مختصر دراسة للتاريخ، الجزء الثالث

A Study of History #3

by Arnold Joseph Toynbee, فؤاد محمد شبل (ترجمة), أرنولد توينبي

يُفسِّرُ نشوءَ الحضارات الأُولى، أو كما يُسمِّيها الحضارات المُنقطعة، من خلال نظريَّته الشهيرة الخاصَّة بـ”التحدِّي والاستجابة”، التي يعترفُ بأنَّه استلهمَها من عِلم النَفس السلوكيّ، وعلى وَجه الخصوص من كارل يونج، ويقول هذا العالم إنَّ الفَرد الذي يتعرَّضُ لصدمةٍ قد يفقدُ توازُنَه لفترةٍ ما، ثمَّ قد يستجيبُ لها بنوعَين من الاستجابة: الأُولى النكوص إلى الماضي لاستعادته والتمسُّك به تعويضًا عن واقعه المُرّ، فيُصبح انطوائيًّا؛ والثانية، تقبُّل هذه الصدمة والاعتراف بها ثمَّ مُحاولة التغلُّب عليها، فيكون في هذه الحالة انبساطيًّا. فالحالة الأولى تُعتَبرُ استجابةً سلبيَّة، والثانية إيجابيَّة بالنسبة لعلم النفس. (لاحظْ أنَّ ذلك ينطبقُ على حالة العرب، فإنَّهم تعرَّضوا لصدمة الحضارة، فلجؤوا إلى النكوص إلى الماضي دفاعًا عن النفس).

أرنولد توينبي، وُلِدَ في لندن، في عام 1889، ودرَسَ اليونانية واللاتينية في أكسفورد، وتقلَّب في عدَّة مناصب، منها: أستاذ الدراسات اليونانيَّة والبيزنطيَّة في جامعة لندن، ومدير دائرة الدراسات في وزارة الخارجية البريطانية؛ وتُوفِّيَ في عام 1975.

يُعتبرُ تُوينبي أحدثَ وأهمَّ مُؤرِّخ بحَثَ في مَسألة الحضارات بشكلٍ مُفصَّلٍ وشامِل، ولاسيَّما في موسوعته التاريخيَّة المُعنونَة “دراسة للتاريخ” التي تـتألَف من اثـني عشرَ مُجلَّدًا أنفق في تأليفها واحدًا وأربعين عامًا. وهو يَرى، خِلافًا لمُعظم المؤرِّخين الذين يعتبرون الأُمَم أو الدُول القوميَّة مَجالاً لدراسة التاريخ، أنَّ المُجتمعات (أو الحضارات) الأكثر اتِّساعًا زمانًا ومكانًا هي المجالات المعقولة للدراسة التاريخيَّة. وهو يُفرِّقُ بين المُجتمعات البِدائيَّة والحَضاريَّة؛ وهذه الأَخيرة أقلُّ عددًا من الأُولى، فهي تبلغُ واحدًا وعشرين مُجتمعًا اندثَرَ مُعظمُها، ولم يبقَ غيرُ سبع حضارات تمرُّ ستٌّ منها بدَور الانحلال، وهي: الحضارة الأُرثوذكسية المسيحية البيزنطية، والأُرثوذكسية الروسية، والإسلامية، والهندوكية، والصينية، والكورية-اليابانية؛ أمَّا السابعة، أي الحضارة الغربية، فلا يُعَرف مصيرُها حتَّى الآن.

مختصر دراسة للتاريخ «الجزء الأول»، تأليف أرنولد توينبي، وترجمة فؤاد محمد شبل، مراجعة محمد شفيق غربال، تقديم عبادة كحيلة، صدرت حديثا عن الهيئة المصرية العامة للكتاب، ضمن مطبوعات مشروع مكتبة الأسرة.

الكتاب صدر قبل ذلك عن المركز القومي للترجمة في أربعة أجزاء، وتعيد مكتبة الأسرة نشر نفس الترجمة، صدر منها الجزء اﻷول والثاني، وسيصدر لاحقا الجزءان الثالث والرابع.

