Arnold Toynbee biography briefly. Theory of Culture A.D.

Considering various theories of culture of the 20th century, one cannot pass by the construction that was created by the English scientist ArNold Joseph Toynbee(1889 -1975), who had a huge impact on the development of Western historical and cultural thought. Toynbee's ideas are present in the works of many famous Western authors. As a recognized authority, not only associates in science appeal to him, but also politicians, public figures, representatives of business circles, citing excerpts from his works in parliamentary speeches, policy statements, newspaper and magazine articles.

But not only this is the reason for the constant and not fading interest in the personality of the English researcher and those ideas which were presented by him in his numerous works. The fact is that Toynbee was "the last of the Mohicans." His name completes the list of those who are rightfully considered the founders of the "philosophy of history". It begins with the names of Herder and Hegel, who were the first in the history of European philosophical science to raise the question of the meaning of history and tried to answer it. Toynbee's immediate predecessor in this field was O. Spengler, reminiscences from whose work can be found in many works of the English culturologist. Toynbee's historiosophy can be fully

356 Cultural theory

The innovation is called a successful attempt to overcome vulgar economic determinism with its a priori constructions and impersonal historical process.

Speaking about the reasons for turning to the theoretical heritage of Toynbee, one cannot pass by one more circumstance. Toynbee created an original concept of the genesis of civilizations, which allows not only to explain why this or that civilizational system arises, what determines the trajectory of its movement in space and time, but also to predict the likely course of events, to predict the fate of civilization, about which people who are its bearers values, do not even guess.

Toynbee was one of the most educated people of his time. Without any exaggeration, he can be attributed to the glorious cohort of encyclopedists of the 20th century, who, thanks to the deepest knowledge in various fields of science, had the ability to synthesize and non-trivial formulation of problems. His works amaze with the breadth of erudition, knowledge of the details that are known only to highly professional specialists, and the depth of penetration into the essence of the analyzed processes.

Toynbee left a huge scientific legacy. The list of his works includes hundreds of titles. These are articles, lecture courses, interviews with various periodicals and, of course, books, the number of which exceeds three dozen. But the central place in this legacy, no doubt, belongs to the twelve-volume work "Comprehensionstories", which immortalized the name of Toynbee. A short version of this monumental work was published in Russian in 1991, which enables the domestic reader to form a more or less adequate idea of ​​the concept of the famous English scientist.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee was born into an aristocratic family with deep humanitarian traditions. He received an excellent education at Ballial College, Oxford. Then, for a number of years, he studied the ancient history and culture of the civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea at the British Archaeological School in Athens. Both during and after his studies, he repeatedly took part in archaeological expeditions, together with his colleagues, was engaged in excavations in the legendary cities of Greece and on the islands of the Aegean Sea. Thanks to natural talent and exceptional performance, he managed to make a brilliant academic career. At the age of 30 he was elected a professor, and by the age of 40 he became a well-known European scientist, enjoying unquestioned authority in his field.

Toynbee gave courses of lectures on Byzantine and Greek history at the University of London, and from 1925 to 1956 was Research Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. Pursuing scientific activity, Toynbee collaborated with the Foreign Office at the same time. He repeatedly participated in the preparation and holding of various international conferences, important negotiations on topical issues of world politics, for more than three decades he was a regular author of the annual Reviews of International Relations, which were prepared by the Royal Institute of International Affairs for the government and parliament of Great Britain. Toynbee was engaged in intensive scientific and political activity practically until the last days of his life, striking his relatives and colleagues with unshakable optimism and clarity of judgment. Toynbee died at the age of 86. Unfortunately, he had almost no students, and therefore it is not necessary to speak of a Toynbean scientific school. But this, nevertheless, does not call into question his enormous contribution to world cultural science, which is recognized by almost all of his supporters and opponents, who did not doubt that they oppose a great scientist and a deep, original thinker.

Having formed an idea of ​​​​the personality of Toynbee and his place in cultural science, we can proceed to the analysis of the theoretical positions of the scientist. Before doing so, however, an important caveat must be made. The essence of Toynbee's views on the problem of the genesis of civilizations (and this is the main problem that interested him) cannot be understood if we consider them in isolation from the ideological context in which his worldview was formed and scientific views were developed. Therefore, it makes sense to say at least a few words on this topic.

The formation of Toynbee as a scientist took place in the conditions of the spiritual crisis that Europe was going through after the First World War. Five years of bloody slaughter, where the opponents did not constrain themselves in their means (recall that on the fronts of the First World War, poison gases, machine guns, armored vehicles and aircraft were used as weapons of mass destruction for the first time in the history of mankind), convincingly demonstrated that the film of culture is incredibly thin and is quite easily destroyed in the conditions of a military conflict, that in a situation of mass chauvinistic psychosis, which is not difficult to create with the help of the media and targeted propaganda, it is not necessary to expect rational actions from both individuals and masses of people, that in

358 theory of culture

European man, under the outer shell of civilization, dozes a primitive creature with almost bestial instincts, waking up under certain conditions. It also became clear that humanity has reached the point where it turned out to be able to destroy itself, but neither politicians, nor businessmen, nor government officials, who, guided by selfish considerations, are doing everything possible not to let it fade away, are not aware of this. fire of war. The First World War undermined confidence in culture as the main social institution, as the main mechanism for regulating relations between nations, peoples and individuals.

This crisis was superimposed by the crisis of rationalism as a philosophical doctrine, an ontological and epistemological principle. By the beginning of the XX century. classical philosophy was no longer able to answer the most important questions that concern humanity. The great philosophical systems of the past have been subjected to the most severe criticism for their apriorism and predestination. The authority of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, who were the founders of the "philosophy of life" and who were the first to criticize the classical model of culture, was indisputable. Many liberal-minded Western intellectuals listened to their voice. Toynbee was also under their influence, sharing the apocalyptic mood with which the pages of the works of these authors are literally saturated. Oswald Spengler had a significant impact on Toynbee, although Toynbee criticized the main ideas of his bestseller The Decline of Europe. Finally, Toynbee's position shows the influence of another major European philosopher, the founder of anti-intellectual intuitionism, Henri Bergson, who contrasted the heuristic potentialities of the intellect with the doctrine of intuition as the highest and absolute kind of knowledge.

But Toynbee's theoretical views were especially influenced by Christian theological concepts of history, which can be seen with the naked eye in his interpretations, for example, of the ultimate cause that determines the self-determination of civilizations, in understanding the highest type of creative personality capable of finding answers to the challenges of history, in interpreting the role of the church, which alone, according to Toynbee, can be the guarantor of the salvation of the perishing Western civilization.

Having gained an idea of ​​Toynbee's personality and the theoretical origins of his views, let us consider in more detail the main provisions of his cultural concept.

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

The basic category of scientific analysis for Toynbee is categoryray of civilization. Based on it, he builds a majestic building of his own design. It should be said that, unlike his predecessors, Toynbee interprets civilization not as an organism that forms and develops according to biological laws, but as a social integrity, in its movement subject to the general laws of social development. In this respect, he fundamentally disagrees with N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler, who, as shown above, thought of the genesis of civilization as the genesis of living organisms, successively passing through the stage of birth, flowering, fruiting and death.

Civilizations, With points of view Toynbee, “in subjective terms they represent intelligible fields of research, and in objective terms they represent the basis of the intersection of the fields of activity of individual individuals, whose energy is the life force that creates the history of society 116 .

In other words, civilization for Toynbee in the epistemological sense is identical to the smallest whole accessible to rational knowledge. In ontological terms, these are “certain phases in the development of a culture that has existed for a more or less long period of time” 117 . Thus, according to Toynbee, the concepts of "civilization" and "culture" are closely related, which, in his opinion, allows them to be used interchangeably.

Revealing your understanding of the essence of civilizations, Toynbee writes that each civilization is a local formation that has only its own inherent features and characteristics and in no way resembles other civilizations in its characteristics. There is no single civilization as such. There are a number of civilizations that are very different in their values, types of cultural and creative activities, the direction of historical development and, of course, the development of the material and technical basis. However, those who pay attention to the latter circumstance and try to differentiate civilizations depending on the perfection of the tools with which man transforms the world V world of culture, make a serious mistake, because the spiritual climate of the era (or, using its terminology, the “mental apparatus”) plays no less, if not a greater role both in shaping the type of civilization and in its identification. It follows from this that the search for differences between civilizations should be directed in a completely different direction. The object of analysis should be "traces of spiritual activity

360 Cultural Theory

sti”, which find their expression in the fine arts, literature, music. Toynbee believes that "each civilization creates its own individual artistic style" 118 . He argues that "when trying to determine the boundaries of any civilization in any of the dimensions - spatial or temporal - we invariably come to the conclusion that the aesthetic criterion is the most correct and subtle for establishing such boundaries" 119 . It can be assumed that these thoughts of Toynbee were inspired by the reflections of O. Spengler, who made his conclusions about the types of culture, about the transition of culture to the stage of civilization, referring primarily to the analysis of the results of spiritual production, and who wrote that the differences in literary, musical, pictorial, architectural styles there are differences of cultural organisms.

Now a few words about the typology of civilizations of the English culturologist. Based on the latest achievements of history and archeology, Toynbee identifies 21 civilizational systems. In this number, he includes Western civilization ^ Orthodox (Byzantine orthodox) ^ Russian Orthodox ^ Persian ^ Arab (Islamic), C Indian,! - Far East? ancient (Greco-Roman) ^ Syriac, t "Chinese, Japanese-Korean, | 1 Minoan and Sumerian ^ Hittite ^ Babylonian) Vegetarian \ "Indian) | (Mexican skukf Yucatan, as well as 2" » Mayan civilization. According to Toynbee, of all the above civilizations in currently only eight exist (Western, Byzantine Orthodox, Russian, Arabic, Indian, Far Eastern, Chinese, Japanese-Korean), and seven of them have already entered a period of decline and disintegration (breakdown). or estimates, although in some places of his book he speaks of signs indicating its breakdown.In addition to the developed civilizations, Toynbee also names five civilizations that have stopped in their development (Spartan, Ottoman, Polynesian, Eskimo and Nomadic), as well as four undeveloped civilizations, which can be defined in this way by virtue of the fact that they disappeared from the historical scene as a result of a collision with more powerful civilizations. It should be said that in the last volume of "Comprehension of History", published in 1961, Toynbee departs from the above scheme of typology of civilizations and gives them a somewhat different differentiation. He speaks of only 13 developed civilizations, among which he includes the Middle American (according to his ideas, it includes the Mayan, Mexican and Yucatan civilizations), Andean, Sumero-Akkadian (this, according to Toynbee, includes

8. Research of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

and Babylonian), Egyptian, Aegean, (Toynbee includes Minoan), Indus, Chinese, Syrian, ancient, Indian, Orthodox Orthodox, Western, Islamic (Arabic) civilizations. All other civilizations are considered by Toynbee as satellites of some developed civilization.

Toynbee puts two signs into the basis of the typology of civilizations: the presence, as he writes, of a "universal church" and the degree of remoteness from the place where this or that civilization originated. Differentiating civilizational systems according to criteria of religion Toynbee builds the following series: 1) civilizations that are in no way connected with either subsequent or previous ones; 2) societies that are in no way connected with the previous ones, but connected with the subsequent ones; 3) civilizations associated with previous, but less direct, less, as he writes, "intimate connection than filial kinship"; 4) civilizations connected through the universal church with previous societies by filial ties, and, finally, 5) civilizations connected with previous ones through the religion of the ruling minority.

