Chapter 34 The Rise and Fall of the Historical View of Civilization Form——Comment on Toynbee and His "Historical Studies"

Modern historiography since the Enlightenment Age, except for the traditional textual research and "preaching the truth with history" still continues, and the isolated "country history", "dynasty history" and "character-event history" still do not recognize any overall concept and macro generalization , there are four main perspectives among those who acknowledge world-wide long-term macro-history: 1. The global historical view of evolution.This is a historiographical model that originated from the rationalist concept of "progress" in the Age of Enlightenment, and its typical example is the well-known theory of "the law of human historical development in which social forms evolve sequentially".Whether it is "five-segment theory", "syllogism", or "single-line theory" or "multi-line theory", they are all based on the belief in the overall evolution of human society.In addition to the most prominent aspect of traditional Marxist historiography, many non-Marxists since Vico, Condorcet, and Trepa also have this kind of stage theory of evolutionary history. basis to divide the stages.

2. History of Cultural Types A.As a theory of cultural types, it is the same as the historical view of cultural types B mentioned below. It uses the horizontal juxtaposition of various "cultures" in the synchronic state to deny the vertical evolution of the various "stages of social development" in the diachronic state.But it is different from B: this view of history advocates that "culture" can be divided into good and bad, so it often stands on a certain cultural standard position, and even shifts from the theory of cultural superiority to the theory of racial superiority.Fascism's "Aryan view of history" and "imperial view of history" are typical examples.There is no obvious historical view of racial superiority or inferiority in contemporary times, but the cultural determinism historical view of the superiority or inferiority of culture and the cultural determinism that determines the different historical processes of various ethnic groups is still popular.

3. History of cultural types B.It also emphasizes the synchronic juxtaposition of various cultures or civilizations and denies the "stage" theory of the development of all human societies beyond culture.However, it is different from cultural type historical view A, which has a tendency of cultural relativism, does not emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of culture or explicitly denies that culture has advantages and disadvantages.Therefore, it is possible to express a universal humanistic value that is anti-racism and anti-specific cultural egotism.Precisely because of this, it may also believe that (contrary to the eternal vitality of a certain excellent culture that is often emphasized by Viewpoint A) different cultures will have a similar "life course", that is, they all go through the stages of origin, prosperity, decline, and extinction. There are many mechanisms that are common or similar across the life course of cultures.Different from the view of evolutionary history, the cultural life course here does not have the meaning of "progress".Therefore, if another culture rises after the decline of one culture, it does not mean the evolution from backward to advanced, but just another cycle of life cycle.Therefore, although various cultures or "civilizations" have a chronological sequence in experience, they can still be regarded as synchronic "in the philosophical sense".

Fourth, the non-evolutionary "world system" view of history.This view of history is represented by "Neo-Marxism" or other "New Leftist" historiography that gets rid of "enlightenment rationality" and highlights post-modern values. difference.It considers human history as a whole and advocates looking at history from a global perspective, but at the same time opposes the concept of "progress".It either sees the "world-system" as an opposing structure of "center" and "periphery," which may have moral distinctions between good and evil (the "center" oppresses the "periphery" unjustly), but has no evolutionary sequence. The difference between advanced and backward.Or even this opposition between good and evil is deconstructed and downplayed, and the differences between the various parts of the world system are only regarded as some kind of unexplained long-term or super-long-term cycle (sometimes called "Kondratieff cycle", but its meaning has nothing to do with the understanding of the cycle in economics) the "Thirty Years in Hedong and Thirty Years in Hexi" style changes brought about by the cycle.