يذهب توينبي في هذا الكتاب إلى أن دراسة التاريخ في حقيقتها دراسة المجتمعات أو الحضارات، وهو يقسمها إلى إحدى وعشرين حضارة اندثر معظمها ولم يتبق منها في زماننا الذي نعيش فيه سوى خمس حضارات هي المسيحية الغربية، والمسيحية اﻷرثوذكسية، واﻹسلامية، والهندية، والشرق اﻷقصى، ثم مخلفات حضارات متحجرة غير معينة الشخصية، كاليهودية، يدور الكتاب حول ثلاثة محاور: انبعاث الحضارات، وارتقاء الحضارات، وانهيار الحضارات.

فيما يتعلَّق بنُموِّ الحضارة، فيُعيدها تُوينبي إلى الدافع الحيوي Elan Vital، وهي الطاقة الكامنة لدى الفَرد والمُجتمع التي تنطلق بغرض التحقيق الذاتيّ. ويعني ذلك كما يقول: الشخصيَّة النامية أو الحضارة تسعى إلى أن تصيرَ هي نفسُها بيئةَ نفسها، وتحدِّيًا لنفسها، ومجالَ عمل لنفسها. وبعبارةٍ أُخرى إنَّ مقياس النموّ هو التقدُّم في سبيل التحقيق الذاتيّ، ويكون ذلك عن طريق المُبدِعين من الأفراد، أو بواسطة الفئة القليلة من هؤلاء القادة المُلهَمين، إذ تستجيبُ لهم الأكثريَّةُ عن طريق المُحاكاة الآليَّة mimesisالتي تُمثِّلُ الطريقةَ الغالبة في عمليَّة الانقياد الاجتماعيّ. وتـقود هذه المُحاكاةُ في الجماعة البدائيَّة إلى حركةٍ سلفية تـنزعُ إلى مُحاكاةِ القُدَماء، بينما هي في المُجتمعات الحضاريَّة النامية حركةٌ تقدُّميَّة تُؤدِّي إلى مُحاكاة الطليعة الخلاَّقة.

من
http://elbadil.com/2015/10/21/مختصر-د...

Genres: History, Nonfiction

466 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Not the same as Arnold Toynbee, economist and nephew of Arnold Joseph Toynbee

British educator Arnold Joseph Toynbee noted cyclical patterns in the growth and decline of civilizations for his 12-volume Study of History (1934-1961).

He went to Winchester college and Balliol college, Oxford.

During both world wars, he worked for the foreign office. He additionally published Nationality and the War (1915), The Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation (1915), The German Terror in France: An Historical Record (1917), and Turkey, a Past and a Future (1917). He attended the peace conference of Paris in 1919 as a delegate.

From 1919 to 1924, Arnold J. Toynbee served as professor of modern Greek and Byzantine at King's college, London. From 1925, Oxford University Press published The Survey of International Affairs under the auspices of the royal institute of international affairs, and Toynbee, professor, oversaw the publication. From 1925, Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs. He published The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement (1928).

His first marriage to Rosalind Murray produced three sons and ended in divorce in 1946. Toynbee, professor, then married Veronica M. Boulter, his research assistant. He published Civilization on Trial (1948).

Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs until 1955.
People published best known lectures of Toynbee, professor, in memory of Adam Gifford as An Historian's Approach to Religion (1956). His massive work examined development and decay. He presented the rise and fall rather than nation-states or ethnic groups. According to his analysis, the welfare depends on ability to deal successfully with challenges.

He also published Democracy in the Atomic Age (1957), Christianity among the Religions of the World (1958), and Between Niger and Nile (1965).

He died in York, North Yorkshire, England.

Reviews

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toynbee continues his study through this third volume in the series by analyzing the source, nature and ways of growths of civilizations. In the first two parts, he specified what a civilization is and how one such society sprouts its first shoots as a response to challenges from physical or human sphere of influences. This volume discusses about the criteria of growth, because once something takes birth, it is the next step to take. This does not take place automatically, and this volume is a catalog of several false starts and stillborns. A creative minority in the society puts forward original ideas which might be ridiculed by the unthinking majority of the population. The pioneers then withdraw to seclusion in which the metamorphosis of development of the idea takes place. In the fullness of time, such savants return to the society and conquer the minds of the majority with their seed of originality. This takes deep root in the society and it moves forward on the path of development. We see from the numerous examples cited in the volume that this principle is faithfully followed by all civilizations in the world. The author appends an index which covers the first three volumes with this part.