Differentiating civilizations on a territorial basis, Toynbee distinguishes the following groups: 1) civilizations, the ancestral home of which does not completely coincide with the territory of the previous "paternal" society; 2) civilizational systems, the boundaries of which partially coincide with the boundaries of the predecessor society; 3) civilizations, the territory of which completely inherits the territory of that civilizational system that arose in a very distant past.

Toynbee emphasizes that civilizations always leave a noticeable mark on history, in contrast to primitive (patriarchal) societies (there were about 650 of them in history, in his opinion), which do not make a significant contribution to the treasury of world culture. Toynbee considers that in no case should they be put on the same level as the first, because they are incomparable in their main features, just as a rabbit is incomparable with an elephant. First, primitive societies, according to Toynbee, have a much shorter life. Secondly, their territory is always limited; thirdly, they are all small. In addition, acquaintance with the history of archaic societies shows that their development is very often interrupted by violent means. In practice, this always happens when they encounter civilizations with more significant technical and cultural potential.

Toynbee, clearly arguing with K. Marx, emphasizes that the division between civilizations and primitive societies

362 Theory of culture

walks not along the line of differences in the system of division of labor and not according to what social institutions exist in certain societies, but depending on whether the social system in question is dynamic or static. To clarify the latter circumstance, Toynbee introduces the concept of "mimesis", which he defines as "initiation through imitation to social values" 120 . Depending on the direction of mimesis, we can judge what kind of society we are dealing with. As Toynbee writes:

In primitive societies... mimesis is oriented towards the older generation and already deceased ancestors, whose authority is maintained by the elders, in turn providing the influence and prestige of power. In societies where mimesis is directed to the past, custom prevails, and therefore such a society is static. In civilizations, mimesis is focused on creative individuals who are pioneers on the way to a common human goal. In a society where mimesis is directed towards the future, custom fades and the society moves dynamically along the path of change and growth 121 .

However, Toynbee does not insist that static and dynamic are once and for all assigned to a certain type of society. Thinking dialectically, he considers it possible to describe the process of changing statics to dynamics and vice versa using the concepts of ancient Chinese philosophy Yin and Yang, which, in his opinion, most fully and clearly convey the change of rhythm in the development of social organisms.

The transformation of traditional (primitive, archaic) societies intocivilization, Toynbee believes, takes place, firstly, in the process of their mutation, and secondly, in the course of the development of societies on their own basis. The second method, as Toynbee shows, is used much less frequently than the first, and for good reason. The proof of the priority of the first method is the fact that over the past centuries not a single case of the transformation of a primitive society into a developed civilization with the preservation of all its basic characteristics has been recorded.

So, civilizations arise in the process of changing archaic societies, but what factors influence the process of their formation, what determines this or that type of development of a particular civilization? From Toynbee's point of view, there are several such determinants and they are by no means reduced to the notorious effects of the natural environment, as Montesquieu insisted on this in his treatise The Spirit of Laws. Influencing factors can be divided into two groups, to the first of which, according to Toynbee, should be attributed "the force of inertia, and custom." These circumstances can delay the development of civilization for a very long time,

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century. 363

sometimes even for several centuries. In the second group of determinants of the development of civilizations, Toynbee includes race factor. Under the race, the English scientist understands the pronounced mental and spiritual qualities that have become a mass phenomenon that can be found in individual societies. The qualities inherent in a race are not innate, but are developed in the process of historical practice and, by virtue of this fact, are not among those traits that are inherited.

Racist prejudice in modern Western society, writes Toynbee, is not so much a distortion of scientific thought as a pseudo-intellectual reflexive expression of racial feeling, and this feeling, as can be observed in our time, is the result of the world expansion of Western civilization, which began in the last quarter of the 15th century. 122 .

Toynbee emphasizes that the idea of ​​the superiority of one race over another, in this case white over all others, is largely due to religious reasons. Such ideas arose as a result of the colonial policy of immigrants from Europe, who, relying on racial prejudice, justified their right to rule in the conquered countries. According to Toynbee, Protestantism played a huge role in the formation of white racism, creating the prerequisites for all present and future racial conflicts.

This (Protestant expansion, - A.Sh.) was a great misfortune for mankind, because the Protestant temperament, attitudes and behavior towards other races, as in many other life issues, are mainly inspired by the Old Testament, and in the question of race - the sayings of the ancient Syrian prophet, which are very transparent and extremely wild 123 .

As a result of the analysis of the role of the race factor, Toynbee comes to the following conclusions: a) the flourishing of a society and its achievement of a high cultural level “requires the creative efforts of more than one race” and b) “the racial explanation of human actions and achievements is either incorrect or false” 124 .

Just as vulnerable from a scientific point of view, Toynbee believes, is the theory where the environment/differences in climate and landscape are declared as the main determinant explaining the achievements of a particular civilization. Appealing to examples taken from history and ethnography, Toynbee shows that despite similar conditions of existence, civilizations located on the Eurasian and Afroasian

364 cultural theory

plains, the prairies of South America, gave rise to significantly different types of cultures. Citing numerous illustrations characterizing the way of life, the culture of agriculture, the peculiarities of the art of various civilizations, he leads the reader to the idea that neither the degree of development of social institutions, morality, politics in a civilization, nor the high level of the economy are in any way connected with such a factor as environment, that there is another, more compelling reason that determines the movement of civilizational systems along the time axis.

Toynbee considers such a reason to be nothing more than a historical challenge presented to civilization by other societies, nature, climate, etc.

The concept of "challenge - response" is the core of Toynbee's doctrine of the genesis of civilizations. To reveal its essence, he turns to the language of myth, the dogma of the Christian dogma. “Just as God cannot but accept the devil's challenge,” Toynbee writes, “in the same way, any civilizational system is necessarily forced to respond to the challenges that various forces present to it” 125 . Referring to numerous examples, the English scientist shows that the development of civilizations is an endless process of "challenge and response", which, in principle, cannot be completed. If a civilization does not find a worthy response to challenges, then it leaves the historical stage. If the answer is found, then, according to Toynbee, society, solving the problem that has arisen before it, transfers itself to a higher and more perfect state. Toynbee is convinced that the absence of challenges is, in fact, the absence of incentives for the development of civilizations. He refutes the widespread opinion that the presence of optimal, for example, natural conditions, is the key to reaching the peak of civilization in its development. Toynbee finds evidence of the validity of his position in the history of Egypt, the civilizations of South and Central America, Ceylon, where from the moment of their emergence, man has waged a severe struggle with nature. Toynbee emphasizes that civilizations exist only thanks to the constant efforts of the subject of historical action. As soon as the activities of people aimed at creating conditions for a normal existence cease, civilizations perish.

Incentives that promote the development of civilizations, Toynbee divides into two groups: the stimuli of the natural environment and the stimuli of the human environment. Among the first, he highlights "stimulus of the barren landwhether." Referring to the history of various countries and peoples, Toynbee shows that due to the action of the “stimulus of the barren land”, arose

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

a number of civilizations, including, for example, Chinese, Andean, Maya, ancient, etc. Toynbee refers to the second group incentives for “new territories”, “overseas migration”, “strike”, “pressure” and “infringement”. Revealing the essence incentive of "new territories", Toynbee draws attention to the fact that none of the civilizations known to us today is the heir to those that existed before them in this territory. For example, the Greek civilization took root in completely new lands that were not included in the area of ​​the Minoan civilization, walking with the latter, it was connected not only by a common language, but also by much stronger bonds. The same can be said about the Indian, Babylonian civilization and others.

nature another stimulus Toynbee explains by the example of the relationship that existed between Carthage and Syracuse, which were originally colonies of Tire and Corinth. Rapidly developing, the colonies in a very short time surpassed their mother countries both economically and militarily, which gave them the opportunity to challenge the old cities with which they entered the struggle for dominance in the Mediterranean Sea and traditional markets.

A classic example of the action of a stimulus of the third kind is "blows"- Toynbee finds in the history of Hellas. Faced with the threat of physical destruction, the Greeks were not only able to overcome internal strife, but also deal a crushing blow to the Achaemenid Empire, from which it never recovered in the future. Moreover, the victory over the Persians gave a powerful impetus to the development of Greek art, literature, architecture, philosophical and political thought. It was then that the "golden age" in the history of Athens began, the age of Pericles and Socrates, Plato and Themistocles, Euripides and Aristides.

Revealing the essence fourth stimulus, Toynbee turns to the history of Russia. The constant pressure that first Ancient Rus', and then the Muscovite state experienced from a hostile environment, according to the author of the book "Comprehension of History", contributed to the development of special forms of social life, the concentration of the creative energy of the Russian nation, which ensured the rapid transformation of Russia into a world power in XVI-XVIII centuries.

nature fifth stimulus Toynbee reveals by referring to an example borrowed from the field of biology. Just as a vine cut with a gardener's knife responds with a rapid growth of shoots, so does a social group, a nation or a group of peoples that are the bearers of the values ​​of a given civilization, reacting to the fact of the loss of something vital. In an effort to compensate for the loss, civilization develops new forms

Theory of culture

activity, acquires a new quality and becomes more perfect than before the moment when the challenge followed.

Finding out the relationship between the strength of the stimulus and the response to it, Toynbee comes to the conclusion that the primitive idea, according to which the stronger the challenge, the more effective and fruitful the response, is incorrect, that this law operates only within certain limits, beyond which the role of incentives changes. In the case when the stimulus exceeds the ability of civilization to give an adequate response, it turns from a source of development into its brake. Toynbee formulates his conclusion as golden mean rule. According to him, most mustacheCivilizations on foot develop on the segment of the optimum, where the strength of the challengeno more and no less than the potential that is inherent in thiscivilizational system. If the law of the "golden mean" is violated, then prerequisites arise for the collapse of civilization, which, ultimately, disappears from the historical scene.

The next circle of problems that Toynbee poses and solves in his main work concerns problems of the stages of the genesis of civilizations. He formulates his questions as follows: why, out of twenty-one known civilizations, fourteen are dead, while the remaining seven are stagnating? What reasons stopped the development of the disappeared societies and delayed the realization of the full potential of the rest?

Toynbee's presentation of ideas about these causes begins with a critique of the ideas that were expressed on this subject by his predecessors. According to Toynbee, those who explain the decline of civilizations by cosmic causes, such as Lucretius, are deeply wrong. Those who consider civilizations as organisms passing successively through the stages of childhood, youth, maturity and old age, in particular Spengler and other apologists of the cyclical theory of the development of civilizations, are also mistaken. Critical assessment, according to Toynbee, deserves the position of Plato, who said that the violation of the laws of heredity puts civilization on the brink of death. Scientifically untenable, in Toynbee's opinion, is the idea that was repeatedly expressed both in ancient and Indian philosophical literature about the cyclic development of the worlds and the endless alternation of catastrophes and rebirths.

