Civilization and Art & Culture
Alfred Kroeber’s 1944 book, Configurations
of Culture Growth, is a masterpiece in the field of anthropology. He
was a 68-year-old professor at the University of California in Berkeley
when his 882-page book came out. Youth favours mathematicians and mobile
phone app writers but not anthropologists. They have no way of
bypassing the decades of reading and research and deep synthesis it
takes to become good in their field.
And so what did the great Kroeber conclude after all his work? First, that individual geniuses in the arts and sciences tend to rise from advancing cultures, not declining ones. The peak period of a culture is signalled by a spike in genius contributors in the sciences and the arts. (We could add technology.) The best Greek tragedies and comedies were written within a 100-year period when ancient Greece was at its peak. The peak in Germany’s music culture lasted less than 200 years. Of longer duration was England’s peak creative period in science and technology, which ran from about 1680 to 1910. The decline in genius contributors after that foreshadowed England’s decline as a global superpower.
Second, that cultures advance when ethics and values become understood and are deeply embraced and when competence is tested through competition. Cultures decline when the opposite happens. Most cultures don’t fall by being conquered, not at first. They wither from an erosion of values, insular thinking and a lack of competition. Not being robust from within or tested from without, cultures become weak without knowing it. Or sensing they might be rotting, they cling to comic book values, centralised authority and thicker walls of protective insularity as a means of stopping the decline.
And so what did the great Kroeber conclude after all his work? First, that individual geniuses in the arts and sciences tend to rise from advancing cultures, not declining ones. The peak period of a culture is signalled by a spike in genius contributors in the sciences and the arts. (We could add technology.) The best Greek tragedies and comedies were written within a 100-year period when ancient Greece was at its peak. The peak in Germany’s music culture lasted less than 200 years. Of longer duration was England’s peak creative period in science and technology, which ran from about 1680 to 1910. The decline in genius contributors after that foreshadowed England’s decline as a global superpower.
Second, that cultures advance when ethics and values become understood and are deeply embraced and when competence is tested through competition. Cultures decline when the opposite happens. Most cultures don’t fall by being conquered, not at first. They wither from an erosion of values, insular thinking and a lack of competition. Not being robust from within or tested from without, cultures become weak without knowing it. Or sensing they might be rotting, they cling to comic book values, centralised authority and thicker walls of protective insularity as a means of stopping the decline.
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