At Our Wits' End, page 22
In many ways, this world-view is quite similar to the philosophy of the French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), who was a very popular thinker in his lifetime. He argued that evolution inevitably moved towards increasing complexity and therefore increasing consciousness and intelligence. Eventually, evolution would take us to an Omega Point of maximum complexity in which a kind of supreme consciousness and awareness would be reached.[11] Elements of this world-view can also be seen in the Christian belief in the return of Christ who will usher in the Kingdom of God. For Church Father St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), the world moves in a linear fashion from ‘creation’ to the return of Christ and the End of Days. At that point, the elect will spend eternity in Heaven while everybody else will be damned to Hell.[12] However, there is a slight difference here in that we will merely recreate a perfect past in Heaven. Either way, all these world-views seem to understand history as being linear. It has an end point, which we either move towards or try to return to.
Cycles
The third view is neither that our best days are necessarily behind us nor are they ahead of us. There is neither constant progression towards perfection, nor perfection in the past that we try to imitate as best we can. Civilisations follow cycles. They rise and fall. They reach a tipping point, they burn themselves out, they collapse, but new civilisations will eventually rise once more.
This world-view, of the cyclical nature of life, underpins many non-Judeo-Christian religions; religions, which we might call ‘polytheist’. In Hinduism, there is no end time, nor even a beginning. There are three main gods who manifest themselves in different stages of the universe. Universes come into existence as Brahma, they follow the life cycle of Vishnu, and they are ultimately destroyed by Shiva, the goddess of destruction. Then Brahma breathes new life into the universe and the process begins afresh. Universes rise and fall, and so do people. If they live their life according to Hindu rituals they will be reincarnated as something higher; a member of a higher caste, perhaps. If they are a bad Hindu then they may be reincarnated as a dog. But they will always be reincarnated as something, because the cycle of life is eternal. We rise, we fall, and we rise again.[13]
Europe’s pre-Christian religions understood the world in very similar terms. For the Norse pagans, there was no real afterlife, in the sense of a state of eternal bliss. Depending on how you had lived your life, you would make your way to one of three worlds where you would simply carry on with your life much as you had lived it in ‘Midgard’, the world of humans. These worlds are Valhalla, for warriors, Niflheim, for honourable non-warriors, and Hel, for those who are not honourable. However, the world will culminate in Ragnärok, a huge flood and orgy of destruction in which many gods and most humans will be killed, effectively destroying the universe. But from these deadly waters, a new universe will arise and the cycle of life will start all over again.[14]
Many Classical and Medieval writers observed that civilisations work in much the same way, as even in Classical times there were records of civilisations having already risen and fallen. These writers were the precursors of what is known in sociology as ‘Social Cycle Theory’. Put simply, social cycle theorists argue that civilisations begin in a primitive Dark Age. They grow until they reach a Golden Age of science and technology but they will eventually go into decline, fall into another Dark Age and ultimately rise once more. This was essentially grounded in a religious view of the world, rather like the Norse one. Plato, Hesiod, and Aristotle all conceived of cycles of existence, a Golden Age, the collapse of human order, and its subsequent revival, though this occurred, as in the Norse case, in the form of the rise of a new universe. The Roman philosopher Cicero (106–43 BC) understood the world to be influenced by the movements of the planets. These moved in cycles, he argued, and life on Earth reflected this with its different ages, including the different ages of civilisations. Eventually, we would reach the ‘Great Year’ in which the planets returned to their original positions and the cycle began anew.
