Dr Toynbee considers mankind’s future

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 10

Dr Toynbee considers mankind’s future

Surviving the Future. By Arnold Toynbee. Oxford University Press. 164 pp. Index. In these seven essays. Dr Toynbee brings a hitsorian’s sense of perspective to a consideration of some of the vital issues facing mankind at present. The genesis of the book was a series of dialogues between Toynbee and Professor Wakaizumi of the Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan, which appeared serially m a Japanese newspaper. Professor Wakaizumi’s original questions have been grouped to form a preface to each essay. Looking at the contemporary scene. Dr Toynbee is distressed by many things: by the way in which an accelerating technology has alienated man from his environment and turned Nature into the menacing force she was when forest covered much of the world; by the widening gap between the rich and poor nations; by overpopulation and violence; and most of all, by the moral regression which he has observed taking place within his own lifetime. In the year 1700, he reminds us, people were no longer cutting off heads or burning at the stake for religious or political reasons, as they had been in the seventeenth century. In the 19705, on the other hand, the world is not as humane as it was in 1913; and the prospects are that it will become even more inhuman as the century draws to a close. Modern weapons can slaughter on a vast scale, and the distinction between combatant and civilian has become blurred. There is tension between technology, which requires regimentation in order to function efficiently, and the prevailing spirit of violence and unrest, and Toynbee is not optimistic about the ways in which this tension is likely to be resolved. Drawing on examples from the past, he snows how in unstable times dictatorships have more often than not provided the means for restoring order. This happened to the Akkadian, Persian, Roman, and Chinese Empires, and in our own case, he believes, it would probably take the form of a harsh, Leninian type of world dictatorship, unless, which seems

unlikely, we can voluntarily subordinate national interests to a powerful world government, and redistribute the world’s wealth in a more equitable way. The other remaining alternative is a third World War, and this, judging from the history of past civilisations, would seem the most likely development. Beginning with the Sumerians, war has destroyed each civilisation in turn until now we are m the situation where mankind faces selfimmolation unless we can abolish war itself. But to do this, argues Toynbee, we must first free ourselves from the “karma” of war, that is to say, from the cumulative effect which the actions of the past have on the behaviour on succeeding generations. Already the "karma” of war is massive, yet not to free ourselves from it is to make the prospects of survival slim indeed. Turning to the problems arising from modem technology, Toynbee is disturbed by the way in which we have dehumanised the world in which we live. He looks back with regret to our agricultural past, and even farther, to the hunting communities of the Paleolithic era, when, despite the rigours of primitive life, he believes that mankind was happier than at any time since. For while the Industrial Revolution has given man mastery over his environment, it has made life for the majority of us infinitely more monotonous than it was, say, for the pre-industrial handicraft worker, for whom his work, though hard, was also in a very real sense his recreation. And by condemning most of us to live in big cities it has undermined our sense of community. Yet, at the same time, by reducing the world to the dimensions

of a Neolithic village, technology has made feasible for the first time a future world government based on the concept of one large human family. Toynbee visualises a time when every human being will belong to three societies. He will be not only a member of the world state, but a member of one of the local divisions of the world city, a community similar in size to the city states of ancient Greece, in which the inhabitants will all know each other; and third, he will belong to a world-wide brotherhood of shared professions: artists, doctors, mathematicians and others will be involved in a community life as personal as it would be in a local ward of the world city. But before the ideal of world unity can be achieved, there are many problems to be overcome, such as racialism and the rivalries which exist between the various religious and political ideologies. What is needed, Toynbee believes, is a revolution of the spirit; and it is just here that the limitations of science and technology are most evident For guidance we must turn, not to science, but to the great religions of the world, which, despite their differences teach us to subdue the egocentricity of our nature through love. Man should live, says Toynbee, not for his material needs, but for those things which enlarge the life of the spirit: for love, for understanding and for creativity. If he can do this—and only then —will his survival for the future cease to be in doubt Despite his fears for the future, however, Toynbee is not really a pessimist; his faith in man's spiritual nature is too great for that. He believes that the world can be changed, that "karma” can be diminished, and even dissipated by good actions. But it is patience and gentleness which work the miracles, not violence, and it is with an appeal to the younger generation to learn from the example of Jesus and the Mahatma Gandhi that he concludes this wise and compassionate book.