Are these "vain repetitions" of peoples really the law of the universe, and hence the law of the history of civilizations? If the answer is yes, then we will have to recognize ourselves as victims of an endless cosmic joke, dooming us to suffering,

struggle with constant difficulties and the desire for cleansing from sins, depriving us of any power over ourselves 126,

He writes. According to Toynbee, those who insist on the idea of ​​cyclical development are making at least two mistakes. Firstly, they completely unlawfully interpret civilizations as organisms, while the latter are “the intersection of the fields of activity of individual individuals, whose energy is that vital force that creates history,” and, secondly, they confuse periodically repeating movements with cyclical, which is unacceptable. Toynbee argues that the main reason for the collapse of civilizational systems is their loss of "life impulse", which leads them from challenge to response, from differentiation to integration, from contraction to expansion. He especially emphasizes that the growth of civilization should in no way be confused with the expansion of its borders, with territorial expansion. On the contrary, the conquest of living space, according to Toynbee, leads not only to a slowdown in the growth of civilization, but also to its complete stop and further disintegration. Analyzing the most extensive historical material, he comes to the conclusion that throughout human history there were only two cases when expansion was accompanied by rapid development. This was at the time when the influence of the Hellenic civilization spread to the lands lying on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and the Syrian one to Asia Minor. In all other cases, the expansion of the boundaries of civilization inevitably led to its degradation and collapse. It should be emphasized that Toynbee, formulating this law, explains it by the fact that military conquests, the militarization of public life with iron necessity lead to a failure of the social mechanism.

Militarism, writes Toynbee, breaks civilization, draws local states into internecine fratricidal wars. In this suicidal process, the social fabric becomes a combustible material for the all-devouring flame of Moloch 127 .

So, according to Toynbee, civilizations leave the historical stage not because they have exhausted the time limit allotted to them, not because the cycle of their life activity has ended, but due to the fact that their vital impulse has died away, as a result of which they could not find an adequate response to another historic challenge. Loss of Samodetermination- the main reason for the death of civilizations by Arnold Toynbee. Revealing the essence of this concept, Toynbee refers to a poetic metaphor. He quotes a stanza from a poem by the English poet Meredith:

368 Cultural theory

In the tragedy of life, God knows, Only passions prepare its epilogue; In vain do not look around the villain, We are betrayed by the lies that live inside.

Toynbee explains that self-determination should be understood as the ability of a social system for self-regulation, for a conscious choice of goals, for resolving urgent social contradictions. As soon as this ability disappears, the process of degradation begins to unfold rapidly, which ends with the death of civilization. To confirm the validity of this thesis, Toynbee turns to history. ancient rome, who died, as he claims, not as a result of the military expansion of the Visigoths and Huns, who, in his opinion, completed the destruction of one of the powerful empires of the past, but as a result of internal strife, the struggle for power of various groups, the fall of morality, the disappearance of social ideals and the transformation of the majority free citizens into marginals, deprived of honor, dignity, the ability to subordinate their selfish interests to the interests of the whole.

The second reason contributing to the breakdown of civilizations, Toynbee considers the mechanistic nature of mimesis, which carries the risk of a catastrophe, because following patterns of behavior created by someone for a long time deprives individuals of the ability to develop non-standard solutions in non-standard situations. Action born of mimesis, as Toynbee writes, is unreliable, for it is not self-determined.

Third reason connected with the inability of creative personalities or the ruling minority to carry out to the end the historical mission that fell to their lot. Toynbee, referring to numerous historical examples, believes that a creative person is able to find an answer to only one challenge. Then there must be a "role reversal", and she must transfer her leadership function to someone else. Otherwise, its actions not only do not contribute to the exit of civilization from the crisis, but, on the contrary, deepen it.

As fourth reason, leading civilization to death, Toynbee also calls "the worship of an ephemeral person or society", "an ephemeral institution", "an ephemeral technical means". Explaining his position, Toynbee says that the first is understood as the orientation of civilization towards the creation of a system that has long since become the property of the past. Under the second - the orientation of civilization towards outdated social institutions; under the third - on already

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

exhausted social technologies, methods of warfare and so on, which once had an effect. The desire of civilization to make a way out of the impasse, focusing on these means, only leads to an acceleration of the process of its extinction.

Toynbee describes in detail decline of civilizationtions. From the point of view of an English scientist, this process goes through three stages: breakdown, decay and death. The breakdown begins with a "split in the civilizational system" and "a split in the soul." The first is evidenced by the emergence of marginalized strata entering into confrontation with the "ruling minority". About the second - the emergence of alternative forms of behavior, "a mass feeling of an uncontrolled flow of life", the emergence of syncretic religions, the loss of a sense of style, the destruction of the foundations of the language. At the stage of fracture, Toynbee believes, the potential of the creative minority drops sharply and its role in the life of society is significantly reduced. Most members of society refuse to imitate the minority. There is a destruction of social unity, local conflicts arise, the scale and intensity of which increases with time. The level of management of society is decreasing. The process of pauperization of the population, the alienation of the majority from power structures, is growing, which leads to the emergence, in Toynbee's terminology, of an “internal proletariat”, whose actions undermine the foundations of a serving way of life.

At the stage of decomposition, local conflicts develop into global, crisis phenomena: they cover almost all spheres of the life of the social system. The use of force by the ruling minority leads to riots, the emergence of many "hot spots", which very soon develop into civil wars. Switching all the resources of the nation to waging a fratricidal war finally undermines the vitality of civilization. "Society," writes Toynbee, "begins to devour itself." The chance for a "recovery" is becoming more and more elusive. To use Toynbee's phrase, "vertical" and "horizontal" fissures are furrowing the body of a sick society, as a result of which a strong state breaks up into a number of weak states, mainly formed along ethnic lines. The consequence of the disintegration is also the intensification of the struggle between classes and social groups, which reaches its peak at the moments of revolutions. The mentality and behavior of members of society are changing, which very quickly lose the features of civilized subjects and begin to act according to the laws of biological survival. At this time, civilization, which has not completely lost its potential, gives birth to an extraordinary personality who can

370 Cultural Theory

act like archaist, seeking to return to the past, futourist, with their actions, paving the way for the future, filosofa, hiding under the mask of the supreme ruler and, finally, God embodied in man.

The means by which they attempt to preserve civilization are Sword And Time Machine, which means a set of methods and techniques that allow you to somehow magically transfer yourself either to a past devoid of negative features, or to a bright future. However, Toynbee believes that neither the first nor the second means are capable of changing the fate prepared for a given civilization. He does not build illusions about the ability of the philosopher-ruler to find a worthy answer to the historical challenge. Referring to numerous historical examples, he comes to the conclusion that the only true savior is the one who does the will of God. But since practically no one is able to “become that vessel in which the divine fire burns”, a prophet, through whose lips the great truth and God’s word are proclaimed, the Lord himself turns out to be the only candidate for the role of the savior of civilization. It is with providence, God's will that Toynbee connects all his hopes for the exit of civilization from the crisis.

The final hurdle, the test of death, writes Toynbee, has been overcome by very few. And now, having stopped before this insurmountable barrier, we see only the lonely figure of Christ in front of us 129 .

Thus, the way out of the abyss of suffering into which a dying civilization is sinking can only be in gaining faith, in the fulfillment of the divine plan, which becomes available through religious revelation, through the descent of the Holy Spirit on those who are firm in faith.

Toynbee explores deeply and in detail interaction problemcivilizations. From his point of view, there has never been a state of harmony and equal cooperation between civilizational systems. The whole history of the human race, he believes, was the history of the struggle of civilizations, where each time the civilization that was at a higher level of technical development won. This confrontational interaction of civilizational worlds is manifested especially brightly today, where the world of the West is clearly opposed to the world of the East. Toynbee is convinced that even if humanity manages to avoid world-scale military clashes between powers, this does not mean that civilizational opposition will be eliminated.

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century. 371

speech. He believes that the third millennium will be a time of global inter-civilizational conflicts, from which only the rapid process of formation of the world civilizational system, which is now taking place at an exceptionally slow pace, can save. Subsequently, this idea would be picked up by the American sociologist S. Huntington, who published in the journal Foring Affairs in 1993 an article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations", which made his name immediately known both in political circles and in the scientific world.

This is, in the most general terms, the cultural theory of Arnold Toynbee. Despite its holistic, complete character, it was met with a far ambiguous reception by his fellow researchers. Immediately after the publication of the first volumes of The Comprehension of History, a flurry of critical articles followed, where Toynbee was presented with a number of very serious claims, not only from those who considered themselves a supporter of a materialistic understanding of history, but also from scientists close to Toynbee in philosophical and scientific positions.

Detailed critical analysis Toynbee's culturological theory was subjected primarily to Pitirim Sorokin. He considered the main mistake of Toynbee (as well as the main mistake of N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler) to be the confusion and identification of cultural systems with social groups. From his point of view, it is completely wrong to attribute the status of great civilizations to religious, territorial, state or any other groups, as the listed authors did, because social groups and cultural systems are fundamentally different from each other.

Toynbee's second mistake, according to P. Sorokin, is the assertion that all civilizations go through the same cycle and are doomed to disappear from the historical scene. Despite the fact that Toynbee attempts to determine the criteria by which one can judge at what stage of development this or that civilization is, they are in many ways imperfect. Based on them, it is impossible to answer, for example, the question of when Western civilization arose - with the advent of the Merovingian state or the Carolingian empire, or since the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire.

They do not give the opportunity to determine the exact date of the death of civilization. P. Sorokin notes that if by death we mean the disappearance of all cultural systems that exist within the framework of a given civilization and social groups, carriers of certain cultural values, then the question of the death of civilizations can be classified as a quasi-problem, because the death of a civilization in this sense is unlikely whether

Theory of culture

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

ever happens. He emphasizes that although the Greek and Roman civilizations have gone into oblivion, nevertheless, the Greek and Latin languages, the great philosophical systems, the Doric, Corinthian and Ionic orders in architecture, and much more have remained. An attempt to analyze a specific situation according to Toynbean criteria does not lead to the desired result. P. Sorokin asks by no means a rhetorical question: what should be considered evidence of the death of ancient civilization - the division of the Roman Empire into western and eastern, the fall of the western under the blows of the hordes of Alaric, or the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans?

Erroneous, from the point of view of P. Sorokin, is Toynbee's thesis that the same level of development is inherent in different spheres of social life in the same period. Turning to historical data, Sorokin shows that the coincidence of "creative periods", for example, in science, technology, fine arts, the philosophy of a particular civilization is the exception rather than the rule. For example, in the Middle Ages, Western civilization achieved very impressive successes in the field of theology and organization of religious life, in the field of temple architecture and art. At the same time, it would be very problematic to talk about serious achievements in the field of science and philosophy in this historical period.

P. Sorokin does not agree with Toynbee's statement that the integrity, individuality and ability of civilization to be creative is most clearly manifested in the fine arts. From his point of view, in the art of any civilization at any stage of its historical development, elements of the arts of all previous stages of genesis, including the archaic, can be found. P. Sorokin also doubts that most of the characteristic features of the art of a particular civilization remain unchanged over time. He writes: "I affirm that art different cultures reveals the unity of style when these cultures are at the same stage of development - ideological, sensual and integral" 130 . Pitirim Sorokin draws Toynbee's attention to the fact that, for example, sculptures, Ancient Greece the archaic period can be confused with those that were created in Europe during the early Middle Ages, that some statues of the Athenian Acropolis are surprisingly similar to the works of Mino da Fiesole, and the subjects of painting on the vases of Hellas are similar to the drawings of Van den Weyden and Titian.