However, it was the Greek philosopher Polybius (200–118 BC) who was the first to advocate, albeit implicitly, a cyclical philosophy of the rise and fall of civilisations wherein there was no metaphysical dimension. Polybius was from the city state of Megalopolis in Arcadia. The son of a senior politician, Polybius rose to be highly influential in politics himself. In analysing the rises and falls of dominant societies in the history of Rome and Greece, Polybius noticed that the same pattern could be observed again and again. Societies rise when they are religious, have a deep reverence for the past and for older generations, are prepared to engage in noble acts of self-sacrifice, and follow clear moral rules. These qualities ensure that they have a sense of superiority, a sense of their own destiny, that they are a cohesive community, and that they can be motivated to defend their society, even unto death. When they lose these qualities—which they inevitably do—then they fall. People become too rich and when this happens they lose their ‘fear of the gods’ and with it their selflessness and community spirit, their sense of eternal destiny, their reverence for older generations, and the strict moral rules which bind them together. By the time Polybius was writing, he was of the view that Roman society was itself in decline, as we will see in Chapter Eleven. Polybius also noticed that this process coincided with the same demographic decline that we have witnessed in the second half of the 20th century in the West: people, and especially the most intelligent people, simply stop having children.[15]
Moving into the medieval period, we meet the Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). Ibn Khaldun was born into an aristocratic Andalusian family that had emigrated to Tunisia after the fall of Seville to the Reconquista in 1248. He worked as an adviser or prime minister to various political leaders and established himself as a great philosopher. In 1400, he was caught up in the siege of Damascus. The leader of the siege, Timur, was so keen to meet the famous philosopher that Ibn Khaldun was lowered in a basket over the city wall and spent seven weeks in Timur’s camp, lecturing him on the theory of history.[16] Ibn Khaldun argued that central to civilisation was the concept of ‘Asabiyyah’, which translates as something like social cohesion or social solidarity. Asabiyyah will increase and reach a peak as civilisation advances but, ultimately, it will go into decline and, with it, the civilisation will go into decline and be displaced by another one in which Asabiyyah is stronger. It can be seen just how similar Ibn Khaldun’s theory is to that of Polybius, though Ibn Khaldun directly spells it out.[17] For Ibn Khaldun, conditions of something like group selection were strong among people who lived in the deserts. This meant they could only survive if they were high in Asabiyyah and manifestations of it such as religiousness and martial values. This high Asabiyyah allowed them to flourish and create cities. However, here the selection for Asabiyyah was lower because conditions were more luxurious. As such, after a number of generations Asabiyyah declined to an extent that they would be invaded by desert tribes that were higher in Asabiyyah and the cycle would begin all over again.[18]
Modern Social Cycle Theories
The first prominent ‘modern’ advocate of this theory was the Italian historian Giambattista Vico (1668–1744). The son of a bookseller, he originally worked as a private tutor, but rose to become Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples and was the official historiographer to the king. Vico argued that states pass through three stages: the Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes, and the Age of Men. After the Age of Men, society collapses back into the Age of Gods and the cycle occurs all over again in the form of recurrence which is similar, though not identical to, the previous cycle. From his historical analysis, there appears to be some kind of upward spiral, with the successor cycle reaching a higher level of complexity than the previous one, but this is merely based on his observance of two cycles.
For Vico, the three ages of the cycle clearly took place in Ancient Greece and Rome. They began as simple, savage societies whose anxieties were allayed by the gods, whom they also feared. A simple aristocracy ruled over these societies and controlled them through religion or, as Vico terms it, ‘poetic wisdom’. However, this aristocracy was not highly distinct from those whom it ruled. From this, they developed into more complex societies where there was a much clearer divide between the ‘nobility’ (the heroes) and the ‘plebeians’, who fought to gain some of the privileges held by the nobility but were ruled by them. So, society has become less united. In the Age of Heroes, there is a conspicuous and highly distinct ruling class whose members battle with each other for control and to show their strength. In the Age of Men, the heroes cede some of their power to the plebeians. In the previous ages, humanity was ruled by religion and ritual and this upheld the power of the nobility. The plebeians advance their own interests, and undermine the power of the nobility, by advocating a rational way of thinking. This empowers the plebeians but also undermines religion and, in so doing, shatters cultural unity. Religiousness inspires people to work for the common good but now they focus only on the individual. Society splinters into ‘the barbarism of reflection’ in which civil wars are fought solely for personal gain. It duly collapses back to the Age of Gods. Vico argued that this can be seen in the Fall of Rome, as we will see in Chapter Eleven. In the Dark Ages, we then have a new ‘Age of Gods’. Medieval Europe is the Age of Heroes and the Renaissance can be understood as the beginning of the Age of Men, in which society reaches an intellectual, cultural, and technological peak which is also its own undoing.[19]
A number of scholars since Vico have explicitly analysed society in terms of cycles. Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), a German philosopher, produced the two-volume The Decline of the West in 1918.[20] Spengler was a morose and depressive character. The son of a postal clerk, he attended several universities, and eventually focused on philosophy, but then failed his doctoral thesis—on the Greek philosopher Heraclitus—in 1903. This humiliation essentially ended his chances of an academic career. Spengler passed his PhD exam in 1904, wrote another thesis so he could qualify as a school-teacher, and then had a nervous breakdown in 1905. He worked as a school-teacher until 1911 when his mother died, leaving him independently wealthy. Avoiding military service due to a heart defect, he spent the rest of his life as a writer. He met Hitler and was so unimpressed that, in 1934, he published the best-selling book The Hour of Decision.[21] Being critical of National Socialism, it was duly banned. Spengler died of a heart attack shortly before his 56th birthday.[22]
Comparing societies to organisms, Spengler argued that all societies that have ever existed—though they may differ markedly in specifics—go through the same fairly clear stages that organisms do: birth, youth, maturity, decline, and death. In its spring, the society is characterised by a ‘culture’ which is based around a strong sense of religiousness. This bears fruit in its summer, in which we then see the height of its creative achievements: its epics, its poems, its plays; all of them religiously inspired to some extent. The culture is vital, optimistic, and does not question its own destiny. However, as it matures into the autumn of its years, it becomes urbanised and wealthy. There appears a Socrates or a Rousseau who questions everything and we enter an age of rationalism in which technological progress goes hand-in-hand with scepticism about religion, aristocratic rule, tradition, and everything that has held society together. At first this generates optimism about a better future, in which standards of living are much improved. Indeed, the society is so certain of the utility of its rational way of thinking that it motivates empire-building and the spread of its way of thinking, often via a political figure: Caesar, Napoleon, or Cecil Rhodes. But, on the other hand, there is a decline in religious certainty, with everything focused around material wealth.
