T. A. Gardner
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Success often breeds those things.
America: A thoroughly failed experiment
- Thread starter Yakuda
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Success often breeds those things.
Into the Night
Verified User
He isn't here. Answer the question.
Into the Night
Verified User
You've already said this. You have not answered why yet.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Toynbee's thesis in A Study of History, among other such books, is that nations and societies that thrive and advance do so in the face of adversity. Great and successful nations are not found where there is plenty and little or nothing threatens them.
Nations go into decline when they become so successful that their population has plenty, and threats--real ones, not potential ones--don't exist. America today is in that position. Yes, China is a potential threat but not an immediate one like say, the Soviet Union was. There the threat existed, and the Cold War was impetus to do something. China isn't so obvious a threat--at least not yet.
The US has plenty too.
The combination creates a population that becomes indolent, dependent, and corrupt (socially and economically). The nation goes into decline, and when threats do appear that nation can no longer deal with them. It results in collapse.
Why this happens is the population doesn't feel, think, whatever, that they have to do anything with their life other than live one of pleasure without serious consequence. People in such a society see no reason to put forward effort when they are comfortable and have plenty. In Imperial Rome, the citizenry stopped going into military service for example. The legions of Rome became mostly filled by mercenaries and foreigners who were not beholden to Rome but to the general running the legion who might or might not be loyal to Rome.
Look at the US today. The current generations don't want to have to do anything like hard work to get ahead. They fully expect parents, the system, government, to hand them a comfortable life for no effort. Morality is pretty much gone down the shitter and the US today is almost hedonistic across the board. It's the result of our own success.
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Into the Night
Verified User
Okay, I'll look at the US today. There are some very hard workers among today's generations. They do not want government to hand them a 'comfortable life' (which is actually a life of misery, and they know it).
There are also the lazy, and there are more of them than before, mostly in the cities. They are the gangs, the homeless, and the bums. They are the students expecting the heavy loans they took out to go to school to be forgiven. They are the useful idiots, following their leader in supporting sexual perversions of every kind.
No, you can't label everyone the same. That's just bigotry.
I don't see Toynbee's argument coming to pass.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
But it is, your trying to use a fallacy of composition notwithstanding. The problem today, both in the US and Europe is that an increasingly large portion of the population isn't willing to work hard or accept privation. It isn't just gangs, homelessness, and the like but things like a decreasing portion of the population is eligible for military service. That mediocre, marginal workers are demanding a "living wage" on less than a full work week.
Those that are willing to work hard, and not take a government handout are decreasing in number. It isn't just America that suffers this problem, but the whole of Western civilization. We've been too successful.
While the entry hardly does Toynbee justice, it's a start:
Toynbee argues that civilizations are born out of more primitive societies, not as the result of racial or environmental factors, but as a response to challenges, such as hard country, new ground, blows and pressures from other civilizations, and penalization. He argues that for civilizations to be born, the challenge must be a golden mean; that excessive challenge will crush the civilization, and too little challenge will cause it to stagnate. He argues that civilizations continue to grow only when they meet one challenge only to be met by another, in a continuous cycle of "Challenge and Response". He argues that civilizations develop in different ways due to their different environments and different approaches to the challenges they face. He argues that growth is driven by "Creative Minorities": those who find solutions to the challenges, who inspire (rather than compel) others to follow their innovative lead. This is done through the "faculty of mimesis." Creative minorities find solutions to the challenges a civilization faces, while the great mass follow these solutions by imitation, solutions they otherwise would be incapable of discovering on their own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_of_History
The point I'm making is that collectively, not individually, Western society is crumbling as a result of its own success.
Into the Night
Verified User
Inversion fallacy. This is YOUR problem. Don't try a LIF with me!
You need to get out more.
Why would anyone want to join a woke, fucked up military like ours right now?????!?
This has always so.
You need to get out more. There is more to this world than news articles.
No, you cannot steal Toynbee's argument as your own. You have to provide your own reasoning.
You need to get out more and see for yourself. It's just not happening.
Mason Michaels
Verified User
Sounds like a Trump cum gargler,mad his hero got beat