B
BalPatil
Guest
I think Mr.Walker has put his fingers precisely on the parallel between the Roman empire and the US and how there are"striking similarities" between America's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including "declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government".
Noted historian Arnold toynbee has done it long back in his book AMERICA AND THE WORLD REVOLUTION Oxford University Press, 1963
This is an important book. By important I mean the type of book we are badly in today’s world full of suspicion and hatred and all sorts of barriers.
This book embodies Dr. Toynbee’s lectures delivered at the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia under the auspices of the Department of History. It came as an invigorating whiff of air giving a fresh lease of life to our senses deadened with constant shutting between cold war and hot brinkmanship then. But it has no less relevance now.
It is an astute and urbane analysis of the world situation today with a particular reference to America. These lectures are all imbued with a broad and generous historical perspective. Dr. Toynbee’s main thesis is that America, having given the world a revolutionary lead in her early days of freedom has lost its trail, and become enamoured of herself, isolated herself-an hadicap of affluence, has initiated a new imperialism, and has become in fact, “the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in defence of vested interests.”
Dr. Toynbee absolves America of any conscious imperialistic designs in so far as annexation of alien territory by conquest is concerned. But instantly points out that brazen aggression has not been the only means to wax imperial in the history. History has seen subtle and more insidious methods to achieve the same end. He cites the parallel of Roman empire, which grew apace by her strategy of harboring the weaker neighbours and protecting them against their tecting them against their stronger neighbours. All that the protector demanded of the protégé was patch of land where he could plant a fortress, or a base in the modern military terminology.
Dr.Toynbee does not suspect any ulterior motives in this eminently honourable statement; but as an historian, he submits, he cannot shut his eyes to the later course Roman empire took when these honourable allies turned into just parts of the Roman empire.
Pursuing his argument in a bland, Antonian manner, Toynbee views with concern and obviously anxiety Americas serious attempt at the acquisition and retntion of bases on allied territory. He observes that this strategy has a “bearing on the evolution of the American Empire.” Thus, he drives home the fact that America is becoming an empire-builder in spite of herself. But there are grave dangers in this strategy, foremost being that the allied territories having American bases run the risk of being annihilated in case of discord between U.S.A. and Soviet Russia. With a devastating irony. Dr. Toynbee parodies the famous slogan ‘no taxation without representation,’ to read as “no annihilation without representation”
He refers here to the U-2 sortie from the ‘installation’ at Peshawar in 1960 which raised acutely the “question of who is to have the last word in taking political and military action which are literally matters of life and death for America as well as for her allies.”
But this somber picture of modern American imperialism has a saving grace according to Toynbee, and it lies in its unique innovation of giving economic aid to the allies. But one does not help feeling that this imperialist morality is of little consequences so long as the choice of annihilation vests with the host country. At best it looks like fattening the calf before the slaughter day.
Yet Dr. Toynbee feels that America is seriously handicapped in this economic warfare, paradoxically, by her affluence and race-feeling as well. He illustrates his point by attacking the consumer goods centered American productivity so effectively shown to be a bad myth of economic prosperity in Prof.Galbraith’s “Affluent Society.”
Also, Americans are handicapped by a superior race -feeling, and they tend to live abroad in a carefully cultivated American shell avoiding scrupulously the native touch. This Tybee feels creates a psychological barrier and he calls for the cultivation of secular, missionary spirit in the Americans abroad.
In a more serious vein, Dr.Toynbee traces down this handicap to be a serious defect in the whole Western way o life as such which has become to a large extent Americanized Nothing short of a regeneration of character would remedy this evil.
Dr. Toynbee feels that American affluence and consequently the insularity of outlook has estranged her from her erstwhile glorious ideals. But even now, he thinks, it is possible for America to rejoin her revolution by transferring the productive power “from catering for bogus wants of the Western minority to supplying the genuine needs of the non-affluent majority of mankind”
He poses an important question: “What is the true end of Man?” and answers, “The true end of Man is not to posses the maximum amount of consumer goods per head.” He points out that “the end of human life is spiritual… No man liveth unto himself and dieth unto himself.” But before a man can pursue his spiritual aim he has to satisfy a minimum of essential physical needs, and for this purpose Toynbee calls for a radical change in American economic approach. He perorates prophetically:
“When the ideologies have evaporated and when Man’s long unsatisfied hunger for material possessions has been appeased, and when Man has also been cured of his temporary gluttony by satiety, then, I believe, the ideals and the precepts that are embodied in the historic religions will come into their own at last”
In freshness of appeal and the magnanimous humanity of out look this book is a most valuable contribution to historical world perspectives.
