The lesson of history

This is why the lesson of history is that nobody learns the lessons of history. Where Toynbee distinguishes between societies which have developed in new ways under pressure, and those which have decayed under pressure, he is speaking of this same problem of cultural formation. The same alternatives can be found in our modern society, but at present the reaction of decay is dominant in our culture. A culture which does not learn to improve non-specialist intelligence will lead to mental rigidity and social decline. For this reason, it is clearly necessary in the West that we learn to understand the difference between the two responses to change, and then find ways of avoiding the reaction that ends in decay or decadence.

In the most ordinary of ways, the action of human intelligence is leading to ever-faster change. It is humanity itself, and its growing intelligence, which imposes this pressure on its members, but at present that growing intelligence is masked in most people by a smokescreen of half-solutions: techniques, beliefs and ideologies learned as formulae but not fully understood in experiential terms. These, while sometimes solving small problems, almost always prevent or slow the growth to proper functioning of the new intelligence itself. Because this has been going on for centuries, our society now lacks any understanding of this need and has few means for assisting the formation of this faculty. The resulting inadequacy and weak attention in individuals has become one of the great problems of our time.

Wherever this situation leads to inadequate formation of knowledge, of mental and physical skills, and of emotional stability, we remain ‘animal at heart,’ although fully human in our ability to overdevelop our appetites. In this condition, our only way of dealing with the stresses caused by overpopulation, resource shortage, etc., are to react instinctively to circumstance, that is, to respond in a purely animal manner, often through conflict and competition.

The competitive ethic is thus an animal ethic. 'True' human behaviour, to the contrary, is controlled behaviour, and it is formed by cultivation. This means that culture can be defined as the interaction of people who have been ‘cultivated,’ fundamentally in just the sense that a plant is cultivated, but to a higher degree of organisation, such that it produces all the varied inner richness of a complete, mature and cultured human being.

It is clear, too, that a complete culture has elements by which it maintains and improves itself. These might include:

1.        Family factors

2.        Communal elements

3.        Education

4.        The learning element in our everyday work

5.        and today the influence of the Media