The Toynbee we are going to talk about here, and his magnanimous "Historical Studies", are the most famous representatives of the third perspective mentioned above, namely "Cultural Type Historical View B".Although people's thoughts influence each other, the boundaries of the above four views of history are not absolutely clear.For example, although Toynbee denied the theory of historical evolution, he also stated that there is a tendency in human history to develop from partial unity (separate civilizations) to the final Datong (unified civilization of all mankind). The "Encyclopedia of Soviet History" judged as "has a certain progressive effect".Generally speaking, Toynbee opposed the advantages and disadvantages of culture and emphasized that all civilizations cannot avoid the "life cycle", but he did have a different view of Western civilization in his early years and "Chinese civilization" in his later years, especially his " "Chinese Salvation Theory" excited many of our Chinese descendants.There is a fundamental logical conflict between Toynbee's theory of civilization division and the "world system" theory, and there is no Wallerstein's concept of "center" exploiting "periphery". "The huge difference in situation is explained by being in different stages in the "life cycle", which is similar to Frank's now-hot talk about the difference between developed and underdeveloped parts of the world, which is caused by the rise of the "Kondratieff cycle" The term "period" or "decline period" is clearly similar.

Therefore, no matter from the perspective of responding to challenges or drawing lessons from, historians from various perspectives cannot ignore Toynbee.Although his view of history is not the most fashionable nowadays. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) is one of the most influential contemporary British historians.He was born in an academic family, and his uncle Arnold Toynbee was an economist and historian at Oxford University. He was known for his humanistic care and sense of social responsibility. He was deeply worried about the social tension in the industrial age and participated in the mediation of labor disputes , advocating that the state attach importance to social welfare and oppose laissez-faire economic policies, which has a potential impact on Toynbee's later formation of a critical stance on "Western civilization" and modernity.Arnold Joseph Toynbee specializes in Greek-Byzantine history and the history of modern international relations, and has recognized academic attainments in these areas, but he is also known for his profound knowledge.Like his uncle, he is not a pure scholar. He has worked in the British Foreign Office several times, participated in the Paris Peace Conference as a member of the British delegation, engaged in intelligence work, and worked as a war correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. He also served as the director of the Diplomatic Studies Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the director of the Research Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.These experiences make him a—to borrow Isaiah Berlin's words—a "hedgehog" and a "fox" character.

The types of Toynbee's works are not many, but the length can be called equal.His "Historical Research" began to be conceived in 1921, and was written in 1927. Later, it was intermittent due to public office and wars. Between 1934 and 1961, 12 volumes were published successively, but according to his vision, it was still an unfinished draft. In 1946 and 1957, DC Somerville abbreviated the first 10 volumes that had been published at that time into two volumes and published them (later Chinese translations such as Cao Weifeng divided it into three volumes and published it).By 1966, Toynbee, who was already full of energy but unable to complete the grand plan, concluded the writing project with the publication of "Change and Habits", 45 years after he started this masterpiece. years long.

The acronym Somerwell summed up Toynbee's journey thus: "The author, who was born in the age of late Victorian optimism and lived through the First World War in his prime, felt deeply that there were many similarities between the society in which he himself lived and that of ancient Greece, and what he The main education he received was exactly that of ancient Greece. This aroused such questions in his mind: Why did civilization die? Is the fate of ancient Greek civilization also the fate of modern Western civilization? As a result, his exploration expanded. To include the decline and disintegration of all known civilizations, as evidence for the study of this problem. Finally, he went on to study the origin and growth of civilizations, so he wrote this 'historical study'."

Obviously, the question of "why civilization dies" brought out by the deep crisis of contemporary "Western civilization" is the main driving force of his writing, and "the origin and growth of civilization" is only raised as a foil for his discussion of the above questions.This makes his great work hide a great sense of pessimism and criticism under the calm and lengthy narration, and this pessimism and criticism consciousness becomes stronger as he gets older.The two aspects of pessimism and criticism constitute a profound tension.From his tireless emphasis on the "life cycle" of civilization, the four stages of "origin, growth, decline, and disintegration" of civilization and its main mechanism (civilization is produced by the "challenge-to-challenge" mechanism, and it goes through the "chaos period" to achieve "unity"). "Nation", "unified peace", the "creative minority" guides the growth of civilization, and forms the "unified church" and "higher religion", but the "creative minority" also degenerates into the "ruling minority" in the process ", leading to the decline of civilization, and finally under the impact of the "proletarian" revolution and the "barbarian military bloc", internal and external crises concurrently, and the disintegration and extinction of civilization) are all said to be the common fate of all "civilizations". From the perspective of his pessimism, it is fatalism In this sense, he and the theory of historical evolution that he disapproves of are actually based on some kind of "necessity" or "law", but the latter's "necessity" is optimistic, while Toynbee's "inevitability" is pessimistic.