Noted historian Arnold toynbee has done it long back in his book AMERICA AND THE WORLD REVOLUTION Oxford University Press, 1963
This is an important book. By important I mean the type of book we are badly in today’s world full of suspicion and hatred and all sorts of barriers.
This book embodies Dr. Toynbee’s lectures delivered at the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia under the auspices of the Department of History. It came as an invigorating whiff of air giving a fresh lease of life to our senses deadened with constant shutting between cold war and hot brinkmanship then. But it has no less relevance now.
It is an astute and urbane analysis of the world situation today with a particular reference to America. These lectures are all imbued with a broad and generous historical perspective. Dr. Toynbee’s main thesis is that America, having given the world a revolutionary lead in her early days of freedom has lost its trail, and become enamoured of herself, isolated herself-an hadicap of affluence, has initiated a new imperialism, and has become in fact, “the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in defence of vested interests.”
Dr. Toynbee absolves America of any conscious imperialistic designs in so far as annexation of alien territory by conquest is concerned. But instantly points out that brazen aggression has not been the only means to wax imperial in the history. History has seen subtle and more insidious methods to achieve the same end. He cites the parallel of Roman empire, which grew apace by her strategy of harboring the weaker neighbours and protecting them against their tecting them against their stronger neighbours. All that the protector demanded of the protégé was patch of land where he could plant a fortress, or a base in the modern military terminology.
Dr.Toynbee does not suspect any ulterior motives in this eminently honourable statement; but as an historian, he submits, he cannot shut his eyes to the later course Roman empire took when these honourable allies turned into just parts of the Roman empire.
Pursuing his argument in a bland, Antonian manner, Toynbee views with concern and obviously anxiety Americas serious attempt at the acquisition and retntion of bases on allied territory. He observes that this strategy has a “bearing on the evolution of the American Empire.” Thus, he drives home the fact that America is becoming an empire-builder in spite of herself. But there are grave dangers in this strategy, foremost being that the allied territories having American bases run the risk of being annihilated in case of discord between U.S.A. and Soviet Russia. With a devastating irony. Dr. Toynbee parodies the famous slogan ‘no taxation without representation,’ to read as “no annihilation without representation”
He refers here to the U-2 sortie from the ‘installation’ at Peshawar in 1960 which raised acutely the “question of who is to have the last word in taking political and military action which are literally matters of life and death for America as well as for her allies.”
But this somber picture of modern American imperialism has a saving grace according to Toynbee, and it lies in its unique innovation of giving economic aid to the allies. But one does not help feeling that this imperialist morality is of little consequences so long as the choice of annihilation vests with the host country. At best it looks like fattening the calf before the slaughter day.
Yet Dr. Toynbee feels that America is seriously handicapped in this economic warfare, paradoxically, by her affluence and race-feeling as well. He illustrates his point by attacking the consumer goods centered American productivity so effectively shown to be a bad myth of economic prosperity in Prof.Galbraith’s “Affluent Society.”
Also, Americans are handicapped by a superior race -feeling, and they tend to live abroad in a carefully cultivated American shell avoiding scrupulously the native touch. This Tybee feels creates a psychological barrier and he calls for the cultivation of secular, missionary spirit in the Americans abroad.
In a more serious vein, Dr.Toynbee traces down this handicap to be a serious defect in the whole Western way o life as such which has become to a large extent Americanized Nothing short of a regeneration of character would remedy this evil.
Dr. Toynbee feels that American affluence and consequently the insularity of outlook has estranged her from her erstwhile glorious ideals. But even now, he thinks, it is possible for America to rejoin her revolution by transferring the productive power “from catering for bogus wants of the Western minority to supplying the genuine needs of the non-affluent majority of mankind”
He poses an important question: “What is the true end of Man?” and answers, “The true end of Man is not to posses the maximum amount of consumer goods per head.” He points out that “the end of human life is spiritual… No man liveth unto himself and dieth unto himself.” But before a man can pursue his spiritual aim he has to satisfy a minimum of essential physical needs, and for this purpose Toynbee calls for a radical change in American economic approach. He perorates prophetically:
“When the ideologies have evaporated and when Man’s long unsatisfied hunger for material possessions has been appeased, and when Man has also been cured of his temporary gluttony by satiety, then, I believe, the ideals and the precepts that are embodied in the historic religions will come into their own at last”
In freshness of appeal and the magnanimous humanity of out look this book is a most valuable contribution to historical world perspectives.
