Toynbee & McLuhan

Toynbee & McLuhan

Arnold Toynbee wrote a "Study of History', which "is the longest written work ever composed in the English language…In it he traces the birth, growth and decay of some 21 to 23 major civilizations in the world."

"He argues that for civilizations to be born, the challenge must be a golden mean; that excessive challenge will crush the civilization, and too little challenge will cause it to stagnate. He argues that growth is driven by "Creative Minorities," who lead the uncreative masses by example (called "mimesis")."

"He argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside, but from the deterioration of the "Creative Minority" (who leads the uncreative majority by example) into a "Dominant Minority" (who forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience). He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face. He argues that a civilization has broken down is when it forms a "Universal State," which stifles political creativity."

"He argues that as civilizations decay, they form an "Internal Proletariat" and an "External Proletariat." The Internal proletariat is held in subjugation by the dominant minority inside the civilization, and grows bitter; the external proletariat exists outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, and grows envious. He argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism in the body social," whereby abandon and self-control replace creativity, and truancy and martyrdom replace discipleship by the creative minority."

In "Understanding Media" McLuhan notes Toynbee's "explanation of how the lame and the crippled respond to their handicaps in a society of active warriors. They become specialists like Vulcan, the smith and armorer. And how do whole communities act when conquered and enslaved? The same strategy serves them as it does the lame individual in a society of warriors. They specialize and become indispensable to their masters. It is probably the long human history of enslavement, and the collapse into specialism as a counter-irritant, that have put the stigma of servitude and pusillanimity on the figure of the specialist, even in modern times. The capitulation of Western man to his technology, with its crescendo of specialized demands has always appeared to many observers of our world as a kind of enslavement."

I argue that the ?'Creative Minority' consists of the university professors and the techno-graduates of our universities who have become specialists for Corporate America. These intellectuals have become ?'hired guns' for Corporate America.

These quotations regarding "The Study of History" are from:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/a/a/a_study_of_history.htm