Grace & Peace!
He also makes the point that modern civilization is unique in a different sort of way:Toynbee distinguished 21 great civilizations in human history, of which ours is the latest. Every one of them admitted the Tao, objective moral truths. Ours is the first civilization to deny the Tao. The most radically new feature of our civilization is not technology, its newly powerful means, but the lack of an end, a summum bonum. We are the first civilization that does not know why we exist.Still, if one reads to the end, he does give some reasons for hope.
I think in this discussion that it’s important not to confuse the end of Western Civilization with the End of the World unless one is clear that one is metaphorically conflating one’s own civilization with the entirety of the world.
Civilizations end. The Aztec civilization ended. The Mayan ended. The Egyptian ended. The Greco-Roman/Classical ended. They all end. Ours, too, will end. In the Spenglerian historical sense (which is not so far from the Toynbee sense), the guiding principle of Western or Faustian civilization has been the striving towards infinite space. No other culture has grappled with the infinite in the ways we do–infinite number series, infinite space, quantum physics, string theory. Kreeft suggests that our culture has not defined an end or summum bonum for itself. He’s quite wrong, actually, though the truth of the matter is not necessarily any more heartening–we wish to be endless. Our end is endlessness. Our particular technological gifts have given us the ability to partially achieve the goal–we can represent, extend, and perpetuate ourselves in an infinite number of variations and configurations through the media, through our commitment to virtuality, through the global movement of capital, through brand identification and mass production. The same culture which gave birth to the Gothic Cathedral and its infinite upward striving has given birth to the “Desert of the Real” of Baudrillard–the endless simulacrum. The cathedral and the desert are two sides of the same cultural coin; perhaps the conversion of the former into the latter has to do with mistaking the indefinite for the infinite.
Anyway: Western civilization is dying. It has been for a couple hundred years. Using Spengler’s cyclical model, we’re in a new imperial age during the bitterest winter of our culture. There will be no spring for us. Our civilization will implode (like the Classical, like the Aztec, etc.) and another will take its place. That’s the way the horrible wheels of history turn.
I suppose my point is this: we should not confuse the end of our civilization with the end of the world, otherwise we risk confusing the Second Coming with a historical event–that is, an event subject to the laws and exigencies of history. The Second Coming is the completion of the work of the Incarnation, and while it is true that the Incarnation occurred in time, it represented the rupturing of history–the movement of eternity into the field of time, the opening of history to eternity to accomplish the redemption of history. The Second Coming is the completion of that gesture.
While our civilization is important, so is every other civilization. Is our end sad or worrisome? Sure it is. Is it cause for universal or cosmic alarm? Only if we confuse our historical moment with the entire process of history.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
Deo Gratias!