P. Sorokin is very critical of Toynbee's idea of ​​the environment as the main factor determining the process of emergence and development.

ty of civilizations. He asks the question: how to determine the degree of severity or favorable environment? Not clear, from his point of view, and the question of the creative minority. He emphasizes that Toynbee is silent about how *this creative minority appears and how it becomes creative. The conclusion made by P. Sorokin is as follows: A. Toynbee's concept under no circumstances can be considered a perfect, well-thought-out and thoroughly calculated theoretical construction. His famous book is not a scientific treatise, but a kind of historical and cultural essay with all the miscalculations and shortcomings that follow from this circumstance.

In fairness, it should be noted that in polemics with his opponents, Toynbee was far from always being on the defensive. In his article "The Philosophy of History of Pitirim Sorokin", published in a reputable English scientific journal, he criticizes the well-known sociologist for a certain bias in his assessments and incorrect interpretation of a number of fundamental provisions. P. Sorokin was forced to admit the validity of this criticism, although this did not affect his final assessment of the main work of A. Toynbee.

Lucien Febvre, one of the founders of the famous French historical "School of Analles", is very critical of Toynbee's concept. He writes of a seductive historian-essayist whose work generates

the feeling of sensation aroused in the gullible reader by the imposing survey of all these carefully numbered civilizations, like scenes of melodrama replacing one another before his admiring gaze, and the genuine delight instilled in readers by this conjurer, with such dexterity juggling peoples, societies and civilizations of the past and present, shuffling and shuffling Europe and Africa, Asia and America. But if we do not succumb to tempting charms, if we reject the sentimental position of the believer present at the service, if we look impartially at Toynbee's ideas and at the conclusions from them, then what new things will we historians see in all this? Toynbee simply adds the voice of England to the French voices, and we have the right to judge the extent to which this voice stands out in the British world from other voices. In our world, however, its owner can only count on the position of a chorister 131 .

Theory of culture

8. Study of the problem of culture in Western social thought of the XX century.

the toric process, the absolutization of the method of comparative analysis, the fact that Toynbee clearly combines the idealistic interpretation of history with empirical generalizations, the almost complete disregard for the phenomena and processes of economic life. The weakest point in Toynbee's concept, from their point of view, is the blurring of the very concept of "civilization". Although Toynbee identifies two main criteria underlying his typology of civilizations (the presence of a universal religion and the degree of remoteness from the place of origin), they turn out to be poorly “working” in relation to a specific situation. For example, when Toynbee tries to define what ancient Chinese society is, he is forced to make a frank stretch, admitting that in ancient China there was a universal (universal) church in the form of Mahayana Buddhism, which is clearly at odds with the data that historical science has. These criteria "do not work" even when Toynbee tries to describe the characteristic features of Mexican, Iranian and other civilizations. Thus, the criteria for distinguishing civilizations proposed by Toynbee turn out to be imaginary and there is nothing surprising in this, because no matter how Toynbee assures readers that he formed the idea of ​​criteria on the basis of an empirical analysis of civilizations that existed in history, it is obvious that the latter should be highlighted, and in order to distinguish them, it is necessary to have a set of clear criteria.

Marxist researchers especially emphasize that Toynbee's concept of civilizations does not allow one to understand either the general laws of historical development, or those specific features that are inherent in any national culture. In their opinion, the author of The Comprehension of History could not overcome both the limitations and apriorism of culturological theories of the 19th century, and the empiricism of positivist sociology of the 20th century. His doctrine of civilizations was a kind of compromise. Thanks to the appeal to a huge layer of historical data, he was able to draw a very impressive picture of history as the history of civilizations, but he borrowed the explanation of what was happening from an ideological construction external to history, due to which the heuristic possibilities of Toynbee's concept are very limited. They clearly do not correspond to the hopes that Toynbee placed on a new method of analyzing history.

However, today, when there is a global reassessment of key figures in public thought, the significance of the works of A. Toynbee is practically not disputed by anyone, although critical pathos is also present in articles published most recently.

Belonging to the most prominent representatives of the civilizational approach, the creator of the concept of "call-and-response".

The concept of civilization

Toynbee strongly rejects the idea of ​​a single civilization. Civilization for him is a group of countries and peoples connected by a common destiny and worldview. Civilization is opposed to primitive societies and is characterized by a hierarchical structure, universal state And universal religion. Civilizations go through three stages in their development: heyday, fracture And decline. The causes of the death of civilization are internal (revolution) and external proletariat(war) or ossification of structure. The reason for the growth and development of civilization is the challenge and the presence of a creative minority.

List of civilizations according to Toynbee

• Syrian
• (Iranian)
• Arabic
• Western
• ancient chinese
• Far Eastern Chinese
• Far Eastern Japanese-Korean
• Indian
• Yucatan

"Comprehension of history"

(A Study of History) Fundamental work of A. J. Toynbee, consisting of 12 parts:

• T. I: Introduction (Introduction); Comparative Study of Civilizations
• Volume II: The Geneses of Civilizations
• Volume III: The Growths of Civilizations

The first three volumes were published by Oxford University Press in 1934.

• Volume IV: The Breakdowns of Civilizations
• Vol. V: The Disintegrations of Civilizations
• Vol. VI: Universal States

These three volumes were published by Oxford University Press in 1939.

• Vol. VII: Universal Churches
• T. VIII: Heroic times (Heroic Ages); Contacts between civilizations in space (Contacts between Civilizations in Space)
• T. IX: Contacts between Civilizations in Time; Law and Freedom in History (Law and Freedom in History); The Prospects of the Western Civilization
• T. X: The inspiration of historians (The Inspirations of Historians); A Note on Chronology

Four volumes published in 1954

• T. XI: Historical Atlas and Gazetteer

• Vol. XII: My memories

The last part of the work was published in 1961

Other writings

• "Atrocities in Armenia: The Murder of a Nation" (The Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation, 1915).
• "Nationality and the War" (Nationality and the War, 1915).
• The New Europe: Some Essays in Reconstruction (1915).
• "The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Turkey" (A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkeu, 1915).
• "Deportations in Belgium" (The Belgian Deportations, 1917).
• "German Terror in Belgium" (The German Terror in Belgium: An Historical Record, 1917).
• "German Terror in Belgium" (The German Terror in France: An Historical Record, 1917).
• "Turkey: Past and Future" (Turkey: A Past and a Future, 1917).
• The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilizations, 1922.
• Greek Civilization and Character: The Self-Revelation of Ancient Greek Society, 1924.
• Greek Historical Thought from Homer to the Age of Heraclitus, 1924.
• Non-Arab Territories of the Ottoman Empire since the Armistice of the 30th October 1918, 1924.
• "Türkiye" (Turkey, co-authored, 1926).
• The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement, 1928.
• A Journey to China, or Things Which Are Seen, 1931
• "The Comprehension of History" (Abridged version by D. S. Somervell, 1946, 1957, final abridged version of 10 volumes 1960).
• "Civilization on the Trial of History" (Civilization on Trial, 1948).
• "Prospects of Western Civilization" (The Prospects of Western Civilization, 1949).
• "War and Civilization" (War and Civilization, 1950).
• Twelve Men of Action in Greco-Roman History (1952) (Twelve Men of Action in Greco-Roman History)
• "The World and the West" (The World and the West, 1953).
• An Historian's Approach to Religion, 1956.
• Christianity among the Religions of the World (1957).
• Democracy in the Atomic Age, 1957.
• East to West: A Journey round the World, 1958.
• Hellenism: The History of a Civilization (1959).
• "Between Oxus and Jumna" (Between Oxus and Jumna, 1961).
• "America and the World Revolution" (America and the World Revolution, 1962).
• "Modern Experiment of Western Civilization" (The Present-Day Experiment in Western Civilization, 1962).
• "Between Niger and Nile" (Between Niger and Nile, 1965).
• Hannibal's Legacy: The Hannibalic War's Effects on Roman Life, 1965:

T. I. Rome and Her Neighbors before Hannibal's Entry. T. II. "Rome and Her Neighbors after Hannibal's Exit" (Rome and Her Neighbors after Hannibal's Exit).

• Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time (1966).
• "My meetings" (Acquaintances, 1967).
• "Cities and Destiny" (Cities of Destiny, 1967).
• "Between the Amazon" (Between Maule and Amazon, 1967).
• The Crucible of Christianity: Judaism, Hellenism and the Historical Background to the Experiences, 1969.
• "Christian Faith" (Christian Faith, 1969).
• "Some Problems of Greek History" (Some Problems of Greek Histor, 1969).
• "Cities in development" (Cities on the Move, 1970).
• "Saving the Future" (Surviving the Future, dialogue between A. Toynbee and Prof. Kei Wakaizumi, 1971).
• "Comprehension of history." Illustrated one-volume (co-authored with Jane Kaplan)
• Half the World: The History and Culture of China and Japan, 1973.
• "Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World" (Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World, 1973)
• "Humanity and Mother Earth: Essays on the history of the world" (ankind and Mother Earth: A Narrative History of the World, 1976, posthumously).
• "Greeks and Their Heritage" (The Greeks and Their Heritages, 1981, posthumously).

“I have always wanted to see the far side of the Moon,” the world-famous English historian, diplomat, public figure, sociologist and philosopher Arnold Joseph Toynbee, who from childhood was keenly interested in the history of peoples, formulated his credo so briefly and succinctly at the end of his days. those who did not fit into the traditional Eurocentric scheme - Persians, Carthaginians, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese, etc. He remained faithful to this interest even in his mature years. Indeed, Toynbee, as a historian, fought all his life against near-Eurocentrism, insisting on the uniqueness of the image of each civilization, and as a public figure and publicist, against any attempts by the West to impose on other peoples and civilizations their own system of values ​​and assessments as the truth in the last instance. The importance of Toynbee cannot be overestimated. There are few names in history comparable to him in breadth of coverage and erudition, in depth of insight into the essence of the problems posed. His truly grandiose work, despite the hostility of critics and objectively existing errors, has already firmly entered the golden fund of world philosophical and historical thought. It can be said without exaggeration that even more than a quarter of a century after Toynbee's death, his ideas, breaking the generally accepted stereotypes, continue to have a significant impact on social philosophy and public consciousness both Western and other civilizations.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee was born April 14, Palm Sunday, 1889 in London. His pedigree is remarkable in its own way. He was named after two of his close relatives at once: grandfather and elder uncle. The grandfather of the future historian, Joseph Toynbee (1815-1866), was a renowned otorhinolaryngologist and successfully cured Queen Victoria herself of deafness; was closely acquainted with the intellectual elite of his time - among his friends and acquaintances one can name J. S. Mill, J. Ruskin, M. Faraday, B. Jowett, J. Mazzini ... However, his life was cut short tragically - he fell victim to a medical experiment, dying from an overdose of chloroform.

Joseph Toynbee left behind three sons, and each of them was, in his own way, unique. The eldest son of Joseph, in whose honor A. J. Toynbee received his first name, Arnold Toynbee (1852-1883), became a famous English historian, economist and social reformer, his main work "The Industrial Revolution" ( 1884; in the Russian translation of 1898 "The Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century") is a classic. It was Arnold Toynbee Sr. who coined the very term "industrial revolution". The middle son of Joseph - Paget Toynbee (1855-1932) - took up philology, becoming one of the leading specialists in the work of Dante. The third son, Harry Volpey Toynbee (1861-1941), found his vocation in social work, working in the Society for the Organization of Charity. He is the father of A. J. Toynbee.

