Civilizations

This blog is attached to the blog Polybios, polybios-2100.blogspot.com. It will occasionally bring historical overviews and arguments comparing different civilizations.

IS HISTORY A MONOTONE RISING FUNCTION OF TIME?

Is history a continuous rise in culture and technology?

Many historical schools seem to assume this, and indeed it is the shared view in large parts of the public, the industrials and the ruling circles in the world. Karl Marx had his view of a movement from slave society through feudalism, bougois rule and socialism to the ideal class less communist society. The liberalists (US language: conservatives) believe on an ever expanding more and more free market. Politicians in the west believe that democracy will develop and expand forever.

In these last two centuries the belief in an ever expanding production and ever higher levels of technology has dominated. . Almost everybody believes in and hopes for an eternal growth in GDP of not under 3 % and ever higher levels of technology. After LCD and plasma screens comes LED and then again something else.  After iPhone 5 comes 6, 7, 8 etc. etc.

All this is of course absurd. Will there ever  be an iPhone version 6.385?  And a  growth of 3 % per year in 1000 years would amount to in total a multiplication in production  by 7 trillion! Sooner or later the total weight of tablet computers would exceed the weight of the whole solar system!

But a simple look at history disconfirms the optimism as naive. Even the simplistic old picture Antique - Medieval - Newer time shows that history is not always a uninterrupted progress. The Roman Empire declined and was replaced by "the dark ages". Then the West rose.

Looking further at the past showws more examples of this: Old Mesopotamia and Indus are gone. So are old Egypt. And of course Peru and Mexico. In more of these cases as for example the Greco-Roman civilization, the fall happened about 1500 years after the start.

If we look at the development of the single civilizations there are obvious parallels. They seem to run through the following stages:

Preculture (500 years). Primitive preparation.

Feudalism (500 years). Pyramid feudal structure. Especially in the start knights, epics about heroes. In the start religious and mythic creativity, later on religious  reforms. The art is in the start primarily religious.

State of estates (150 years). The states are now more important than the feudal ties. The civilization now consists of a number of clearly defined states. The states are run by the nobles. The king has not yet absolute power.

Absolute state (150 years). The states are now under one king or other ruler (or as in England one absolute parliament). Art in highly complicated forms culminates.

Modernity (300 years). Intra- and interstate fights. Revolutions. Experimental art. Free thought, sciences. Political and philosophical schools of thought.

Cesarism. A de facto cesar no matter the official title wins inter- and intrastate power over the whole world known by the given civilization.

 All this seems to point to a parallel but time displaced development of many civilizations: my view is a combination of spengler and Toynbee which fits historical facts. I use the civilizations of the first and three of Toynbee’s. These three are new civilizations coming in the areas of earlier. Spengler regards these three as dead versions of the old. But it makes more sense to see them as new civilizations. They are the following: Mesopotamia II, China II and India II.

So the civilizations run parallel developments, but with a displacement in time.

Here is an overview of the 13 or 14 civilizations. All time spans are approximate. History is not an exact watch.

Civilization Time displacement	Preculture	Feudalism	State of estates	Absolute state	Modernity	First emperor (final battle) Cesarism
The West 0	500-1000	1000-1500	1500-1650	1650-1800	1800-2100
Oriental-Arab -1000	500 BC-0	0-500 Byzantines Parthians	500-650 Byzantines Sassanids	650-800 Umayyads	800-1100 Abbasids	1071 Alp Arslan Manzikert. Seljuks
-Greco-Roman -2100	1600-1100 Mycenaean	1100-600	600-450	450-300 Classic and postclass.	300-0 Hellenism	31 BC Augustus Actium
China II -800	300 BC-100 AD. Overlaps Han	200-700 Three Kingdoms etc.	700-850 Tang	850-1000 Tang	1000-1300 Sung	1279 Kublai Khan. Mongols and MIng
China I -2300	1800-1300 Xia	1300-800 Shang Zhou	800-650 Zhou	650-500 Spring and Autumn	500-200 Warring States	221 BC Shi Huang. Quin and Han
India II -500	0-500	500-1000	1000-1150	1150-1300	1300-1600	Akbar
India I -2400	1900-1400	1400-900	900-750	750-600	600-300 Philosophy Buddha	320 BC. Chandragupta. Mauryu
Mesopotamia II -2600	2100-1600 BC	1600-1100 BC. Hittites, Assyrians, babylonia	1100-950 BC	950-800 BC	800-500 BC Assyria, Babylonia, Elam	540 BC Cyrus. Persians
Mesopotamia I -3800	3300-2800 BC Eridu	2800-2300	2300-2150 BC	2150-2000 BC Ur III	2000-1700 BC Many states at war	1766 BC Hammurabi
Egypt -3650	3150-2650 BC	2650-2150 BC Old Kingdom	2150-2000 BC Middle Kingdom	2000-1850 BC Middle Kingdom	1850-1550 BC Hyksos	15 49 BC Ahmose. New  Kingdom
Indus -4000????						Around 1900 BC ????
Mexico -800?						1325?
Peru -600 ???						1470? Tupac Inca Yupanqui. Fall of Chimu
Russia  ??? +1000	1500-2000	2000-2500	2500-2650	2650-2800	2800-3100

The titel of Spenglers work is in German: Der Untergang des Abendlandes.

In English translated as The Decline of the West.

The German word Untergang has more drastic connotations than decline, as it seems to imply an outright extinction of civilizations. If one reads the book, it is clear that decline is a better word. This look is confirmed by looking at history.

The great Roman Empire declined and fell. So did Mesopotamia II and Indus. And indeed Peru and Mexico.

But Egypt. China II, The Oriental-Arab civilization survived for centuries.

Mesopotamia I, China I and India I gradually became transformed to new civilizations.

The fate of an old civilization seems to depend on the inner strength and the strength and existence of external enemies. Rome fell because of inner weakness and the German migrations.

Also if a new and radically different civilization is rising on the soil of an old one it can end the old one. This also contributed to the fall of Rome, because in its eastern part the Oriental-Arab civilization rose. This also ended Mesopotamia II.

This phenomenon can also give a complication for the new culture. Because if the old civilization is still strong, it can dominate the new one, which is then forced to develop in the forms of the old. This was the case for the Oriental-Arab civilization, which started in the forms of the Greco-Roman civilization.

Egypt, China II and the Oriental-Arab civilization all got a late time, respectively Late, Manchu and the Oman empires.

RUSSIA?

Spengler is quite sure that Russia will develop into a new civilization. Its precultural phase lies from 1500 to 2000, so this civilization would have a time displacement of 1000 years after us.

As our civilization is so strong, the Russians would have to involve in the forms of The West. From Czar Peter The Great and onwards a deliberate westernization was official policy. This was even intensified by the communists.

So will there be a Russian civilization? We don't know. The history before Czar Peter really looks like our preculture on Merovingian times. Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) could look like one of the early Merovingian kings (from 480). Parts of genuine not westernized Russian church music sounds a bit like Hildegard Van Bingen. Finally Dostoevsky's writings sound like the Gospels in The Bible written in the corresponding time in the early Oriental-Arab civilization.

But even if we assume that a new civilization was underway, we do not know if it survives. Peter The Great, Stalin and now the total dominance by The West may have stopped the new civilization completely.

Let us hope this is not the case!!