World Affairs Institute

IS THERE A WESTERN TRADITION?

Author(s): Arnold J. Toynbee
Source: World Affairs, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Fall, 1948), pp. 151-156
Published by: World Affairs Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20664606
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AFFAIRS

WORLD
PAX OMNIUM
WORLD

AFFAIRS

RERUM

TRANQUILLITAS

welcomes

all

order and
for world
proposals
censors any
of the views

constructive

ORDINIS
comments

It neither

peace.
expressed

by

sponsors
the writers.

and
nor

ISTHEREAWESTERN TRADITION?*
BY ARNOLD
Teacher

J. TOYNBEE

and author in the field of History.

recent books are A STUDY OF HISTORY
ON TRIAL
CIVILIZATION

Among
and

his

'Is there aWestern

is arousing
tradition?' The question
and
Western
this, I believe,
people;
deep feelings among
is a new thing that has happened within our own lifetime.

Thirty years ago, before the Russian Revolution,

people
there was
in theWest were not asking themselves whether
such a thing as a Western
civilisation with a way of life
were wholly
we
own.
ab
its
At
that
Westerners
of
time,
our
Western
inside
sorbed in domestic
quarrels
family,
we were not bothering much about our relations with the
rest of the world, for, though we were
and are-a
rather
small minority of the human race, at that time we were
top dog. We
just took it for granted
undisputedly
the rest of mankind
had to submit to being dominated
theWest,
and that this was a blessing for them.

that
by

What
this question
about a 'Western
has made
tradi
I sup
tion' such a live one in theWest
since then? Well,
For about 250 years,
pose we have had a great shock.
that the rest
down to 1917, we Westerners
had assumed
of the world
there. And

challenged

was

at our feet, and that itwas going to stay

supremacy was
then, suddenly, our Western
by a great non-Western
community.

COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
Before

AGAINST WESTERN

that, ever since the time of Peter

*By permission of the British Broadcasting- Co.

and Mr.

IDEALS
the Great,

the

Toynbee.

151

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152

World

Affairs,

had, for the most part, taken Western

as their pattern.
And then, all at once,

Russians

Fall,

1948

life and

they be
even
They

thought
gan to denounce

theWest
and all its works.
a counter-offensive,
and started the same kind
of missionary work in theWest
that we Westerners
have
been carrying on for the last few centuries inRussia,
India,
This Russian
and the rest of the world.
propa
China,
and that has
unsuccessful:
ganda has not been altogether
given us a fright.
launched

is not the first time that we Westerners

This

have

found

ourselves in danger of this kind. Between 300 and 400

there used to be cases of Western

Christians
as
our
we
see
in
time
Western
believers
'turning Turk,'
in free enterprise
and
'turning Communist';
though then,
as now, the number of the converts was not
large, and
no
were
our
there
West
Muslim
cells inside
propaganda
ern body
our
ancestors
those
took
defections
tragi
social,

years

ago,

cally, as we are taking our similar losses

Here
is a point which we Westerners

today.
often overlook,

think. This upsetting experience of being bombarded by

a foreign way of life, and losing converts to it, is not an

are being put
that has been confined to us. We
experience
were
now
our
ancestors
it
the
and
by
Russians,
through

put through itby theTurks.

have suffered in this way at

But what we Westerners
the hands of Turkish Muslims
Communists
and Russian
we
to
is mild
what
have been inflicting on the
compared

and
and Hindus,
Chinese,
Japanese.
Old
the
other
in
non-Western
Africans,
peoples
times. The very moderate
and the New
inmodern
World
treatment that the Russians
dose of the same upsetting
Russians,

Muslims
and

all

have been giving us during the last thirtyyearsmay help

us faintly to imagine what the terrific impact of theWest

has meant for the rest of mankind
during these last three
centuries.

'Is there aWestern tradition?' The other fellows,who

have been hit by it, certainly believe that there is. We
Westerners

have

not a common

name

for ourselves;

we

did not need one so long as we were securely top dog and

were

not

Christians

on

and

the defensive.

