Will Durant, author of the monumental History of World Civilization (also translated as The Story of Civilization), once said:
If the process of spreading civilization is interrupted for more than a century, civilization will die and we will become barbarians again.
Thousands of miles of embankment, collapsed in the anthill. History is not always progressive, and it often reverses. The collapse of many civilizations in history was by no means completed overnight, and when the edifice was about to collapse, there must be various signs.
▌Collective arrogance and fanaticism
If God wants it to perish, he must first make it mad. There are too many cases in history to prove this. Whether it was Tsarist Russia before World War I, or the Great Qing Dynasty, whether it was Hitler before World War II, or Hideki Tojo in World War II, arrogance and fanaticism were their common characteristics, and collapse and destruction were also their common fate.
This is why the sin of arrogance is considered the most serious of the "seven deadly sins". Because, arrogance is the beginning of the fall of man. Therefore, Durant believes that human history is just a moment in the universe, and the first thing we need to learn is humility.
▌Competition and choice are gradually disappearing
Durant said, "Life is competition, life is choice." We are governed by the evolutionary process and tested by the laws of the biological world, the survival of the fittest. Competition and choice, along with the entire process of the development of human civilization, is one of the major driving forces to ensure that civilization is renewed.
In some areas, however, competition has been replaced by institutional arrangements, stipulating that some people can go to school, some people can't, some people can do business, and some people are only eligible for consumption...... This has deprived people of their freedom of choice, and has caused the whole society to lose its vitality, and civilization has come to a standstill or even regressed.
▌ Replace cooperation with struggle and closure
"Civilization is a product of cooperation, and almost all nations have contributed to it," Durant said. "The difference is just how much you contribute. In some regions, the society is always very open and cooperation is always common, and their social progress will be relatively fast, and their contributions to civilization will naturally be more.
In other areas, on the contrary, societies are always closed and lack cooperation with each other, replaced by all-pervasive struggle and dumping, refusing to learn from the outside world and resisting everything that comes from outside.
In such a place where "cars are built behind closed doors", civilization is destined to be "unadaptable", and if the "soil" itself does not change, it will be difficult to have any substantial development.
▌ Collective decline in spiritual and moral standards
An important reason why history itself repeats itself on and off is that human nature changes as slowly as the ground changes, and as time goes by, the character of the people does not change much. No matter how the dynasty changes, the human factors that led to the collapse of the previous society can often lead to the collapse of the next society.
Durant said: "The foundation of society is not in human ideals, but in human nature. The constitution of human nature can rewrite the constitution of the state. "If the spiritual and moral level of the people of a country as a whole is in continuous decline, then the level of civilization of the country will inevitably regress.
▌Radicalism is in vogue
Durant said: "Social evolution is the process of interaction between habit and innovation. Conservatives who resist change are just as valuable – and perhaps more valuable – than radicals who propose change, because deep roots are more important than leafy foliage. ”
It is a pity that human history has been mired in fanatical radicalism time and time again. The French Revolution is the clearest example of this.
In pursuit of the so-called "fraternity, equality and freedom", the French smashed all traditions, but in the end they were rewarded with a long period of turmoil. This trend of thought has also spread all over the world, and it has been poisoned to this day.
▌ Average wealth by violent means
"The concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable and can be periodically mitigated by violent or peaceful partial redistribution," Durant said. "But we must be aware that different ways of redistributing wealth can cause varying degrees of harm to civilization.
With the help of a legal, peaceful redistribution of wealth, the harm to civilization is limited. However, the use of violent means to "kill the rich and help the poor" and "average wealth" is not uncommon in history, and it will be repeated in some areas.
When any pursuit of wealth becomes a crime, people fall into the trap of collective poverty and achieve servile equality.
▌ Enforce utopianism
Utopianism usually promises people the best possible future: an all-powerful government, adequate welfare, and an equal society......
Later generations often believed that utopianism was a product of a particular era, "the inevitable result of the defects of capitalism." However, Durant has eloquently proved with historical facts that the utopian impulse has always been buried deep in human nature throughout the ages, so it will always accompany human society.
And those who enforce "utopias" in order to realize the ideal of a "heaven on earth" are nothing more than "guinea pigs" who treat everyone as "guinea pigs" for social experiments, bringing only want, chaos, corruption and carnage......
If we lose civilization, we will surely return to barbarism.