Newt Gingrich, from his 1995 book To Renew America.
| Newt Gingrich | Arthurian |
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Toynbee's thesis was called "challenge and response." He argued that every civilization sooner or later encounters a challenge that threatens its very existence. At that point, the key question becomes how its leadership elites respond and whether they are adequate to the task.
How the leadership elites respond? But what if some yokel has the right response, and the leadership elites have the wrong response?
Late in the life of a civilization, things likely work as Gingrich describes. But early on, maybe the leadership is more flexible. And before the society has advanced far enough to be a civilization, maybe there are not yet any "leadership elites". Maybe the yokel finds a way to do irrigation in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin and just starts doing it. Maybe his neighbors see his success, and imitate him. The word spreads. Then maybe that yokel and his neighbors become the leadership elite.
I don't know. For sure, I don't know. But I know it is late-stage thinking to describe things as Gingrich does, so that only the existing powers would be able to develop a response. Cutting off your options like that seems to me a good way to reduce your chance of success.
Late in the life of a civilization, things likely work as Gingrich describes. But early on, maybe the leadership is more flexible. And before the society has advanced far enough to be a civilization, maybe there are not yet any "leadership elites". Maybe the yokel finds a way to do irrigation in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin and just starts doing it. Maybe his neighbors see his success, and imitate him. The word spreads. Then maybe that yokel and his neighbors become the leadership elite.
I don't know. For sure, I don't know. But I know it is late-stage thinking to describe things as Gingrich does, so that only the existing powers would be able to develop a response. Cutting off your options like that seems to me a good way to reduce your chance of success.
Toynbee ranged widely, noting that solving one generation's challenge did not necessarily mean the civilization would rise to the next one. It was quite possible for a civilization to be successful for a long time and then suddenly fall apart. The challenges also might change dramatically. One generation could face military challenges while the next would be challenged by religion, politics, economics, or technology.
Ranging across history, Toynbee proposed an antidote to the insular complacency of the time, which said that having beaten Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, we were bound to be successful in the long run. In Toynbee's view, Han China had been the dominant economic and cultural system on the planet for nearly two thousand years until it failed to modernize in the nineteenth century and ended up collapsing in the face of Western European economic and technological progress. (To Toynbee, European military advantages were almost entirely a function of political, economic, and technological advantages.)
The short view of two hundred years of American history was rapidly put in perspective by an analysis that noted that the Roman domination of the Mediterranean world lasted about six hundred years. Even Rome's seeming endurance faded next to the additional thousand years of Byzantine survival. So broad was Toynbee's sweep that he could mention the three great Mesoamerican civilizations (Maya, Inca,and Aztec) and include them in an analysis with pharonic Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley.
A Study of History liberated me from any sense that we inevitably know how to keep America strong. It also engendered in me a deep sense that every generation faces the potential of serious challenges and that failure to respond effectively could mean the end of your civilization in a remarkably short period of time.
Ranging across history, Toynbee proposed an antidote to the insular complacency of the time, which said that having beaten Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, we were bound to be successful in the long run. In Toynbee's view, Han China had been the dominant economic and cultural system on the planet for nearly two thousand years until it failed to modernize in the nineteenth century and ended up collapsing in the face of Western European economic and technological progress. (To Toynbee, European military advantages were almost entirely a function of political, economic, and technological advantages.)
The short view of two hundred years of American history was rapidly put in perspective by an analysis that noted that the Roman domination of the Mediterranean world lasted about six hundred years. Even Rome's seeming endurance faded next to the additional thousand years of Byzantine survival. So broad was Toynbee's sweep that he could mention the three great Mesoamerican civilizations (Maya, Inca,and Aztec) and include them in an analysis with pharonic Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley.
A Study of History liberated me from any sense that we inevitably know how to keep America strong. It also engendered in me a deep sense that every generation faces the potential of serious challenges and that failure to respond effectively could mean the end of your civilization in a remarkably short period of time.
"A remarkably short period of time." For sure. But I'm not sure I like taking the "challenge" from "challenge and response" and turning it into "serious challenges". Hey, everybody has problems. But that's not the same thing as a challenge that threatens civilization. Yes, I'm criticizing the writing here. What they wrote, Gingrich and his cowriter Bill Tucker, between the two of em you'd expect to read something that feels right. And "serious challenges" just doesn't feel right.