Once a society crosses the threshold of stimulus and response, growth of civilization is the logical next step. However, this is not guaranteed to take place on its own. In some cases, the adaptation may happen to be greatly in step with the physical challenge that the society is placed in a predicament in which it becomes impossible to modify its behaviour to changing circumstances and the civilization becomes arrested at the level. Toynbee’s statement of the fact may be thus summarized but the justification of the argument is long drawn out and thorough. The four civilizations, the Eskimos, Nomads, Osmanlis and Sparta are cited as examples. All these faced an immense challenge in the human or physical arenas in which the Nomads were forced to migrate to desert oases according to the season of the year. The people are slaves to the climate, just like the Eskimos are guided by the vagaries of snowfall. The characteristics picked up by the barbarians don’t leave them easily even after they have established a flourishing civilization. Nomads make use of animal assistance in the form of horses and dogs to watch over the cattle. The author establishes that the Spartans and Osmanlis (Ottoman Turks) exhibit this trait of nomadism by recruiting slaves from the subject population and keeping them as watchdogs over the human cattle. A bright narrative follows in which the in and out of Janissary system of Turks and the ‘Agoge’ of ancient Spartans are enunciated in precise detail. Ottomans took slaves from their Christian subjects In Europe and Caucasus, trained them in selected professions, converted them into Islam and made them work in administration and military of the Porte. These Janissaries carried the day forward and even rose to the position of Vizier, and sons of female slaves borne of the king even ascended the throne. The Osmanli’s made use of this system of human watchdogs to guard over human cattle, because the streak of nomadism runs straight through their ancestry in the European Steppe.

The criterion for the growth of a civilization is to be found out next. Toynbee argues that mere geographic expansion or a supreme command of the human environment is not an indicator of growth. In fact, these are symptoms of the civilization’s disintegration. This counter-intuitive proposition is brought home by a plethora of examples plucked out of the pages of world history. Hellenic Civilization reached its widest geographical frontiers under Alexander the Great, but that was during the disintegration phase, with the emperor himself coming out to the stage as a barbarian. Similarly, Roman civilization enjoyed its zenith after the successful prosecution of the Punic wars, but the empire entered its path to decline immediately thereafter. In the human sphere too, the situation is not at all different. The expansion of a society in the human environment may be thought of as borrowing of artistic, political, social or military techniques of that society by other populations. This also does not constitute a criterion of growth.

Then, how do we know whether a society is in the growth phase of civilization? A new concept of ‘Withdrawal and Return’ is postulated at this point. The first spark of creative genius is born in a single person, or among a few people in a society. The rest of the populace may mock at these gifted few. They then withdraw from the general stream of popular life and sharpen their intellect and ideas. At a opportune time this creative minority returns to the midst of the society which alienated or drove them out a short while before. But this time, the creative challenge would have evoked a brilliant response, made all the more attractive through embellishments accumulated over those years when the creative minority was steeped in an apparent hibernation. Suddenly, the idea catches on public imagination and the majority takes to it by mimesis. This puts in motion the wheels of civilizations to progress. The author argues with evidence of examples that this is the process through which a society grows. Not only individual people, but penalized minorities also may follow the path of ‘withdrawal and return’ to pull off the vehicle of growth on their way. Toynbee’s examples are plenty and convincing but one may have doubts on the veracity of at least a few of them, like Paul Von Hindenburg, the German administrator, or Clarendon, the English historian whose biographies are quoted as proof of his concept of ‘Withdrawal and Return’.

The volume ends with the way in which industrialism and democracy triumphed in the western world that went on to conquer the whole world on the cultural plane. These ideals were not compatible with a locally self-sufficient agricultural society burdened with feudalism that carried a despotic monarch on its back. Medieval Italy demonstrated the alternative concept of city-states that relied on commerce and industry. The challenge of transforming the feudal structure to make it compatible with city-states was taken up in every kingdom, but the successful response was obtained in England which then stood as a role model for other societies to imitate these ideals of industrialism and democracy.