On the other hand, however, Toynbee tried to find an "unsolvable solution" through criticism, and tried to explain the "civilization" he was in, or at least (when the "civilization" was hopeless) Find a way for mankind to get rid of fate and avoid extinction.From calling for the awakening of "Western civilization" to save ourselves in the early days, to placing hope in "Chinese civilization to save the world" in his later years, it is a reflection of this effort.The tension between such a fatalistic pessimism and a critique to get rid of fatalism did not ease even in his later years-and it is precisely that his thought is superior to those shallow writers and big writers who easily prescribe the remedy for the world. The reunion-style works are more profound and intriguing.

Even so, in his later years he prescribed some disjointed prescriptions: he believed that it was wrong to reconcile "democracy" between the poles of "liberty" (American style) and "equality" (Soviet style) Possibly successful, only "fraternity" can reconcile "liberty" and "equality".And fraternity cannot come from human beings themselves, but only from God.Therefore, the future of mankind lies in getting rid of the "law of nature" and returning to the "law of God".He also pointed out that the three developments of human beings: the development in the biological sense, the development of science and technology, the development of the highest religion and the form of social and political organization are in different states. The first two developments are characterized by continuous progress, while the third The progress of the two types of development is still accelerating, but the most important third type of development does not form a de facto trend, but only a "common tendency" of due nature, which points to the establishment of an omnipotent world state and the transcendence of all civilization" world religion.This "universal unity" prospect is the only chance for mankind to survive and continue under the threat of nuclear war. So who can lead mankind to find this opportunity and establish this world of great harmony?Here Toynbee fell into the final perplexity: he believed that the prospect of great unity was only possible under the conditions created by modern science and technology, and only on the basis of people freely choosing this direction——in that era , Which part of the earth is the most realistic of these two premises, should be said to be obvious.But on the other hand, he believes that this possible savior will come from China - the China that was in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution just before Toynbee's death in 1975. At that time, China in Toynbee's view (as many Chinese people today It seems to be the same) as the traditional era of "Chinese civilization" is characterized by "stagnation". , but at this time before Toynbee's death it was seen as bright: it is said that it is because of the "Confucian background" that "kept the Chinese people stagnant" and "did not push forward the excessive industrialization as aggressively as the advanced countries" , but "still sticking to the foundation of pastoral agriculture and constructing civilization in a measured manner" saved it from falling into the "evolutionary" disaster like the West.What would Toynbee think if he saw that the reform and economic take-off in China behind him was no longer "stagnant" and no longer "sticking to the foundation of pastoral agriculture"? Judging from Toynbee's mental journey, he is a thinker first and a scholar second.Although his "Historical Research", which has not yet been completed in twelve volumes, is written by a scholar who has received strict "fox" training, it seems to be very in line with the "academic norms". "The Decline of the West" written by Spengler is full of a large number of intellectual errors that professional historians scoff at, but this book is still essentially a "hedgehog" work like Spengler's book.Professional historians have always singled out his faults from an empirical point of view, no less than Spengler's book (as can be seen in Sorokin's comment on Toynbee attached to the Chinese translation of the abbreviated version), and as Chinese scholar Zhao Shiyu said: Toynbee’s statement that the 26 civilizations are “philosophically speaking” all simultaneous is inconsistent with the “norms” of history—people have to ask: what about historically?Because of this, many scholars, whether criticizing or praising Toynbee, think that his great work is not so much a work of civilization history or cultural history as a work of philosophy of history.For the elaboration of this philosophy of history, the unfinished twelve volumes of Yangyang seem a bit redundant, and the two