{"id":54265,"date":"2020-07-19T10:12:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T15:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54265"},"modified":"2020-07-19T12:28:43","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T17:28:43","slug":"deconstructing-civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54265","title":{"rendered":"Deconstructing Civilization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Deconstructing Civilization<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old paper mill, Oregon City, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur confidence in our ability to direct the course of events has been severely eroded by the experiences of the twentieth century. Several disastrous wars have occurred, against all efforts to prevent them, and even the United Nations has been almost totally unsuccessful in achieving the peaceful world that was its founding vision. We seem powerless to control crime, urban deterioration, overpopulation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation. These experiences suggest that there is a grand dynamic in history that goes largely where it will and is highly resistant to efforts made to redirect it.\u201d<\/p>

Muddling Toward Frugality<\/em><\/a>, Warren Johnson, 1979<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard not to like George Orwell. And it\u2019s hard not to admire Arnold J. Toynbee. But I didn\u2019t expect to find myself disagreeing with both of them on an issue (let\u2019s call it, thanks to Warren Johnson, a \u201cgrand dynamic in history\u201d) that both Orwell and Toynbee clearly agree on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, maybe I suspected that point of disagreement with Toynbee, the famous world historian. But not with Orwell, the fighter for Spanish democracy and the author of 1984<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been over thirty years since I first read Toynbee\u2019s Civilization<\/em> on Trial<\/em><\/a>, published in 1948. And one couldn\u2019t help but feel\u2014not just Toynbee\u2019s accrued historical erudition\u2014but the Nazi death camps and the American atom bombs behind the urgency of his writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book, Toynbee says explicitly that the \u201ctwo congenital diseases of civilization\u201d are \u201cWar and Class.\u201d He goes on to say that \u201crecent technological inventions of the modern Western middle class\u201d have now made \u201cClass . . . capable of irrevocably disintegrating Society, and War of annihilating the entire human race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, nothing to disagree with there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deconstructing Civilization Old paper mill, Oregon City, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. \u201cOur confidence in our ability to direct the course of events has been severely eroded by the experiences of the twentieth century. Several disastrous wars have occurred, against all efforts to prevent them, and even the United Nations has been almost totally unsuccessful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7513,139,5493,1211,30041],"class_list":["post-54265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-arnold-toynbee","tag-civilization","tag-counterpunch","tag-george-orwell","tag-paul-gilk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54266,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54265\/revisions\/54266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}