From early childhood, Arnold Joseph Toynbee showed extraordinary abilities in literature and had an exceptional memory. The main influence (until his marriage in 1913) was exerted on him by his mother - Sarah Edith Toynbee, nee Marshall (1859-1939), a woman of extraordinary intelligence and extremely firm in her Anglican faith, British patriotism, sense of duty and attachment to the son. It is impossible not to mention here the cousin grandfather (younger brother of Joseph) - Harry Toynbee (1819-1909), in whose house the future historian was born and raised. "Uncle Harry" was a retired sea captain, one of the pioneers of meteorology, who in his old age took up writing theological treatises. He encouraged his cousin's early learning and cultivated his aptitude for languages—for example, he gave a boy a few pence for memorized passages of the Bible, so that in his mature years, A. J. Toynbee could quote quite literally from memory. large chunks from the Old and New Testaments. However, "Uncle Harry", being the heir and representative of the Puritan tradition, was a religious fanatic and was very hostile towards representatives of other faiths, primarily Catholics and those Anglicans who gravitated towards Catholicism. Toynbee's parents adhered to Anglicanism - a kind of "middle way", and were much more tolerant than their elderly uncle to other religions, which subsequently distinguished Arnold Joseph himself.

At school, Toynbee's addictions were even more clearly defined. Ma-thematics was given to him with difficulty, but he easily mastered languages, especially classical ones. In 1902, he entered the prestigious Winchester College, after graduating from which in 1907 he continued his education at Balliol College, Oxford, which was at the beginning of the 20th century. a privileged launching pad for a promising career statesman. College education opened the way to high government positions.

From the colleges Toynbee brought a brilliant knowledge of Latin and Greek, passing in 1909 the first public examination for a bachelor's degree in both classical languages, and in 1911 in the so-called humanities ("litterae humaniores"). After graduating from Balliol College, he stayed there to teach ancient Greek and Roman history. For brilliant success, Toynbee extended the scholarship and encouraged his intention to travel.

In 1911 and 1912 Toynbee traveled widely, exploring the sights of Greece and Italy, first in the company of British classical philologists, and then alone on foot, carrying only a flask of water, a raincoat, an extra pair of socks and some money needed to buy food from the villagers along the way. He slept outdoors or on the floor in coffee shops. In total, he walked almost 3,000 miles, mostly following the mountains along narrow goat paths (only occasionally leaving the path - either in order to reach some high point convenient for viewing the surroundings, or in search of a shorter path to one or another other ancient sights). In order to better study the features of a new science for him, Toynbee studied for a year at the British School of Archeology in Athens, and then took part in the excavations of the newly discovered monuments of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture.

During a journey through Laconia, Toynbee had one incident that turned out to be fateful. Here is how many years later he described it himself: “April 26, 1912, being in Laconia, I planned to walk from Kato Vezani, where I had spent the previous night, to Gythion ... I calculated that this journey One day is quite enough for me, because on a sheet of a pseudo-Austrian staff map, a first-class road was marked here, passing just through a piece of rough terrain; thus, the last leg of this one-day hike promised to be easy and fast. This false sheet, which at that time I constantly carried with me, and now lies on my table, right in front of my eyes. Here it is, this supposedly beautiful road, marked by two shameless, bold black lines. When, having crossed the [river] Evrotos on a bridge that was not indicated on the map, I reached the place where the road was supposed to begin, it turned out that there was no road at all, which means that I had to get to Gythion over rough terrain. One gorge followed another; I was already several hours late against my schedule; my flask was half empty, and then, to my joy, I came across a briskly running stream with clear water. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to his and drank, drank, drank. And only when I got drunk, I noticed a man standing nearby at the entrance to his house and watching me. "This is very bad water”, he remarked. If this man had a sense of responsibility and if he were more attentive to his neighbor, he would have told me about it before I began to drink; however, if he had acted as he should have done, that is, if he had warned me, then it is very likely that I would not be alive now. He accidentally saved my life, because he was right: the water was bad. I fell ill with dysentery, and thanks to this disease, which did not let me go for the next five or six years, I turned out to be unfit for military service and was not called up for the war of 1914-1918. Many of Toynbee's friends and peers perished in World War I. The experiences associated with their death will haunt him for the rest of his life. Thus, a fatal accident, perhaps, saved Toynbee - he was not drafted into the active army and, continuing to engage in science, was later able to create his main work.

From 1912 to 1924 Toynbee was a research professor of international history at the University of London. During the First World War, he worked in the Information Department of the British Foreign Office as a scientific consultant on the historical, political and demographic problems of the Middle East. This work undoubtedly left a strong imprint on Toynbee's approach to historical facts. Here he often had to deal with many pieces of evidence that did not appear in official documents. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (and later, after the Second World War, at the Paris Conference in 1946), Toynbee was present as a member of the British delegation. From 1919 to 1924 Toynbee is Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek, History and Culture at the University of London. In 1925, he became scientific director of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs. He held this position until 1955. At the same time, he was the editor and co-author of the Institute's annual Surveys of International Relations (Survey of international affairs. London, 1925-1965).

After his retirement, Toynbee travels extensively in Asia, Africa, America, lectures and teaches at the University of Denver, state university New Mexico, Mills College and other institutions. Almost until his death, he retained a clear mind and an extraordinary memory. Fourteen months before his death, he was shattered by a powerful para-lich. He was almost unable to move or speak. On October 22, 1975, at the age of 86, Toynbee died in a private hospital in York.

This is a brief biography of Arnold Joseph Toynbee. As for his "intellectual biography", here one can single out many different people who influenced the historian in one period or another. We meet their names on the pages of his works: first of all, this is Toynbee's mother, who herself wrote popular transcriptions of history, E. Gibbon, E. Freeman, F. J. Teggart, A. E. Zimmern, M. I. Rostovtsev, W. X Prescott, Sir Lewis Namier, ancient authors - Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Lucretius, Polybius. In his mature years, the works of A. Bergson, Augustine the Blessed, Ibn Khaldun, Aeschylus, J. W. Goethe, C. G. Jung had the strongest influence on Toynbee ... The list goes on and on. However, it must always be remembered that all these numerous influences were fused by Toynbee into his own, deeply original concept of historical development thanks to a deep knowledge of primary sources and living life.

Peru A. J. Toynbee owns a significant number of works devoted to ancient history, the history of international relations, and the history of modern times. Many of his books became bestsellers almost immediately. Toy-nby's works were translated into more than 25 languages ​​during the author's lifetime. However, the main work that won him world fame was the 12-volume essay “A Study of History”, published by Oxford University Press in 1934-1961.

While still a very young man, Toynbee drew up a program of what he would like to implement in his works, and he carried out this program to the end, as evidenced by numerous notebooks filled with ideas and references, which years later were used to implementation of the original plan. “He grew up in an atmosphere of unshakable authority, studying the Bible, history, classical languages. But Bergson's later writings shook his quiet world with the power of revelation. Bergson brought him for the first time an acute experience of insecurity, changeability, but also faith in the creative power of leading individuals and social strata, raising vegetative life to a higher order.

This happened on the eve of the First World War, and about the same time, Toynbee suddenly had the idea, caused by the outbreak of war, that the Western world had entered the same period of life that the Greek world had gone through during the Peloponnesian War. This instant realization gave Toynbee the idea of ​​making comparisons between civilizations.

The First World War, as the historian himself later wrote, put an end to liberal-progressive illusions and to a large extent stimulated his interest in the history of mankind, taken as a whole. If, on the very eve of the war, he still did not want to recognize as valid for Europe the thesis that cultures are mortal, like people, then by the end of the war the picture changed.

“We civilizations, we now know that we are mortal. We heard stories about people who disappeared without a trace, about empires that went to the bottom with all their humanity and technology, sank into the impenetrable depths of centuries, with their deities and laws, with their academicians and sciences, pure and applied, with its grammarians, its dictionaries, its classics, its romantics and symbolists, its critics and critics of critics. We know well that the entire visible earth is formed from ashes, and that ashes have significance. Through the depths of history, we discerned the ghosts of huge ships that had sunk under the weight of wealth and intelligence. We were unable to count them. But these crashes, in essence, did not affect us. Elam, Nineveh, Babylon were beautifully vague names, and the complete disintegration of their worlds meant as little to us as their very existence. But France, England, Russia... These could also be considered wonderful names. Lu-zitania - too beautiful name. And now we see that the abyss of history is large enough for everyone. We feel that civilization is endowed with the same fragility as life. The circumstances that could make the creations of Keats and Baudelaire share the fate of the creations of Menander are least of all incomprehensible: look at any newspaper.

These are the words from an article by the greatest poet of France, Paul Valery, "The Crisis of the Spirit", written in 1919 and first published in the London magazine "Atheneum". However, we find similar thoughts in many, many thinkers who went through the experience of the First World War. The "lost generation", "crisis of the spirit", "decline of Europe" - these are the most famous characteristics of the post-war period. " World War 1914-1918, - notes the American historian McIntyre, - began a series of crises of colossal proportions that lasted for two generations, which brought intellectuals and politicians, public and cultural figures out of a state of good-natured complacency with civilization ... [ She] showed that the barbarities of war could, thanks to sophisticated technology, be increased to such an extent that they would engulf all mankind and all cultures. Toynbee called this period "a time of troubles" that shook the idea of ​​progress and confidence in the human mind, which underlay both the old, liberal, and new, Marxist views on history. "Time of Troubles" continued during the 20-30s. 20th century and prepared the situation for an alternative view of history.

In the XIX - early XX centuries. in the Western European consciousness, the “axiological” interpretation of cultures prevailed. She divided the various ways of human existence into "cultural" and "uncivilized", "higher" and "lower". A striking example of such an interpretation is the Eurocentric system of views. In the Russian philosophical tradition, this point of view was criticized more than once already in the 19th century - here one can recall the Slavophiles and the predecessors of the civilizational model of history N. Ya. Danilevsky and K. N. Leontiev. However, in the XX century. the limitations and inconsistency of the "axiological" interpretation became obvious to many researchers in the West. Many Western researchers of culture, in the process of criticizing traditional Eurocentrism, have taken the path of a “non-axiological” interpretation of cultures. Quite logically, they came to the idea of ​​equalizing all historical modes of existence, considering them as equal and equivalent. According to these researchers, it is a mistake to divide cultures into “higher” and “lower” ones, since they represent historically developed ways of life that are equivalent in their alternativeness. In domestic critical literature, these concepts are referred to as the concepts of "local" or "equivalent" cultures. The supporters of this point of view include (except for the above-mentioned N. Ya. Danilevsky and K. N. Leontiev) such thinkers and scientists as O. Spengler, E. Mayer, P. A. Sorokin, K. G. Dawson, R Benedict, F. Northrop, T. S. Eliot, M. Herskovitz, and, finally, A. J. Toynbee himself. Their criticism of Eurocentrism was often combined with a cyclical model of the historical process.