...
In proposing an Americal Renewal, I do so after having spent a long time thinking about the challenges we are facing and the responses we need. If the proposals I outline in this book seem ambitious, it is because I believe they reflect the magnitude of the challenges that face us. We are certainly not the first civilization to confront moral decay from within. But we are definitely the first generation in American history to face such a challenge.
In proposing an Americal Renewal, I do so after having spent a long time thinking about the challenges we are facing and the responses we need. If the proposals I outline in this book seem ambitious, it is because I believe they reflect the magnitude of the challenges that face us. We are certainly not the first civilization to confront moral decay from within. But we are definitely the first generation in American history to face such a challenge.
Again, "challenges", plural. Enough problems for everybody. This is not what Toynbee's Study of History was about.
You know, if you go to Chapter One in the Gingrich book, it starts out good:
But those are not, you know, six different things. It's all the economy, and if we fix the economy we fix almost everything.
The title of Chapter One is "The Six Challenges Facing America". Here are the things Gingrich had in mind to fix:
Number five probably would not be seen as a problem if the economy was good. And number one would probably go away with number five.
What's left? The economy. Fixing the economy. Improving economic growth and income. You know the drill. I'm just trying to point out one thing: The thing we need to fix is the economy.
Gingrich wasn't talking about fixing the economy. He was talking about fixing particular aspects of the economy, some that have been talked about for decades now, and some maybe he thinks sound good.
But here's the thing: If you make a list of problems and try to solve them, you may not have THE problem on your list. Maybe you took THE problem and broke it up into pieces, and you look at each piece and you try to solve each piece separately. In my view, there is little to no chance that your solutions will solve THE problem. Breaking up the problem works when you do computer programming; but for an economic problem the challenge is to correctly identify and describe the problem.
So here's the question: Where's the analysis that identifies and describes the problem? When did we sit down, put our heads together, and figure out what made the economy go bad? It's like the way it works these days is, whatever news stories gets the most attention are treated as the problems to be solved. That's not analysis of the problem.
You know, if you go to Chapter One in the Gingrich book, it starts out good:
... our civilization is decaying, with an underclass of poverty and violence growing in our midst and an economy hard pressed to compete with those of Germany, Japan, and China.Actually, he presents our "economy" as some kind of performance measure, unrelated to growing poverty and violence. He's got that wrong. But whatever; if he could fix the economy and poverty and violence and jobs and a few other things all at once, let him call it whatever he wants.
But those are not, you know, six different things. It's all the economy, and if we fix the economy we fix almost everything.
The title of Chapter One is "The Six Challenges Facing America". Here are the things Gingrich had in mind to fix:
- "reestablish a legitimate moral-cultural standard"
- "grasp the true significance" of the "scientific and technological changes going on around us" so that we can "lead the world into the Information Age"
- "rethink our competition in the world market"
- "replace the welfare state with an opportunity society"
- "replace our centralized, micromanaged Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system"
- "balance the federal budget"
Number five probably would not be seen as a problem if the economy was good. And number one would probably go away with number five.
What's left? The economy. Fixing the economy. Improving economic growth and income. You know the drill. I'm just trying to point out one thing: The thing we need to fix is the economy.
Gingrich wasn't talking about fixing the economy. He was talking about fixing particular aspects of the economy, some that have been talked about for decades now, and some maybe he thinks sound good.
But here's the thing: If you make a list of problems and try to solve them, you may not have THE problem on your list. Maybe you took THE problem and broke it up into pieces, and you look at each piece and you try to solve each piece separately. In my view, there is little to no chance that your solutions will solve THE problem. Breaking up the problem works when you do computer programming; but for an economic problem the challenge is to correctly identify and describe the problem.
So here's the question: Where's the analysis that identifies and describes the problem? When did we sit down, put our heads together, and figure out what made the economy go bad? It's like the way it works these days is, whatever news stories gets the most attention are treated as the problems to be solved. That's not analysis of the problem.
See also: Challenge and Response
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