On Winning the Future

Ideology has taken a bad rap in the shallows these days. And yet, ideals elevate the public discourse. They are the driving force behind even the most material aspects of a society’s achievements. While the mechanism of civilization may be intelligently controlled, occasionally directed by wisdom, it is Spiritual Idealism that advances us from one level of attainment to the next.
In 1934-1954, Arnold Joseph Toynbee’s ten-volume A Study of History came out in three separate installments. Of the 21 civilizations Toynbee identified, sixteen were dead by 1940 and four of the remaining five were under severe pressure from the one named Western Christendom – or simply The West.
Toynbee explained breakdowns of civilizations as a failure of creative power in the creative minority leading to a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole. Toynbee further characterized this decline as a “moral failure.” He presented history in terms of challenge-and-response. Civilizations arose in response to some set of challenges of extreme difficulty, when “creative minorities” devised solutions that reoriented their entire society.
Toynbee was severely criticized by other historians due to his use of myths and metaphors “as though they are of comparable value to factual data.”
The novelist Ray Bradbury seized upon this very criticism to underscore the value of fiction, or perhaps “the vision thing,” in relation to the self-fulfilling prophesy. His short story, The Toynbee Convector conveys lessons for the one-eyed materialist as well as the child within us.


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