The idea of ​​historical cycles has been known for a long time. Also in ancient world many philosophers and historians have expressed the idea of ​​the cyclic personality of history (for example, Aristotle, Polybius, Syma

Qian). Such views were dictated by the desire to see a certain order, natural rhythm, pattern, meaning in the chaos of historical events by analogy with natural cycles. In the future, similar views were expressed by such thinkers as Ibn Khaldun, Niccolo Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, Charles Fourier, N. Ya. Danilevsky. However, the dominant philosophy of history in Western Europe during the XVIII-XIX centuries. continued to be a linear progressive scheme based on a Eurocentric approach and the cult of progress. Progress became the faith of the average European, a faith that first replaced the traditional Christian religion in Europe and then spread throughout the world. The process of secularization, which began as early as the Renaissance and reached its apogee in the 18th century, inevitably led to the loss of the connection between culture itself and the spirit of Christianity that had guided it for many centuries. European culture, having lost this connection, began to look for new inspiration for herself in the ideal of progress (or Progress, as this word was often written since the 18th century). Faith in progress, in the limitless possibilities of the human mind, becomes a real religion, more or less disguised behind the façade of philosophy or science. The worship of "Progress" is associated with the cult of "Civilization" (one, unique and absolute, European civilization) and its achievements. As C.JI wrote. Frank, characterizing the historical schemes based on the belief in progress, “if you look closely at the interpretations of history of this kind, it will not be a caricature to say that, in its limit, their understanding of history is almost always reduced to such a division: 1) from Adam to my grandfather - the period of barbarism and the first rudiments of culture; 2) from my grandfather to me - a period of preparation for great achievements, which my time must accomplish; 3) I and the tasks of my time, in which the goal of world history is completed and finally realized.

The 20th century, in its own way, placed accents both in relation to "Civilization" and in relation to "Progress". As Pitirim Sorokin wrote, “practically all significant philosophies of the history of our critical age reject progressively linear interpretations of the historical process and take either a cyclic, creatively rhythmic, or an eschatological, messianic form. In addition to revolting against linear interpretations of history, these social philosophies demonstrate many other changes in the prevailing theories of society... The emerging philosophies of history of our critical age break sharply with the dominant progressive, positivist and empiricist philosophies of the dying sensitive era. The philosophy of history of A. J. Toynbee is the clearest illustration of Sorokin's words.

When Toynbee was thirty-three years old, he sketched out a plan for his future work on a half-vintage sheet of a concert program. "He clearly realized that its execution would require at least two million words - twice as much as Edward Gibbon needed for his long work written over the years on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire" Idea of ​​what can be found many parallels between various historical events and that there is a “kind of human societies that we call “civilizations””, was already gradually beginning to take shape in his mind when he accidentally came across O. Spengler’s “The Decline of Europe”. In this book, read by Toynbee in German, even before the English translation appeared, he found confirmation of many of his own thoughts, which existed in his mind only in the form of hints and vague conjectures. However, Toynbee's conception of Spengler seemed imperfect in several important respects. The number of civilizations studied (eight) was too small to serve as a basis for a correct generalization. It was very unsatisfactorily explained what was the cause of the emergence and death of cultures. Finally, Spengler's method was greatly harmed by certain a priori dogmas that distorted his thought and forced him at times to unceremoniously neglect historical facts. A more empirical approach was required, as well as the realization that the problem associated with the explanation of the origin and death of civilizations exists, and that the solution to this problem should be carried out within the framework of a verifiable hypothesis that would stand the test of facts.

Toynbee consistently characterized his method as essentially "inductive." Undoubtedly, the centuries-old traditions of British empiricism affected here. "The History of England" by D. Hume, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by E. Gibbon, "The Golden Bough" by J. J. Frazer - all these multi-volume, abounding in huge factual material works are the immediate predecessors of the "Studies of History" . Toynbee's main goal was to try to apply a natural-scientific approach to human relations and to test "how far it will take us." In carrying out his program, he insisted on the need to consider "society as a whole" as the main units of research, and not "arbitrarily isolated parts of them, like the nation-states of the modern West" . Unlike Spengler, Toynbee singled out in history a representative of the genus of "civilizations" (later he reduced their number to 13), not counting secondary, secondary and underdeveloped ones. He included Egyptian, Andean, ancient Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Mayan, Yucatan, Mexican, Hittite, Syrian, Babylonian, Iranian, Arabic, Far Eastern (the main stem and its branch in Japan), Indian, Hindu, Hellenic, Orthodox -Christian (main stem and offshoot in Russia) and Western. Although Toynbee considered this number to be extremely small for solving the task set - "explanations and formulations of laws." Nevertheless, he argued that there was a very significant degree of similarity between the achievements of the societies he studied and those of the societies he compared. In their history, certain stages are clearly distinguishable, following one model. This model, according to Toynbee, is expressed too clearly to be ignored - the stage of growth, breakdown, final disintegration and death.

One of the most fundamental principles of Toynbee was cultural pluralism, the belief in the diversity of forms of social organization of mankind. Each of these forms of social organization has, in his opinion, its own system of values, different from others. Danilevsky and Spengler spoke about the same, but their biologism in the interpretation of the life of societies as a whole remained alien to Toynbee. The English historian rejected the fatal predetermination of the future, imposed on every organism by the law of the life cycle, although biological analogies are found more than once on the pages of his works.

Toynbee describes the main phases of the historical existence of civilization in terms of Henri Bergson's "philosophy of life": "emergence" and "growth" are associated with the energy of the "life impulse" (elan vital), and "breakdown" and "decay" - with " exhaustion of vital forces. However, not all civilizations go this way from beginning to end - some of them die before they have time to flourish ("underdeveloped civilizations"), others stop in development and freeze ("delayed civilizations").

After recognizing the uniqueness of the path of each civilization, Toynbee proceeds to an analysis of the actual historical factors. This is primarily the "law of call-and-response". Man has reached the level of civilization not because of a superior biological endowment or geographic environment, but as a result of "responding" to a "challenge" in a historical situation of particular complexity, which prompted him to make an attempt that was unprecedented before. Toynbee divides challenges into two groups - challenges of the natural environment and human challenges. The group related to the natural environment is divided into two categories. To the first category belong the stimulating effects of the natural environment, representing different levels of complexity ("stimulus of harsh countries"), to the second - the stimulating effects of the new earth, regardless of the local character ("stimulus of the new earth"). Toynbee divides the challenges of the human environment into geographically external in relation to the societies that are affected, and geographically coinciding with them. The first category includes the impact of societies or states on their neighbors, when both sides start, initially occupying different areas, the second - the impact of one social "class" on another, when both "classes" jointly occupy one area (the term "class" used here in the broadest sense). At the same time, Toynbee distinguishes between an external impulse, when it takes the form of an unexpected blow, and its sphere of action in the form of constant pressure. Thus, in the field of challenges of the human environment, Toynbee distinguishes three categories: “stimulus of external blows”, “stimulus of external pressures” and “stimulus of internal infringements”.

If the “answer” is not found, anomalies arise in the social organism, which, accumulating, lead to “breakdown”, and then to further “disintegration”. The development of an adequate response to a change in the situation is a social function of the so-called creative minority, which puts forward new ideas and selflessly puts them into practice, dragging the rest with them. "All acts of social creativity are the creation of either individual creators or, at most, creative minorities."

Within this model, certain periodic "rhythms" can be found. When a society is in its growth stage, it provides effective and fruitful responses to challenges. When it is at the stage of decline, it is unable to seize the opportunities and resist or even overcome the difficulties that it encounters. However, neither growth nor decay, according to Toynbee, can be permanent or continuous in an inevitable way. For example, in the process of disintegration, the phase of defeat is often followed by a temporary recovery of strength, which, in turn, is followed by a new, even stronger relapse. As an example, Toynbee cites the establishment of a universal state in Rome under Augustus. This period was the time of the restoration of the strength of the Hellenic civilization between the previous period of the "Time of Troubles" with its uprisings and internecine wars and the first stages of the final collapse of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century BC. Toynbee argues that clearly distinguishable rhythms of destruction-restoration manifested themselves in the course of the collapse of many civilizations - Chinese, Sumerian, Hindu. At the same time, we are confronted here with the phenomenon of increasing standardization and loss of creativity - two features that are especially evident in the decline of Greco-Roman society.

Critics have repeatedly noted Toynbee's desire to interpret the history of other civilizations in terms characteristic of Hellenic culture. Many criticized him for this, believing that this tendency led the scientist to create artificial schemes into which he tried to fit the entire diversity of human history. For example, P. Sorokin wrote about Toynbee’s theory and similar ones: “Neither real cultural or social systems, nor nations and countries as fields of cultural systems have a simple and uniform life cycle of childhood, maturity, old age and death. The life curve of especially large cultural systems is much more complex, diverse and less homogeneous than the life cycle of an organism. A fluctuation curve with a non-periodic, constantly changing rhythm of ups and downs, essentially repeating eternal themes with constant variations, seems to illustrate the life course of large cultural systems and super-systems more correctly than an organism cycle curve. In other words, Danilevsky, Spengler and Toynbee saw only "three or four rhythmic strokes" in the life of civilizations: the rhythm of childhood-maturity-old age or spring-summer-autumn-winter. Meanwhile, in the life process of cultural and social systems, many diverse rhythms coexist: two-beat, three-beat, four-beat and even more complex rhythms, first of one type, then of another ... ”.

Toynbee's later writings show that he was very sensitive to this kind of criticism. However, he argued that for the research he was undertaking it was at least important to start with some kind of model. His main doubts were about whether the model he had chosen was ideal for the task at hand and whether it was possible for a future scientist engaged in a comparative study of civilizations to advise a better one so that he could use all the variety of examples to conduct his research, and not just one example.

In defending his position, Toynbee often attacked what he called "antinomic historians," the proponents of the dogma that no model of any kind can be found in history. He believed that to deny the existence of models in history is to deny the possibility of writing it, since the model is assumed by the whole system of concepts and categories that the historian must use if he wants to speak meaningfully about the past.

What are these models? In some of his writings, Toynbee suggests that it is necessary to choose between two, in fact, opposite points of view. Either history as a whole corresponds to some single order and plan (or serves as its manifestation), or it is a “chaotic, disorderly, random flow” that does not lend itself to any reasonable interpretation. As an example of the first point of view, he cites the "Indo-Hellenic" conception of history as "a cyclic movement governed by an impersonal law"; as an example of the second, the "Judeo-Zoroastrian" conception of history as a movement governed by a supernatural intellect and will. An attempt to combine these two ideas seems to underlie one's own picture of the human past, as it appears in the last volumes of the Study of History. They explicitly state that the rise and fall of civilizations can be interpreted teleologically.

As Toynbee wrote his Study of History, he significantly changed his views. If in the first volumes he acts as a supporter of complete self-sufficiency and equivalence of civilizations, then in the last volumes he significantly changes his original point of view. As the English historian Christopher Dawson noted of the last four volumes of the Inquiry, "Toynbee introduces a new principle which indicates a fundamental change in his early views and entails the transformation of his Study of History from a relativistic phenomenology of equivalent cultures along the lines of Spengler to a unified philosophy of history comparable to that of the nineteenth-century idealist philosophers. This change ... implies the rejection of Toynbee's original theory of the philosophical equivalence of civilizations and the introduction of a qualitative principle, embodied in higher religions, considered as representatives of higher species of society, which are in the same relation to civilizations in which ice-cold - to primitive societies.

In an effort to introduce elements of progressive development into his concept, Toynbee saw the progress of mankind in spiritual perfection, in religious evolution from primitive animistic beliefs through universal religions to a single syncretic religion of the future. From his point of view, the formation of world religions is the highest product of historical development, embodying cultural continuity and spiritual unity in spite of the self-sufficient isolation of individual civilizations.

