Excerpt from a work in progress: Christianity and The Death of Civilization

CHRISTIANITY AND THE DEATH OF CIVILIZATION

Chapter 1: Is Civilization in Decline?

Everyone thinks civilization is finished. We can find people from all walks of life saying so. We have right wing extremists and racists saying this: Iowa congressman Steve King is a case in point. He has been quoted as saying “Christians have contributed more to Western civilization than any other 'subgroup.' He also said that Muslim children are preventing 'our civilization' from being restored. He was actually endorsing far right candidates in Dutch politics.^[1] The themes are always Christianity built civilization, civilization is now waning, we can't restore the former glory without our politics. (insert one's group). One wonders how much any of them really know about civilization. Yet, the topic was not always the Provence of crack pots and racists.^[2] Not long after the second world war philosopher Emil Brunner delivered the prestigious Gifford lectures saying: “...if by the mercy of God we are to have some further breathing space, if He does grant us another chance to build up a new European civilization on the ruins of the old, facing all the time the possibility of an imminent end to all civilized life on this globe, Christianity has a tremendous responsibility.”^[3] The Urgency Reflected in the above quotation strikes a familiar chord in our day although the reasons for it were somewhat different. The world had just come through the second world war and seemed poised for a cold war with former allies the Soviets. The Atomic bomb was just beginning to be understood and feared, and the revelations of Auschwitz and Nuremberg shocked everyone's sense with the realization of how easily the boundaries of civilized behavior could be transgressed. We can relate to all of those concerns today, although not to the same degree (we have greater reason to fear nuclear weapons---knowing more about what they can do). Our age has it's own moral outrages and autocrats to be resisted; hopefully not on the same scale. We find rational Catholic historians echoing tame versions of the idea that Christianity was decisive for Western civilization:

... Dawson argued that every civilization relies on those who most fully represent its ideals and shape the culture through their actions. Dawson maintained that “history is at once aristocratic and revolutionary. It allows the whole world situation to be suddenly transformed by the action of a single individual.” It is this dynamic historical process that is fatal to a secular understanding of religious approaches to history....To the Christian, this understanding of historical development permits interpretation of past events in the light of divine will and spiritual forces that may be unknown even to the actors themselves. ^[4]

If Christianity contributed to the building of Western civilization in a significant way, why is it not saving western civilization from decline? This is the question this work attempts to answer.

What is this “civilization” that we are worried about? Oddly enough no one can say. In the great classic PBS documentary, Civilization, the Skin of Our Teeth, part 1, Kenneth Clark said “what is civilization? I don't know I can't define it in abstract terms, but I think I can recognize it when I see it and I'm looking at it now,” as he stared at the back of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.^[5] He spoke of comfort, order, creativity. For the purposes of this chapter I will assume loose broad terms for the definition: Civilization involves society but it is more than society it deals with the highest level of accomplishment. In the next chapter I will go into much greater detail in an attempt to define civilization. The essay is mainly concerned with Western civilization but I will explore the general concept of civilization itself.

When conservatives, especially right wingers talk about the decline of civilization they tend to focus on things that depart from the maze ways that make them feel at home. The strange, the new, things that make them feel uncomfortable. These represent decline for the right. But when liberals or leftists talk about decline they tend to to reference climate change or other devastating issues that will kill on a mass scale. Or the decline of the educational system, but that can be linked to the inability to solve these panoramic problems

Relampago Furioso writes an article for the blog Return of Kings (a masculine supremely publication):

There is a lot of discussion these days about America and the other nations comprising Western Civilization being in decline, and there is certainly a lot of evidence to support this claim. Whether it be dying populations among the Caucasian races that created the civilization, unchecked immigration rapidly replacing native populations in Europe and the United States, evidence that America is currently and has been behaving as an imperialistic empire but is now slowly losing its power around the world, a culture that seems to completely disregard the importance of family, the building block of civilization, or a loss of religiousness and sense of purpose, signs that something is wrong are everywhere.^[6]

Apparently he seems to include The United States as losing it's native population to “unchecked Immigration,” they are only about 300 years too late on that one. White people are not America's native population. They laud Oswald Spengler as prophet of decline, we will hear more about him in the next chapter. The Imaginative Conservative, in discussing “the decline of Western civilization in 10 pictures, Stephan M. Klugewicz speaks of “a storm that may well wash away what we most treasure of our inherited ways.”^[7] Their 10 pictures of decline are even more telling. None of the pictures depict real human suffering. All of them are either about examples of bad taste or modern art, the rowdies that attend sporting events or the fact that Catholic Clergy actually allowed Obama in a church. The most we can conclude is that Klugewicz needs an art appreciation class. On a much more serious note Indian engineer Shivaji Lokam argues that liberalism is responsible for the fall of Western civilization from within.^[8] Not exactly original.