This process of rationalisation continues, and every idea is questioned, then everything is rationalised down to money (even having children), all of the old ways are despised, and there is no longer any optimism or soul holding society together. Society is strongly individualist and we enter the winter of civilisation. The constant critique, and artificial attempt to create meaning, leads to a nihilistic, pessimistic world and a gulf between the money-focused elite and the masses, because there is no longer any religious belief that the position of the elite is somehow deserved. Society becomes fragmented, democracy and order break down and demagogues take over, leading an increasingly alienated mass. This is the Age of Emperors. These Emperors are given extraordinary powers to sort out the mess of conflict that society has degenerated into, including problems of external invaders. The despair which people feel is lifted by vague religious yearnings. They engage in religious practices of various kinds but don’t really believe them. But as society becomes yet more chaotic we see the development of a ‘Second Religiousness’, which is an anti-intellectual and rehashed version of the religion on which the society was founded. So, in Rome, argues Spengler, we see the rise of the Cult of the Emperor and, in particular, the Mystery Cults, where members were initiated into secret practices and worshipped specific gods. The Emperor Julian the Apostate (r.361–363), who attempted to re-convert Christian Rome back to paganism, was an initiate of the Cult of Mithras, for example.[23] Spengler insists that, when he was writing, the West’s Second Religiousness remained a number of generations into the future. During this period, society becomes so badly weakened that it is often taken over by societies which are more youthful, and descends back into a Dark Age, to be reborn anew.[24]
Many other historical theorists have presented models to understand the rise and fall of civilisations. An entire volume could be written on this subject alone. For example, the British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) observes that civilisation is based around an increasing ability to solve problems and it is those who are most able to do this who become the society’s ‘elite’ or, as he terms it, society’s ‘creative minority’. Eventually, their ability to solve new problems stagnates and they stay in power not because they deserve it, but by force, in a declining society. This leads to a resentful internal proletariat and an equally resentful external one in less wealthy border societies, both of whom are poor and excluded. Eventually, they rise up and take over, and the society collapses.[25]
A variation of these models can be seen in the work of the English vicar Thomas Malthus (1766–1834). In his book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus proffered a beautifully simple cyclical theory of how the growth and contraction of a society operates.[26] When there is an abundance of resources and a small population the standard of living is relatively high, because there is more than enough land and food to sustain the population. Precisely because conditions are auspicious, the population will grow and eventually it will reach the maximum possible population that the ecology can realistically sustain. However, this will also mean that living standards for most of the population will have declined and, in addition, the situation will be highly unstable. It will take little more than a few bad harvests or a period of pestilence to cause a population collapse. Once this happens the cycle simply begins all over again. This has obvious implications for the development of civilisation.
The application of Malthusian theory to more general social cycle theories is an important nuance. Just as a social cycle theory argues that history is not a simple progression towards perfection characterised by constant improvement, the same can be said of cycles of civilisation. Looking at the life cycle of any civilisation, though we may note a general progression towards the summer of civilisation followed by a decline, it will not be entirely smooth. There will be cycles even within this process; periods in which civilisation goes backwards within a broader progression or forwards within a wider decline. Following Spengler’s seasonal metaphor, we might conceive of these as rainy days in summer or warm days in winter. The period surrounding the World Wars, for example, might be conceived of as some wintry days in autumn. They are entirely congruous with the innovation rate graph we have already examined whereby per capita eminent individuals increase between 1600 and 1825 and then go into decline. This is the overall pattern, but there are many ‘humps and bumps’ within this. In fact, these regressions are generally explicable in terms of wars and famines, which would be congruous with the Malthusian model.
The progress towards and regress away from the heights of civilisation is not linear but oscillates due to economic factors and religious factors, among others. However, at some points, society falls so far from the heights of civilisation that we can talk about it having collapsed. It’s also worth noting that the history of any cycle of civilisation seems to involve a number of intense periods of intellectual curiosity, and it could be plausibly argued that they are actually caused by the chaos that precedes them. Sergey Nefedov has identified eight Malthusian cycles in the history of Europe. (1) The Republic of Rome; (2) The Early Roman Empire; (3) The Christian Empire, ended by the Barbarian invasions; (4) The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, ended by the Black Death; (5) The first cycle of the Modern Age, ended by the English Civil War; (6) The second cycle of the Modern Age, ended by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars; (7) The Industrial Age, which seems to have broken the Malthusian cycle.[27]