According to Toynbee, “the style of a civilization is the expression of its religion... Religion was the source life force, which gave birth to civilizations and supported them - more than three thousand-thousand years in the case of pharaonic Egypt, and in China from the rise of the Shang state to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. The two oldest civilizations, Egyptian and Sumerian, were based in the potentially rich lands of the Nile Valley and southeastern Iraq. However, these lands had to be made productive through extensive drainage and irrigation works. The transformation of a complex natural environment into a favorable one for life had to be carried out by organized masses of people working in the name of far-reaching goals. This suggests the emergence of leadership and a widespread desire to follow the directions of the leaders. Social Vital energy and the harmony that made such interaction possible must have come from a religious faith that was shared by both the leaders and those who were led by them. "This faith was supposed to be a spiritual force that made it possible to carry out the main public works in the sphere of the economy, thanks to which an economic surplus product was obtained."

By religion, Toynbee understood such an attitude to life that creates an opportunity for people to cope with the difficulties of human existence, giving spiritually satisfactory answers to fundamental questions about the mystery of the Universe and the role of man in it, and offering practical prescriptions regarding life in the Universe. “Every time a people loses faith in its religion, its civilization is subject to local social disintegration and foreign military attack. A civilization that has fallen as a result of the loss of faith is then replaced by a new civilization inspired by another religion. History provides us with many examples of such substitutions: the fall of Confucian Chinese civilization after the Opium War and the rise of a new Chinese civilization in which Confucianism was replaced by communism; the fall of Pharaonic Egyptian civilization and Greco-Roman civilization and their replacement by new civilizations inspired by Christianity and Islam; the rebirth of Western Christian civilization into a modern civilization based on the post-Christian “religion of science and progress”. Examples can be continued. Toynbee is convinced that the success or failure of culture is deeply connected with the religion of the people. The fate of a civilization depends on the quality of the religion on which it is based. This explains the modern crisis of the spirit in the West and all the global problems that it entailed.

When Western man gained dominion over nature through the systematic application of technology, his belief in the call to exploit nature “gave him the green light to saturate his greed to the limit of a now vast and ever-increasing technological capacity. His greed found no barrier in the pantheistic belief that non-human nature is sacred and that, like man himself, he has a dignity that must be respected.

Westerners, having replaced in the 17th century the religion of their ancestors, Christianity, with the post-Christian "faith in science", abandoned theism, retaining, however, the faith inherited from monotheism in their right to exploit non-human nature. If, under the former Christian attitude, they believed in the mission of God's workers, who received Divine sanction for the exploitation of nature, on the condition of honoring God and recognizing Him. "owner's rights", then in the 17th century "the English cut off the head of God, as they did to Charles I: they expropriated the Universe and declared themselves no longer workers, but free owners - absolute owners." The "religion of science", like nationalism, has spread from the West all over the globe. Despite national and ideological differences, the majority modern people are its adherents. It is these post-Christian religions of the modern Western world that have brought humanity "to its real misfortune."

What way does Toynbee see from this situation? It is necessary, he believes, to urgently restore stability in relations between man and non-human nature, overturned by the industrial revolution. At the heart of the technological and economic revolutions in the West lay the religious revolution, which consisted, in fact, in the replacement of pan-theism by monotheism. Modern man must now regain his original respect for the dignity of non-human nature. This can be facilitated by the "correct religion". Toynbee calls "correct" that religion which teaches respect for the dignity and holiness of all nature, in contrast to "wrong" which patronizes human greed at the expense of inhuman nature.

Solving global problems modern humanity Toy-nbi saw in pantheism, in particular, he found his ideal of "correct religion" in such a variety of pantheism as Shintoism. However, Shintoism, as Toynbee's interlocutor, the Buddhist religious leader Daisaku Ikeda, rightly noted, has two faces: explicitly on the surface there is a tendency to reconcile with nature, while the implicit tendency is isolation and exclusivity. Perhaps these tendencies are also present in other pantheistic religious traditions.

Seeking a panacea for the ills of modern humanity in Japan, Toynbee paradoxically turns out to be shortsighted in relation to Christianity. He sees in Christian monotheism the cause of the fatal changes that led to the modern "religion of science" and to the violence of man over nature. However, he attributes to Christianity in general those extreme conclusions that were made by its Western branch as a result of a deviation from the original teaching. Christianity was initially alien to both mechanical anthropocentrism, that is, the radical alienation of man from nature (which in the West led to a consumerist attitude towards it), and the proposed in the 20th century. as an alternative, cosmocentrism, which equalizes a person with any phenomenon of the natural cosmos. With regard to nature, orthodox Christianity is characterized by two main motives. Firstly, nature is perceived as a gift from God, which excludes soulless violence against it and predatory exploitation of its riches. And secondly, there is a consciousness of the humiliated state of the created world after the fall, which allows a person to fight the world chaos as an untrue manifestation of natural being and strive for its transformation. The Apostle Paul also wrote: “The creation with hope awaits the revelation of the sons of God, because the creation was subjected to futility, not voluntarily, but by the will of him who subdued it, in the hope that the creation itself will be freed from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21). Thus, the soteriological aspect of Christianity and the possibility of a "middle way" completely escape the attention of the historian.

In general, the topic "Toynbee and Christianity" requires additional coverage. At first glance, it may seem that the teleological interpretation of history in Toynbee's later work brings him closer to Christian historiosophy. However, there are a number of significant points in which he disagrees with the Christian understanding of history.

The main feature of Christianity as a historical religion is, according to Toynbee, in relation to suffering. The central dogma of Christianity — the dogma that Divine mercy and Divine compassion moved God to voluntarily “lose” His power and undergo the same suffering that His creatures undergo for the sake of saving His creatures — makes Christianity a historical religion par excellence. . “The distinctive meaning that Christianity gave to the Jewish understanding of the nature of God and the nature of His relationship to people is the proclamation that God is love, and not only power, and that this same Divine love is manifested in a special meeting of man with God in the form of the incarnation and crucifixion (passion) of Christ...”.

But the Incarnation serves us not only as evidence that this world has an inner and absolute value as an arena of suffering, in which God showed His love for His creatures. It simultaneously became an event that gave meaning to history, indicated purpose and direction. This completely changed our understanding of life, freeing us from the power of the cyclical rhythms that took place in the Universe, from the rhythms that we encounter in our lives.

The anthropocentric view of the Universe, which originated in the Renaissance and gained more and more strength as science and technology developed in modern times, was refuted by the same science. Modern man, like Pascal, is horrified at the mere thought of the endless black and icy expanses of the Universe, opening up to him through a telescope and erasing his life to an insignificant amount. However, “The Incarnation frees us from these alien and demonic forces, convincing us that thanks to the suffering and death of God on this infinitely small grain of sand (of the universe), the entire physical Universe is theocentric, for if God is love, then a person can feel himself everywhere, where the authority of God operates, as at home.”

But perhaps the most important thing in Christianity for Toynbee is the fact that the sufferings of Christ gave meaning to human suffering, reconciling us with the tragedy of our earthly life, since they “inspire us that this tragedy is not meaningless and aimless evil, as argued by the Buddha and Epicurus, and no inevitable punishment for deep-seated sin, as explained by non-Christian schools of Jewish theology. The light of the passions of Christ revealed to us that suffering is necessary insofar as it is a necessary means of salvation and creation in the conditions of time and brief life on the ground. In itself, suffering is neither evil nor good, neither meaningless nor meaningful. It is the path leading to death, and its goal is to give a person the opportunity to participate in the work of Christ, thereby realizing the opportunity to become sons of God, brothers in Christ.

Critics often attributed to Toynbee the complete acceptance (especially in the works of recent years) of Christian historiosophy, considering him almost a revivalist of the ideas of St. Augustine. This misconception was based on the historian's frequent quoting of the Holy Scriptures and constant reference to the events of biblical history. However, Toynbee's conception has a number of significant differences from Christian (and, in particular, from Augustinian) historiosophy. The essence of these discrepancies was at one time described in sufficient detail by Professor Singer in his study on the outstanding British historian.

First of all, in his later writings, Toynbee, in fact, denies the uniqueness of Christianity, although he recognizes it as one of the highest religions. He insists that since Christianity is one of the highest religions, then it has much to learn from other religions belonging to the same group. If Toynbee once believed that Christianity contains a unique revelation of a single, undivided truth, then over time he began to think that all historical religions and philosophical systems are only partial revelations about truth, and that Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and there is something to be said for Christianity. This position obviously contradicts both biblical revelation and its Augustinian interpretation.

In fact, as Toynbee gradually changed his position as he wrote A Study of History, the first six volumes value Christianity much more highly than the last, which are written more from the standpoint of Buddhism and Hinduism. In many of his later works, he leans directly towards Mahayana Buddhism.

Although Toynbee does often refer to the Old and New Testaments and values ​​them highly, he is far from treating them as the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Sacred Scripture for him is to the same extent a revelation of God, as are the "sacred writings" of other higher religions. Toynbee does not regard the Bible as the only reliable revelation God has given of Himself to man. The Bible for him is just one of the ways in which man searches for God. Hence the often found on the pages of the "Study of History" attitude towards the Bible as a collection of "Syrian" myths and folklore, along with significant and useful historical data.

Inevitably, this attitude towards Christianity and the Holy Scriptures strongly influenced Toynbee's religious thought. In fact, he denies the biblical teaching about the omnipotence of God, creationism and the orthodox view of original sin. In place of these fundamental orthodox positions, he puts the evolutionary conception of reality in general and of man in particular.

Thus, denying the universal sinfulness of mankind, Toynbee fails to understand the biblical doctrine of redemption. Christ for him is only a noble personality, uttering sublime teachings. The idea of ​​atonement for the sins of mankind by the Death of the Cross on Golgotha ​​remains completely misunderstood. The whole meaning of Christianity in its soteriological aspects has completely escaped the attention of the historian. Toynbee preaches the usual liberal admiration of Christ as the Great Teacher or one of the Great Teachers, but completely denies that He is the Son of God who went to the Cross for the salvation of people.

The cross for Toynbee is a majestic symbol of the suffering of Christ, and Christ Himself becomes the example of the "departure-and-return" in his historical scheme. However, there is no place here for the idea of ​​a bodily resurrection in the biblical sense of the word, and the return of Christ from the grave appears only as the coming of His spirit to the disciples along with the inspiration transmitted to them, which made them able to spread the teachings of their Master.

In the same way, Toynbee often refers to the Church and uses this word as one of the main elements of his historical scheme. But again, his conception of the Church is very far from the biblical view of the matter. The Christian Church for Toynbee is not an organism created by God, consecrated and continuous in time, including the elect of all epochs, but rather a human institution that arose from the bosom of Hellenic civilization and served as the emergence of Western civilization. Obviously, the Toynbean view of the Church is also far from what Augustine the Blessed taught in his book On the City of God. For Toynbee, the Church (or, as he more often writes, the church, with a lowercase letter), is rather an institution necessary for the emergence and maintenance of civilizations, and not the Kingdom of God on earth in the biblical sense.

Finally, Toynbee does not share biblical eschatology. Civilizations come and go, are born and die, according to his call-and-response theory, and since the fall of a civilization can (and probably will) lead to catastrophic consequences, history has no purpose. History has no final goal, and therefore the historical process cannot end with the second coming of Jesus Christ in power and glory.