But

the Eastern

the Muslims

do have

a name

orthodox
for us.

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World

Affairs,

Fall,

1948

153

because the Franks were the

call us 'the Franks,'
They
the larger part
in an empire embracing
dominant people

ofWestern Christendom, which Charles the Great put

A.D. 800.
In practice, today, the
together round about
use it,means all Catholics
name 'Franks,' as the Orientals
In fact, religion enters into this for
and all Protestants.

eign definition of ourWestern

society; and I think that

sense, because every civilisation has religious foun

which cannot be conjured
away by forgetting or
I expect the Rus
their existence-as
denying or concealing
sians will find out as well as we.

makes

dations

belief in the existence of a pe

culiar Western
tradition by some familiar piece of history.
that is certainly an event in the
the Reformation:
Take
Let

us test this Oriental

historyofEngland, Scotland, and Ireland; Spain and Por

the Low Countries,

and Italy;
tugal; France, Germany,
and
But when we
and Scandinavia;
Poland
Hungary.
or
on
into
from Hungary
from Poland
into Russia,
pass
we do not find the
into Morocco,
Serbia, or from Spain

too.
in these other countries,
Reformation
happening
There
is a definite, geographical
line at which thisWest
ern event called the Reformation
came to a stop.

of history from the sixteenth to the

find wigs and powder
century, and you will
same
as
at
Work
the
the
the
Reformation.
line
stopping
line out for yourselves,
and you will find that, even now
Turn

the page

eighteenth

that our Western

out of Western
has expanded
world
into
it includes
the
the
and
Europe
Americas,
antipodes,
a
a
and
still
smaller
the
earth's
of
small
part
only
surface,
fraction of mankind.
The Reformation,
then, is one case of an experience
to them as dis
shared by all Western
people, but peculiar
A common experience,
tinct from the rest of the world.

yes! But not one thathas given birth to common princi

ples or common ideals! Catholics and Protestants are
equallyWestern, yet theyare poles apart on issues of the
utmost importance: for example, the crucial issue between
authoritarianismand individualism.
It is difficult-perhaps impossible-to find any set of
principles, ideals, or practices thatare accepted and agreed,

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154

World

dispute, by all Westerners

of theWestern
tradition.

without

Affairs,

as being

Fall,

1948

the hall-mark

Let us run through

hall-marks?
In religion, is it Cath
the main provinces of social life.
that represents the genuine West
olicism or Protestantism
ern tradition?
It can hardly be both, and we have been
are our Western

What

for more
disputing
to
able
agree which
faith.
In politics,

than four centuries now without being

of the two is the trueWestern
religious

is it autocracy,

or mili

parliamentarianism,

tarydictatorship? The English-speaking peoples always

assume

is the
discussion
that parliamentarianism
man.
the
modern
in
faith
Western
of
Yet,
political
the states in which parliamentary
Western
govern
world,
concern have always been
in a
ment has been a going
without

true

minority.
If one

is to decide
the main

the question democratically

by count
tradition
line of our Western
political

ing heads,
not by the Mother
but
of Parliaments,
is represented,
in
the
of
either by an old-fashioned
autocracy
King
style
or by a revolutionary mili
II, of King Louis XIV,
Phillip
in the style of Cromwell,
tary dictatorship
Napoleon,
or
Hitler.
Mussolini,
about economics, which arouse stronger
Western
hearts than ever politics or
in
modern
feelings
that is the true
In
is
it
Socialism
economics,
religion?
or
the
economic
is
it
rival
Western
system that is
faith,
called 'free enterprise' by its friends and 'capitalism' by its
now what

And

Free
enemies?
so is Socialism,

as other brands.

but, then,
enterprise is certainly Western;
as well
Socialism
too; yes, and Marxian

Where did Marx get his doctrine and his programme?

Such

things are not

invented

in a vacuum.