The decline of Western civilization is not merely the hobby horse of the right as now dire warnings emanate from all sides of the spectrum. “The sandwich boards have mostly gone and the world is still here, but the gloomy predictions keep coming, and not all of them are based on creative interpretations of religious texts. Scientists, historians and politicians alike have begun to warn that Western culture is reaching a critical juncture. Cycles of inequality and resource use are heading for a tipping point that in many past civilizations precipitated political unrest, war and finally collapse.”[9]Peter Turchin an evolutionary Anthropologist at the university of Connecticut began to apply equations used for prey animals to civilization boom and bust cycles. “In the late 1990s, he began to apply these equations to historical data, looking for patterns that link social factors such as wealth and health inequality to political instability. Sure enough, in past civilizations in Ancient Egypt, China and Russia, he spotted two recurring cycles that are linked to regular era defining periods of unrest.^[10]

One, a “secular cycle”, lasts two or three centuries. It starts with a fairly equal society, then, as the population grows, the supply of labor begins to outstrip demand and so becomes cheap. Wealthy elites form, while the living standards of the workers fall. As the society becomes more unequal, the cycle enters a more destructive phase, in which the misery of the lowest strata and infighting between elites contribute to social turbulence and, eventually, collapse. Then there is a second, shorter cycle, lasting 50 years and made up of two generations – one peaceful and one turbulent. ^[11]

Turchin finds peaks of unrest in 1870, 1920 and 1970. In 2010 this led him to predict that the peak would come in the 2020's. He made the prediction before Trump obtained the white house, leading Spinney to point out that the inequality and animosity of the Trump era make the prediction seem all the more acute.

Robert Skidelsky tells us “Though prophecy is delusive, an agreed point of departure should be falling expectations. As Ipsos Mori’s Social Research Institute reports: 'The assumption of an automatically better future for the next generation is gone in much of the west.'”^[12] Ipsos Mori connected a survey across 20 countries showing the pessemistic mood of people in the west “more think it will be worse than better (42% versus 34%) – but this hides wide variation, and a split between Western/developed countries on the one hand and developing/Eastern countries on the other..In Britain, just 20% think the today’s youth will have a better life than their parents – over half (54%) think it will be worse.in France seven in ten people think young people will have a worse future…. People are also very negative in countries like Belgium, Spain, the US and Britain. ” ^[13]

Journalist Chris Hedges has written book , America: The Farwell Tour, (August 2018), in which he argues that the structure of our society is unraveling and is being merged into a privatized corporate empire.^[14] Hedges traes the history of one example of decline in the demise of what was once major corporation in Scranton Pennsylvania. He shows that the economic crissi of 2008 wiped out 40% of the cities investments. The city invested in Wall Street, Hedges tells us, pooled assets in subprime loans, mortgages, credit qd debt even when the banks new they were toxic, but the risk was deemed acceptable due to the high return, except when the bubble burst! As he puts it the risk had” an acceptable degree of credit worthiness, which of course evaporated with the bubble. Assets plummeted. He alludes to Marx's warning that capitalism has a built in boom and bust cycle, we are in a major bust. Unable to expand and continue to generate more and more profits, unable to seek out new markets, end game capitalism will consume he strictures that sustained it. in the final stages it will prey on the working class and the poor, as Hedges shows is the casein Scranton.^[15]

Paul Ehrlich, Of Population Bomb fame, is now warning “Collapse of Civilization is a Near Certainty within Decades” An article by that title cites in The Guardian.^[16] He says a “shattering collapse” of civilization is “a near certainty” within the next few decades. He discusses three major factors that, taken together, render the outcome virtually certain; they are Population (the optimum is 2 billion for the planet we are several times over that), environmental degradation, and redistribution of wealth. “ unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but “the rich who now run the global system – that hold the annual ‘world destroyer’ meetings in Davos – are unlikely to let it happen ” ^[17]

It is the combination of high population and high consumption by the rich that is destroying the natural world, he says. Research published by Ehrlich and colleagues in 2017 concluded that this is driving a sixth mass extinction of biodiversity, upon which civilisation depends for clean air, water and food....He estimates an optimum global population size at roughly 1.5 to two billion, “But the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be. We’re continuously harvesting the low-hanging fruit, for example by driving fisheries stocks to extinction.”Ehrlich is also concerned about chemical pollution, which has already reached the most remote corners of the globe. “The evidence we have is that toxics reduce the intelligence of children, and members of the first heavily influenced generation are now adults.”^[18]

