Why Civilizations Fail 4

There is a HUGE book called “A Study of History” in twelve volumes and written by Sir Arnold Toynbee in 1987. In the fifth volume subtitled “The Disintegrations of Civilizations” he gives us six different reasons why civilizations throughout history have collapsed. Edmund Burke said “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” And so let us take a look at the six reasons civilization fails.

Reason Number 1: Cultural Suicide

Reason Number 2: Truancy or Escapism

Reason Number 3: A Sense of Promiscuity

Reason Number 4: A Sense of Drift

This is an interesting reason for the fall of civilizations. Toynbee means by “a sense of drift” the feeling that people will have where NOTHING they do can make a difference. Fate or sheer momentum will determine everything, nothing YOU can do can change anything. Effort no longer matters because no one could ever have enough effort to change anything. It becomes a fatalism of the masses, coupled with helplessness and powerlessness: a fatal mix. And so the civilization falls.

This is intimately tied to the previous reasons for the failure of a civilization. When the souls of men and women lived their lives in an age of social disintegration it is a natural consequence to find people who believe their choices and decisions don’t matter and cannot change anything.

The connecting factor is a sense of tolerance where anything is allowed and tolerated; the unintended consequence of tolerance is an inability to stand up and say anything is right or wrong. When you cannot stand up for anything, you no longer believe you can change anything and so … drift and powerlessness.

Do you see this in our civilization? I hear this in the political area every election season: “It doesn’t matter, they are all the same” or “my vote won’t change anything”.  Why do you think only one person in ten votes in most elections? How much is tolerance preached in our world today?

Understand, according to history, tolerance (essentially polytheism) leads to anything goes attitude which leads to the inability to stand up for right or wrong which leads to a sense of powerlessness and fatalism which is a “sense of drift” which leads to the fall of a civilization. Where are we on this list?