For Toynbee, as well as for Hegel, Marx, Spengler and the supporters of the concept of "history as a process" in general, the ultimate meaning of history can only be found within the framework of the historical process itself. Although Toynbee tried hard to avoid the pitfalls that Hegel, Marx and Spengler encountered, his attempts ended in failure, because he refused to see that only one almighty God could give meaning to His creation and all of history. , the Creator of which is. Any attempt to find meaning in a story before it is completed ends in failure.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about how Toynbee saw the future of all mankind. In his later works, the historian increasingly turned to modern social problems, trying to find a way out of the deep internal contradictions of Western civilization and the conflict between the West and the countries of the "third world". According to Toynbee, a spiritual renewal is needed, a rejection of the absolutization of material values ​​and mercantilist philosophy, a revival of harmony between man and nature. At the economic level, the main requirement should be equality and the limitation of human greed. For the sake of preserving human dignity, Toynbee considers the adoption of the socialist way of managing the economic affairs of mankind inevitable. However, bearing in mind the experience of building socialism in Russia, China and some other countries of the world and the extremes that were associated with the suppression of the spiritual freedom of the individual in these countries, Toynbee says that in the future this is necessary at all costs. began to be avoided. His picture of the future contains an answer both to supporters of the violent construction of an "earthly paradise" and to modern globalists who are trying to impose on the whole world single system values. “My hope for the twenty-first century is that it will see the establishment of a global humanist society that is socialist on an economic level and free-thinking on a spiritual level. Economic freedom for one person or society often entails enslavement for others, but spiritual freedom has no such negative traits. Everyone can be spiritually free without encroaching on the freedom of another. Of course, widespread spiritual freedom means mutual enrichment, not impoverishment.

The future will show how correct Professor Toynbee's predictions are and how good a prophet he was. It remains for us, guided by the direction outlined by him, to try to bring to the shore the sinking ship of modern civilization, on which, as on Noah's ark, both Western, Russian, Islamic, and Chinese civilizations are inextricably linked by one common destiny, and always remember how easily all of them can join the ranks of the already forever disappeared civilizations of Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and many, many others.

Kozhurin K. Ya., candidate of philosophical sciences

Huebscher A. Thinkers of our time (62 portraits): A Handbook on Western Philosophy of the 20th Century. M., 1994. S. 60.

God, History and Historians. An Anthology of Modern Christian Views of History. Ed. by C. T. McIntire. New York, 1977. P. 7.

Frank S.L. Spiritual Foundations of Society: An Introduction to Social Philosophy//Russian Abroad: From the History of Social and Legal Thought. L., 1991. S. 265.

Dawson Ch. Toynbee's Odyssey of the West / / The Common-weal, LXI, No. 3 (Oct. 22, 1954). P. 62-67. Toynbee was in full agreement with Dawson's assessment, noting that his opinion on the change of the cyclical system to the progressive one is correct (Toynbee A. J. A Study of History. Volume XII. Reconsiderations. London; New York; Toronto, 1961. P. 27).

Arnold Joseph Toynbee. Born April 14, 1889 in London - died October 22, 1975. British historian, philosopher of history, culturologist and sociologist. One of the developers of civilizational theory, the author of a twelve-volume work on the comparative history of civilizations "Comprehension of History". Awarded with the Order of Cavaliers of Honor.

Nephew of renowned economic historian and social reformer for the betterment of the working class, Arnold Toynbee.

He studied at Winchester College and Oxford's Balliol College, where he began teaching in 1912, then taught the history of the Middle Ages and Byzantium at King's College. In 1913 he married Rosalind Murray (†1967), daughter of Gilbert Murray. In 1919-1924. taught at the University of London. He worked at the London School of Economics and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Eng. RIIA) at Chatham House, of which he was director from 1929-1955.

The position of a specialist scholar involved in world politics at the highest level (expert at the Paris Peace Conferences of 1919 and 1946) largely determined the nature and scope of his historical thinking. He was influenced by the ethical-religious concept of Henri Bergson. He himself distinguished three stages in his creative development: before the end of the First World War; until the 50s of the XX century; last.

Consistently wrote and published parts of the philosophical and historical work "Comprehension of History" (vols. 1-12, 1934-1961). He began this study in 1927. The results are summarized in the book Changes and Habits (1966). In "Comprehension of History" he developed and presented his own theory of civilization.

The son of A. J. Toynbee and R. Murray, Philip Toynbee, was a journalist, writer and communist, and their granddaughter Polly Toynbee is a left-wing publicist and columnist for The Guardian.

The asteroid 7401 Toynbee is named after the historian.

Toynbee's theory of local civilizations

Toynbee considered world history as a system of conditionally distinguished civilizations, passing through the same phases from birth to death and constituting the branches of a "single tree of history". Civilization, according to Toynbee, is a closed society, characterized by two main criteria: religion and the form of its organization; a territorial sign, the degree of remoteness from the place where a given society originally arose.

Toynbee identifies 21 civilizations:

1. Egyptian,
2.andean,
3. ancient Chinese,
4.Minoan,
5. Sumerian,
6. Mayan,
7. Syrian,
8. indian,
9. hittite,
10. Hellenic,
11.western,
12. Far East (in Korea and Japan),
13. Orthodox Christian (main) (in Byzantium and the Balkans),
14.Orthodox Christian in Russia,
15. Far East (main),
16. Iranian,
17.arabian,
18.hindu,
19. mexican,
20.yucatan,
21. babylonian.

Also, in addition to those listed, Toynbee identifies unborn civilizations (Far Western Christian, Far Eastern Christian, Scandinavian, unborn Syrian "Hyksos era" - the middle of the II millennium BC), as well as a special class of delayed civilizations that were born, but were stopped in their development after birth (Eskimos, nomads of the Great Steppe, Ottomans, Spartans, Polynesians).

The scientists put forward criteria for assessing civilizations: stability in time and space, in situations of Challenge and interaction with other peoples. He saw the meaning of civilization in the fact that comparable units (monads) of history go through similar stages of development. Successfully developing civilizations go through stages of emergence, growth, breakdown and decay. The development of civilization is determined by whether the creative minority of civilization is able to find answers to the challenges of the natural world and the human environment.

Toynbee notes the following types of challenges: the challenge of a harsh climate (Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, Mayan, Andean civilizations), the challenge of new lands (Minoan civilization), the challenge of sudden blows from neighboring societies (Hellenic civilization), the challenge of constant external pressure (Russian Orthodox, Western civilization) and the challenge of infringement, when society, having lost something vital, directs its energy to develop properties that compensate for the loss.

Each civilization gives a response formulated by its "creative minority" to the Challenge thrown to it by nature, social contradictions and, in particular, by other civilizations. At the stages of emergence and growth, the creative minority finds an answer to the challenges of the environment, its authority grows and civilization grows. At the stages of breakdown and decay, the creative minority loses the ability to find answers to the challenges of the environment and turns into an elite that stands above society and no longer controls by force of authority, but by force of arms. The majority of the population of civilization turns into an internal proletariat. The ruling elite creates a universal state, the internal proletariat creates a universal church, the external proletariat creates mobile military detachments.

The concept of Hellenic civilization lies at the center of Toynbee's historiosophical constructions. The scientist fundamentally rejected the category of socio-economic formation.

Toynbee on Russia:

Toynbee considers continuous external pressure to be the main challenge that determined the development of Russian Orthodox civilization. For the first time it began from the nomadic peoples in 1237 with the campaign of Batu Khan. The answer was to change lifestyles and renew social organization. This allowed, for the first time in the history of civilizations, a sedentary society not only to defeat the Eurasian nomads, but also to conquer their lands, change the face of the landscape and ultimately change the landscape, transforming nomadic pastures into peasant fields, and camps into settled villages. The next time terrible pressure on Russia followed in the 17th century from the Western world. The Polish army occupied Moscow for two years. The answer this time was the foundation of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great and the creation of the Russian fleet on the Baltic Sea.

Communism Toynbee saw as a "counterblow", repulsing what the West had imposed in the 18th century. in Russia. The expansion of communist ideas is only one of the inevitable responses to the contradiction "between Western civilization as an aggressor and other civilizations as victims." An eyewitness to the death of Victorian England, two world wars and the collapse of the colonial system, Toynbee argued that "at the height of its power, the West faces non-Western countries that have enough desire, will and resources to give the world a non-Western look." Toynbee predicted that in the 21st century. the history-defining Challenge will be Russia, which has put forward its own ideals (which the West does not want to embrace), the Islamic world and China.

Today we continue the story of famous conceptualists whose theories somehow changed the world. On our agenda short biography, main ideas and bibliography of the famous British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 - 1975) - British historian, philosopher, culturologist and sociologist. With his direct participation, the theory of civilizations was developed, he studied the problems of globalization.

Biography
Toynbee was born in London. Of the well-known relatives, he had an uncle, Arnold Toynbee Sr. (died in 1925), a socialist-reformer, a fighter for the rights of the working class in Victorian England. Toynbee studied and later taught at Oxford's Balliol College. He also worked at Winchester College and Kings College. Later (from 1919 to 1924) he worked at the University of London, School of Economics, Institute of International Relations. In 1913 he married Rosalind Murray. During the First World War, together with James Bryce, they collected materials on the crimes of the Germans in Belgium and the Armenian genocide by the Turks.
Toynbee's first work in 1913 was a work on ancient Sparta.
Throughout his life, he worked and consistently published the main work - "Comprehension of History" - where he outlined his own theory of civilization.

Key Thoughts and Ideas
Toynbee's main idea is the theory of local civilizations. The bottom line is that in the world there were two dozen separate civilizations connected by subtle military-trade relations. All civilizations consistently followed the same path from birth to death. A distinctive feature of civilization is its own religion and region of residence. So Orthodox Russia, for example, according to Toynbee, is a separate civilization.
The main characteristics of civilization Toynbee called stability in time and space in the conditions of the Challenge and in contact with other civilizations. The topic of the Challenge and overcoming the Challenge greatly excite sociologists and philosophers of our day. Challenges can be classified into: climatic, geographic, sudden military, permanent military and the so-called infringement challenge, when a civilization loses something life-organizing and tries to restore it.
It is characteristic that the answer to the Challenge, according to Toynbee, is given by the social intellectual minority of civilization, organizing and inspiring the majority. At the same time, it is far from certain that the answer will be given by the ruling intellectual minority. It may well turn out to be another minority - a new narrative - around which the majority will gather. And so there are revolutions, renewal and the growth of civilization.
At the same time, it should be mentioned that Toynbee fundamentally rejected the category of socio-economic formation. I really don't understand why.

Bibliography (in Russian)

• Toynbee A. J. Comprehension of history: Collection / Per. from English. E. D. Zharkova. - M .: Rolf, 2001-640 p., ISBN 5-7836-0413-5, circ. 5000 copies


• Toynbee A. J. Civilization before the court of history: Collection / Per. from English. - M .: Rolf, 2002-592 pp., ISBN 5-7836-0465-8, circ. 5000 copies


• Toynbee A. J. Experienced. My meetings. / Per. from English. - M .: Iris-press, 2003. - 672 p., ISBN 5-8112-0076-5, shooting gallery. 5000 copies


• Toynbee A.J. The role of personality in history. / Per. from English. - M .: Astrel, 2012. - 222 p.,