Ehrlich listed ecological devastation and he peaks of mass extinction. The United Nations has released a study involving hundreds of scientists showing that Earth is facing another mass extinction; one million species are threatened with extinction due to human activity. The study consists of a distillation of 15000 previous studies.^[19]

Without “transformative changes” to the world’s economic, social and political systems to address this crisis, the IPBES panel projects that major biodiversity losses will continue to 2050 and beyond. “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,” says IPBES chair Robert Watson, an atmospheric  Agricultural activities are also some of the largest contributors to human emissions of greenhouse gases. They account for roughly 25% of total emissions due to the use of fertilizers and the conversion of areas such as tropical forests to grow crops or raise livestock such as cattle... The next biggest threats to nature are the exploitation of plants and animals through harvesting, logging, hunting and fishing; climate change; pollution and the spread of invasive species. The IPBES report finds that the average abundance of native plants, animals and insects has fallen in most major ecosystems  by at least 20% since 1900 because of invasive species.^[20]

“The report draws inextricable links between biodiversity loss and climate change...Earth could lose 16% of its species if the average global temperature rise exceeds 4.3 °C.”^[21] Ecology itself is not civilization but with such loses, the ability of nature to reproduce life impaired civilization would no doubt crumble. The report urges that we can reverse the process but “ doing so will require proactive environmental policies, the sustainable production of food and other resources and a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”^[22]

Notes

[1]Gre Toppo, “Rep Steve King Blasted for oir civilization Tweet,” USA Today (March 12 2017) on Line URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/12/iowa-rep-steve-king-muslim-children/99099712/ (accessed July 3,2018).

[2]Matthew Haag, “Steve king Says Civilization Can't be restored with 'somebody else's Babies” The New York Times, (March 12,2017) online URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/us/steve-king-white-nationalism-racism.html (accessed July 3, 2018). King's endorsement of white nationalism is documented.

[3]Emil Brunner, Christianity and Civilization: First part: foundations.NY: 1948, Charles Scrkbner's Sons, 1948 Gifford Lectures, University of St. Andrews, 1947. prefce V.

[4] Christepher Dawson, quoted by Gerald J. Russello, “Christopher Dawson: Christ In History.” Crisis Magazine, (December 27,2011) Originaky sublished in April 1996 editiion. https://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/christopher-dawson-on-christ-in-history (accessed 3/12/19)

[5]Kenneth Clark, Civilization - The Skin of our Teeth (Part 1), tv documentary, BBC, 1969;Kenneth Clark, Civilization - The Skin of our Teeth (Part 1), viddeo You Tube, published by Karl Hungus, (Oct 30, 2016) . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6qYjisp51M

(accessed 3/13/19)

[6]Relampago Furioso, “How a German Historian Predicted The Decline of Western civilization 100 years ago.” Return of Kings Blog, (Feb 11,2016) http://www.returnofkings.com/77942/how-a-german-historian-predicted-western-decline-100-years-ago (accessed 3/14/19).

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[7] Stephan M. Klugewicz, “The Decline of Western Civilization in 10 Pictures.” The Imaginative Conservative. (Feb. 27,2018) https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/02/decline-western-civilization-10-pictures-stephen-klugewicz.html (accessed 3/16/19)

[8]Shivaji Lokam, The Fall of Western Civilization: How Liberalism Is Destroying the West From Within. India: Entropy Works, 2018, 3.

[9] Laura Spinney, “End of Days: Is Western Civilization on The Brink of Collapse?” New Scientist, (Jan. 17,2018) 558,https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731610-300-end-of-days-is-western-civilisation-on-the-brink-of-collapse/(accessed 3/14/19).

[10]Ibid.

[11]Ibid.

[12]Robert Skidelsky, “Is Western Civilization in Terminal Declime?” The Guardian, (Nov 17,2015)https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/17/is-western-civilisation-in-terminal-decline(accessed 3/30/19)

Robert Skidelsky is professor emeritus of political economy at Warwick University, a fellow of the British Academy in history and economics, and a member of the House of Lords

[13]Ipsos MORI, “People in Western Countries pessimistic about Future for young People,” Ipsos (April 14,2014) https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/people-western-countries-pessimistic-about-future-young-people (accessed 3/30/19)

[14]Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour, NewYork: Simmon nd Schuster, 2018, 7.

[15]Ibid,, 4.

[16]Paul Ehrlich, in Damian Carrington,“Collapse of Civilization is a Near Certainty within Decades,” The Guardian, (March 22,2018)

[17]Ibid.

[18]Ibid.

[19]Jeff Tollesfson, “Humans are Driving One million Species To extinction,” (May 6, 2019) Nature: International ournal of Science , 569,171, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-(accessed 5/8/19)

[20]Ibid.

[21]Ibid.

[22]Ibid.