Colliding Civilisations

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 718, 17 April 1953, Page 4

Colliding Civilisations

are not likely to be broadcast in New Zealand until near the end of the present year. Meanwhile they have been published,* ‘and the controversy which folS Reith Lectures for 1952 lowed them in England may be heightened rather than weakened in this country by the opportunity to read as well as listen. Readers who prefer to wait for the broadcasts can at least be given some indication of what is before them. The lectures came from Professor Arnold Toynbee, whose Study of History-now nearing completion -is undoubtedly one of the great books of our times. His subject is a topic treated more fully in the last four volumes of the Study, which are to be published in 1954. It can be described, very briefly, as a theory of colliding cultures. In the past 500 years (says Toynbee) the non-Western world has felt the impact of Western civilisation, has accepted the technology and rejected the religion-Christianity-and is now hitting back with spiritual weapons. Communism is said to be a Western heresy. "It was a Western criticism of the West’s failure to live up to her own Christian principles ... and a creed of Western origin which was at the same time an indictment of Western practice was, of course, just the spiritual weapon that an adversary of the West would like to pick up and turn against its makers." Toynbee does not say that Communism must prevail: "Marx’s_ vision seems, in non-Marxian eyes, far too narrow and badly warped to be likely to prove permanently satisfying to human hearts and minds." But he goes on to strengthen his case by describing the reactions of other Eastern peoples to Western aggression, and

he ends by drawing an analogy between the present situation and the results of Graeco-Roman expansion. These theories have been strongly criticised. It has been pointed out that Russia has her own history of aggression, and that the Islamic Powers-given a somewhat passive role by Toynbeewere always ready to take the offensive. Contrasts between the material interests of the West and the religious preoccupations of the East are said to be too arbitrary. Is it true to say that we are now in the "post-Christian" era? Can it be said that loss of faith has created a "spiritual vacuum" into which presently will come Eastern creeds? Aggression has not been exclusively a Western habit, and a reading of history which keeps it too closely in one part of the world is perhaps influenced more by the needs of a theory than the meanings of facts. Moreover, to make the theory persuasive its author has had to use simplified symbols. A civilisation is a vast congeries of thoughts and actions spread over many different countries and large stretches of time. It is endlessly in flux, growing and changing, and by no means sealed off from alien influences. Under Toynbee’s treatment, and through a prodigal use of metaphor, it becomes an entity, splitting off into parts which retain in embryo the potency of the whole. The peoples of the world have been drawn closer together since the Industrial Revolution. There may be further conflict, and perhaps the dominance of a single culture, before unification is reached: in the distant future. But it may be doubted if events will run into the mould provided for them by Professor Toynbee. The great value of his lectures is their stimulating effect on the imagination. People who hear them may remain sceptical, but only if their minds are closed will they be able to avoid a useful collision of ideas.

*The World and the West, by Arnold Toynwe Oxford University Press, English price, /Q.