Eruption of nomads from the steppes of Asia and Africa had upset the balance of sedentary populations on the edges of grasslands. The factor that put these aggressive behaviour in motion had not been fully understood, but the author proposes a fine idea to explain this recurrent phenomena. Toynbee proposes two factors to account for this – climatic as well as human. The aridity of the steppe changes over a period. With the conclusions of Ellsworth Huntington, it may be seen that the cycle of aridity and humidity oscillates with a period of 600 years, the first half of it being dry and the second half moist. The nomads find their habitat shrunk by advancing desert line and a as a consequence erupt to the peasant’s lands. During the second half, more of the steppe become cultivatable and the peasants take back the land, forcing many nomads to accept sedentary lifestyle or to penetrate deeper into the steppe. A comprehensive list of such eruptions that correspond to the spokes of the cycle is given and it is quite convincing. As far as the human factor is concerned, this implies the pull exerted on nomads by the vacuum created by breakdown of sedentary societies which is clearly evident from the examples listed.

Reading Toynbee is a tough experience that should be thought of as a once in a lifetime opportunity. The diction and vocabulary is so superb and the structure so crafted as to convey many interrelated ideas in a single sentence. This is the general tenure of the series, but the section on ‘An Analysis of Growth’ that looks into philosophical roots and sources of the growths of societies is really tough. You need superhuman perseverance to navigate through this thick mess of esoteric concepts taken from works of J C Smuts and Henri Bergson. At another point, the author’s assertion that western civilization has conquered all parts of the globe and positively or negatively influences even opposition to it raised by other civilizations, is noteworthy. Mahatma Gandhi’s agitations against the Raj is referred here, but Toynbee states that even though he fights to put Indian ideals into reality, his modus operandi of meetings, resolutions, petitions and opposition is so thoroughly western and so is the path of Indian industry as against Gandhi’s own ideals . The textile mills of Ahmedabad uses western production methods and present as big to a contrast to Gandhi’s ideal of homespun cloth as the textile factories of Manchester. This comparison presented on old dichotomy in a clear light.

The book is highly recommended.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once a static, primitive society has responded to a certain intensity of challenge, it shatters the "cake of custom" and begins to change--to differentiate and develop. If the conditions are right, it begins to grow. But what are those conditions, and what exactly does it mean for a society or civilization to "grow"? In this third volume of his mighty Study of History, first published in 1934, Arnold J. Toynbee sets out to answer those questions.

According to Toynbee, the phenomenon he calls Challenge-and-Response continues to operate. The challenges to societies come from two main sources: the physical environment and the "human environment"--other surrounding societies. A challenge that is successfully met produces a change in society that can be called growth. For example, in our own Western civilization, which Toynbee calls Western Christendom, an early challenge to the scattered and disorganized society that existed after the collapse of the Roman Empire was the pressure of barbarians to the north and east of Western Europe, and the response that was created was the set of social, political, and military institutions that we call feudalism. The feudal system remained in place until further challenges provoked further innovations by Western Christendom, which in turn constituted further growth.

Do you find it strange and anachronistic that Toynbee uses the label "Western Christendom" for our society--the one we usually simply call "Western"? Our Western society is so secular, and indeed a cornerstone of our constitutions is the separation of church and state. Indeed, Toynbee himself says that the two driving forces of our society, which give it its distinctive character, are Democracy and Industrialism. What do these have to do with Jesus Christ?

The answer lies in the original germ of a society. According to Toynbee, this germ is always spiritual. As I understand it, he's saying that the enthusiasm and energy that cause people to want to work together to build a society can come only from a spiritual source. In the case of Western Christendom, this source was Christianity, which began its life in the Roman Empire as one sect among many that met the needs of the empire's "internal proletariat" (to use another term of Toynbee's). The charisma of Jesus Christ and his teachings attracted the oppressed and marginalized members of that antecedent civilization, spurring them to build a religion that eventually was magnetic enough to supplant the preceding state religion of paganism. When the Roman Empire dissolved, the Christian Church had the necessary spiritual, ideological, and administrative structures in place to become the kernel of a new civilization--Western Christendom. Christianity became the DNA of Western civilization (and also of Eastern Orthodox Christendom--a distinct society of its own, according to Toynbee). With civilization, the spirit leads and the physical structures follow.

As for what growth specifically consists of, Toynbee opts for a term of French philosopher Henri Bergson: etherialization. This is the tendency of human things to become more refined and spiritual and intangible as they develop. For example, in commercial life the tendency has been a shift in emphasis from commerce in heavy industry and manufacturing toward the service and then the "information" economy. Growth is in the direction of the less physical and the more abstract.