Marx

created

Marxism under the painful impressionof industrial con

ditions inVictorian England. And where did theprophet
himself foretell that his social revolutionwould break out
first? In Russia? Marx never thought of that. The
Marxian

revolution

was

to be the appropriate

retort to the

social evils of theWestern industrial revolution; and

Marx had no doubt thatEngland, the pioneer industrial

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World

Fall,

Affairs,

country, would
other candidate.

1948

be

155

for social

ripe

revolution

before

any

In England,
today, we seem at last to be righting a
the
of
inflicted by the industrial revo
wrongs
good many
one
says this with fear and trembling
lution, but-though

does look as thoughwe might succeed in achieving

-it

this great

social

without committing
readjustment
acts
to
of
violence
which the Marxian
principled
condemn us.
would
PRODUCT
That

OF THE WEST

Now

the un

scheme

UNACCEPTABLE

the Marxian

inoculation
should have
'taken' in
a
it
is
Western
when
it had
Russia,
foreign
import,
not 'taken''in England,
where
it is a native Western
prod
uct, is one of those pranks that history loves to play. Marx
ism is a native product of theWest,
and a foreign Western
not the West,
is where
yet Russia,
import into Russia;
where

the Marxian

have

Why

its future.
ideology has, in fact, made
the Russians
taken to this particularly West

ern ideology so kindly? I suppose, because they feel like

in a battle who

an enemy gun and

captured
owners.
have turned it against its original
Marxism
is a
handy anti-Western weapon because it is aWestern
heresy.
to the non-Marxian
Those
of us who belong
of
majority
Westerners
would
have very much preferred
to see our
Western
ideas and ideals exported
in some less anti-tra
ditional form. But our own past Western
attempts to ex
our
traditional
Western
have
all been fail
port
religion
soldiers

have

ures.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for

instance,
the Jesuits, by exercising very great skill and tact, made
considerable
progress towards converting China and Japan
to Roman Catholicism.
But when they had reached a cer
tain point,

the Chinese

and

Japanese

would

not have

it.

Russia is the firstnon-Western society that has been con

verted to aWestern religion of any kind; and ifyou think
of it like that,you will see that, inembracingourMarxism,
the Russians have paid theWest a kind of left-handed
compliment.
Has, then, ourWestern civilisation any distinguishing

mark

at all

that is common

to all Westerners,

in contrast

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156

World Affairs, Fall, 1948

to the majority
of mankind?
If you put that question
to non-Westerners,
most of them, I believe, would
say
that there was one quite distinctive
about
the
West:
thing
we have, per
our uncanny genius for technology.
Here
on something
common
to
that
hit
is
Westerners
of
haps,
every

creed.

This special turn that we have for applying scientific

to practical affairs is the source of our enormous

knowledge
It is the talisman that has made us mas
material
power.
ters of the modern world.
And, whatever may be the out
come of Russia's
su
to our present Western
challenge
premacy, we may be fairly sure that,
is going to remain at the mercy
world

in any event, the

of Western
tech

nology.
What
will our Western
some
in
future age when
society, and

tradition look like in retrospect,

our Western
society, the Russian
the other now-living
civilisations are all long

since dead and buried? One thing, I think,can be fore

told already about the ultimate effectsof ourWestern

these effects are going to be extreme, whether

technology:
for good or evil.
If our characteristic Western
gift proves to have been
a blessing for mankind,
itwill be a great blessing;
and, if
a curse, a great curse.
If things go well,
the epitaph of
on
run:
the Franks may
'Here lie the technicians
history

who united mankind,' and if things go badly: 'Here lie

the technicians who

What

are

exterminated

the human

race.'

years of the history of the ma

the two hundred
thousand years of

the hundred

chine compared

with

the history ofman? It was only yesterday thatwe began

to pitch our camp in thiscountryof laboratoriesand power
stations, thatwe took possession of thisnew, this still un
finished,house we live in. Everything round us isnew and

different-our
concerns,
one another.

our working

habits,

our relations

with

Antoine de Saint Exup~ry

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