volumes of the abbreviated version have already discussed it quite fully.It is a good choice for Chinese scholars to publish the abbreviated Chinese translation. As a philosopher of history, Toynbee's reflection on "Western civilization" is actually a critique of enlightenment rationality and modernity.In this regard, he was deeply influenced by A. Bergson's intuitionistic philosophy and Spengler's "philosophy about fate".Spengler rejects what he calls "British" rationalism (rather than the dichotomy popular today: German French or Continental rationalism rejects British "empiricism"), but Toynbee, who is a British, seems to be more inclined to this "German" thinking.I once pointed out in "The Poverty of Cultural Determinism": Neither Spengler nor Toynbee's cultural (civilization) form historical view is based on the fact that "evolution is not true", that is, the empirical falsification of historical evolution theory, It is "evolution is not good", that is, the value denial or metaphysical criticism of the theory of historical evolution.Therefore, the historical significance of the historical view of civilization forms is far less prominent than its philosophical significance.In fact, it is a spectacle in the trend of rational criticism or modernity criticism since the end of the 19th century, especially since the First World War, and it is the embodiment of this trend in the field of historiography. The critique of Enlightenment rationality and "modernity" is still fashionable today—in my opinion, as long as the "post-modern" value remains at the stage of deconstruction and cannot really replace the so-called modernity value, this kind of critique is still in vogue. It will be fashionable.The theory of historical evolution, especially the deterministic view of evolutionary history may not return to the mainstream, but the poverty of the historical view of civilization forms has become more and more obvious today: this is not because the development of history is exactly the opposite of many of Toynbee's predictions (typical The best example is: Toynbee predicted that "the birth control Western civilization" would threaten and try to eliminate the "agricultural civilization's reproductive freedom rights", leading to serious conflicts, but today we see the exact opposite: the plans of the developing countries The birth policy has been criticized by the Western "reproductive rights" theory), but mainly because: no matter what the Toynbees criticize or hope for, although it still exists today, its existence is almost the same as that of Toynbee's time indivual. In Toynbee's era, the criticism of mainstream Western civilization was based on "German Romanticism criticizing British Rationalism" as the main way of existence.Today, however, criticizing "rationality" seems to have become the posture of mainstream civilization, that is, "British-style empiricism criticizes German-style rationalism."Although "empiricism" that is not "romantic" may actually be more extreme rationalism in another sense (just as romantic "conceit" that completely ignores "experience" may also be extreme rationalism in a sense), But in any case, saying goodbye to the "expansion of rationality" has become the way of existence of mainstream Western civilization itself. On the other hand, those factors that Toynbee expected also changed the way of being.This does not mainly refer to superficial reasons such as the aforementioned “stagnation” in China’s reform era, or the “leftist dilemma” in the post-Cold War era, but that the critique of modernity itself is deconstructing the concept of “modernity.” In Wallerstein's view, modernity is still an abominable thing, so Frank claims: there has never been such a thing as modernity (or "capitalism", etc.).Since there is no such thing as hateful or not.Correspondingly, the theory of cultural types is increasingly being deconstructed by the mainstream criticism of civilization itself. Wallerstein’s world system is no longer compatible with the theory of cultural types, and Frank uses the incomprehensible term “Kondratiev cycle” The concept makes the "cultural conflict" invisible, but it is Huntington, the representative of Western mainstream civilization that Toynbee is the object of criticism, and now he is talking about the "clash of civilizations"! Of course, the decline of Toynbee’s view of civilization history does not mean that it will disappear, just as the global view of evolution, the view of type history and the view of “world system” on the theory of cultural superiority and inferiority have not disappeared.On the contrary, in the interpenetration of various historical views, many of its components are being absorbed by other historical views.That's why we value Toynbee.