression is.
For example, in this expression, the word “research” is four times more relevant than the word “development”:

study ^4 development

By default, the level is 1. Valid values are a positive real number.

Search within an interval

To indicate the interval in which the value of a field should be located, you should indicate the boundary values in parentheses, separated by the operator TO.
Lexicographic sorting will be performed.

Such a query will return results with an author starting from Ivanov and ending with Petrov, but Ivanov and Petrov will not be included in the result.
To include a value in a range, use square brackets. To exclude a value, use curly braces.

Women's portal Fleurot