Along the way, Toynbee explicitly refutes a couple of common notions of what constitutes growth: the conquest of territory and the development of technology. To me, these points were especially interesting because it seems almost universal and unquestioned nowadays to equate growth with one or both of these things. But Toynbee asserts that such utilitarian thinking is nothing more than the habitual tendency of historians in any period to look at all historical events through the lens of the preoccupations of their own age. Our own age is technological and violent, so those are the values we instinctively apply. It's possible to resist this temptation, though, and that is what Toynbee strives to do.

As a writer Toynbee is excellent. Yes, he is donnish and unfolds his arguments in a sometimes schoolmasterly way, but he is deep, detached, urbane, humble, and very reluctant to criticize other thinkers. The range and depth of his reading and knowledge are almost unbelievable. He makes free use of examples from mythology and literature to make his points, and summarizes and illustrates his points with telling quotations from the Bible and the classics. For example, in one of his infrequent mentions of his own life-experience, he describes how, during the First World War (still the "General War of 1914-18" to Toynbee), when he was walking by the Board of Education offices in London, he saw that they had been converted to a new war office devoted to the study of trench warfare; and this caused him to recall a passage from the Gospel of Matthew:

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand), then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the World to this time. And, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.

Toynbee's work as a whole invites us to consider the sweep of history, the enterprise of humanity in its entirety, not from any single narrow perspective, such as technology, economics, or politics, but in its full depth and range. He has addressed the question with the whole of his spirit, and hence he ranges beyond bland academic and scientific formalisms, even as he is a great student and a great thinker. And he's inviting us to do the same.

It's a great invitation, and well worth accepting.

[Sayed Ismail ElMasry · Rating 4 out of 5]

رحلة جميلة في أسباب تحلل الحضارات

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE THIRD OF TOYNBEE'S 10-VOLUME "METAHISTORY"

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) was a British historian whose ten-volume 'A Study of History' was an extremely popular approach to historical writing. The first three volumes were released at the same time, in 1933.

He observes, "the mind of Man is capable of unlimited achievement on the one condition that it faithfully follows the bent of its own genius." (Pg. 87) He praises [Oswald] Spengler's "brilliant historical analysis" [in ‘The Decline of the West’] and the "magnificent intellectual achievement" of H.G. Wells' ‘The Outline of History.’

He states, "geographical expansion produces social retardation" (Pg. 137), and cites an instance where "quality was sacrificed to quantity. A geographical expansion was purchased at the price of a social relapse." (Pg. 145) He argues, "Nor is the art of war the only kind of technique that is apt to make its progress in inverse ratio to the general progress of the body social. War is so manifestly an anti-social activity that an antimony between military progress and social progress is not surprising." (Pg. 168)

He concludes that "the criterion of growth is to be found in progress towards self-determination." (Pg. 217) He suggests, "A society... is a relation between individuals; and this relation of theirs consists in the coincidence of their individual fields of action; and this coincidence combines the individual fields into a common ground; and this common ground is what we call a society." (Pg. 230)

He asserts, "We are already alive, in our generation, to two new challenges to which we have been exposed by the triumph of Democracy and Industrialism... In particular, the economic system of Industrialism... demands the establishment of some kind of political world-order as a framework for the operation of Industrialism on its indispensable world-wide scale... both Industrialism and Democracy demand from Human Nature a greater individual self-control and mutual tolerance and public-spirited co-operation than the human 'social animal' has been apt to practice, because these new institutions have put an unprecedentedly powerful material 'drive' into all human social actions." (Pg. 363)

He summarizes, "We have now completed our investigation of the process by which civilizations grow, and... the process appears to be one and the same. Growth is achieved when an individual or a minority or a whole society replies to a challenge by a response which not only answers the particular challenge that has evoked it but also exposes the respondent to a fresh challenge which demands a fresh response on his part. And the process of growth continues... so long as this recurrent movement of disturbance and restoration and overbalance and renewed disturbance of equilibrium is maintained... For under the test of a common challenge a certain number of the communities ... are apt to succumb, whereas others strike out a successful response through a creative movement of Withdrawal-and-Return, while others... manage to survive the crisis by waiting until some creative individual or creative minority has shown the way through, and then tamely following in the footsteps of the pioneers... Thus the growths of civilizations entail a progressive differentiation between the experiences of one growing society and another." (Pg. 377-378)

Toynbee's reputation is considerably diminished from when these volumes were first published; but reading the entire series is still a very worthwhile (if time-consuming) endeavor.