On the Plurality of Civilizations

* Book: ON THE PLURALITY OF CIVILISATIONS by FELIKS KONECZNY. POLONICA PUBLICATIONS, 1962

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"Translated from the Polish Introduction by ANTON HILCKMAN Professor at the University of Mainz (Germany); Preface by ARNOLD TOYNBEE."

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"For the first time in nearly 50 years, Feliks Koneczny’s magnum opus, On the Plurality of Civilisations, is available in an English translation. This book is a concise overview of the dominant civilizations of the world as well as an attempt to contrast and order them based on their histories and values – particularly law and ethics. It is an attempt to study the sum of human history from the standpoint of the diverse number of cultures and civilizations, and what they could in turn teach us about the human condition. For Koneczny was among the first proponents of what we would now call comparative historical and civilizational studies. For he believed in the possibility, and importance, of a general study of human affairs. In short, Koneczny’s conclusions are the concern of the whole of Western Civilization, especially during today’s crucial juncture. Even if this or that detail of his words will not pass the test of time, the essence of his doctrine seems unassailable. Those who are concerned about the fate of their country, as well as of Western society, can learn much from Koneczny."

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Excerpts

PREFACE by Arnold Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee:

"Polonica Publications have done a service to the study of human affairs in publishing the recent English translation of Feliks Koneczny's greatest work. It is one of several mutually independent studies of the structure of human affairs on the largest scale that have appeared in different parts of the Western World within the last two generations. Koneczny published the original Polish edition of this book after he had turned seventy, and he had the leisure to write it because he had been compulsorily retired from his chair as a penalty for having been outspoken in the cause of civic freedom. In short compass, Koneczny has discussed the fundamental questions raised by the study of civilizations, and he arrives at definite and valuable conclusions. After sketching the structure of society, he considers and rejects the thesis that differences in civilization are byproducts of differences in physical race. Indeed, he rejects the suggestion that these physical differences are in any way correlated with the spiritual ones. Turning to language, he does conclude that different languages are of unequal value for serving as vehicles for civilisations, but he refrains from taking these qualitative differences between different languages as being the explanation of the differences that he finds in the spiritual value of different civilizations. Turning to religion, he insists on the mutual independence of the "higher" religions and the civilizations. Koneczny believed in the possibility, and value, of a general study of human affairs. His own important contribution to this was the crown of his life-work as an historian. He approached his generalisations from the four standpoints of a student of East European and Central Asian history, a Pole. A Roman Catholic Christian, and a Westerner. Since the tenth century, Poland has been one of the eastern marches of the Western World. Koneczny's specialist studies as an historian worked together with his national heritage as a Pole to make him sensitive to the differences between civilizations, and this inspired him to study the sum of human history from the standpoint of the plurality of civilizations. It also made him an ardent patriot of the Western World. This did not prevent Koneczny from being also a patriotic Pole and a devout Roman Catholic Christian. But, for him, Poland's national culture has value as one of a number of national versions of a common Western or» as he prefers to call it, Latin culture; and Roman Catholic Christianity has value as being the Western form of Christianity par excellence. This has made Koneczny generous-minded towards Protestants. He sees in them, not dissenters from the Catholic fold but Western Christians who, in ceasing to be Catholics, have continued to be Western, fortunately for the West and for themselves. The same standpoint has made it difficult for Koneczny to appreciate Eastern Orthodox, Monophysite, and Nestorian 4

Christianity and the non-Christian higher religions. He appreciates Ancient Rome perhaps excessively, to the detriment of Ancient Greece. And he is hard on both the Byzantine and the Turanian (i.e. the Eurasian nomad) civilization. He classifies the civilization of Muscovite Russia as being Turanian; but, if Russia had been classified by him as being Byzantine, she probably would not have fared much better. Every student of human affairs, however eminent, is a child of his own social and cultural environment, besides being a unique personality with his own individual outlook on the Universe. He is limited, besides being stimulated, by his own particular historical standing-ground, which has been imposed on him by the accident that he has been born at a particular date in a particular place. Naturally, Koneczny's highly individual approach to his work is partly conditioned — like^ for instance, Danilevsky's and Spengler's and Vico's — by his cultural environment. It is fortunate that there should have been a number of thinkers wrestling with the same problem from different standing-grounds in time and space. It is also fortunate that one of these voices should have been a Polish voice, since Poland has a word to say to the present-day West, as Mr. Giertych points out in the Publisher's Preface to the present English translation of Koneczny's major work. Koneczny achieved all that he did achieve in a life that was stormy and tragic yet long. This Polish thinker's personal history is an epitome of the Polish nation's history. 'Indomitable' is the adjective that the name 'Poland' calls up in non-Polish minds. This foreword can, and should, be brief, because the Publisher's Preface, together with the illuminating introduction by my friend and colleague Professor Anton Hilckman, are all that is required for introducing Koneczny's work to the English-reading public."

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE by Jędrzej Giertych

Jędrzej Giertych:

The publishers of "Polonica Series" have decided to publish an English translation of the present book, because they believe that Koneczny's investigations of the problem of civilisation are important and relevant to the crisis of the Western world: also that his principal work may prove useful and stimulating to the Western reader looking for spiritual and moral orientation. For two reasons the whole heritage of the Western civilization is now endangered. First at all, the life of the Western world itself las become transformed by becoming more and more materialist. All the traditional spiritual values of the old Western civilization are now put in doubt and the illusory, external brilliance of Western life cannot conceal the restlessness, discontent and even despair of numerous and ^creasing sections of Western society; they "never had it so good" in a material sense, but are perfectly aware that this is insufficient and is sometimes even destructive to happiness. Clearly, the Western world now treads the path towards disintegration: ultimately it is impossible to live only for material aims, and a hedonistic society no longer aware of its spiritual foundations. cannot last. Secondly, Western civilisation has taken and is still taking a wrong turn in directing the fate of European expansion through out the globe. The colonial empires and the political influence of Europe in other parts of the world are rapidly breaking down, and this breeds in many strata of Western public opinion the suspicion that something was wrong with the basic political and cultural ideas of the West: that the comfortable belief of a historical mission and of a cultural superiority was mistaken, and that Europe did not perform the role of a civil user and educator of the world, but on the contrary, only exploited it. This means a breakdown of faith in Western civilisation, its Uniqueness and its universal value. On the other hand. the whole world has been conquered and continues to be conquered by cultural forms which come either from Europe, or from other parts of the world inhabited by descendants of European colonists; though these forms are quite different from what for centuries was considered to be the essence of European civilisation. Throughout the whole world people now use the same or almost the same cars, telephones, television sets, machine guns, watches and fountain pens as are used in Europe. They wear the same clothes, sit and sleep on the same furniture, cook and eat the same food. They read the same news in similar newspapers, read also the same books, see the same plays and films, listen to the same music, paint similar pictures and construct similar buildings. They learn the same subjects in similar schools. They have the same manners and customs and often the same morality. They recognise to some extent the same basic principles of law, order, decency and politics. Often, even such things as the Christian era and calendar, the Christian week, the Christian Sunday are accepted in countries, which are otherwise quite opposed to Christianity. European ideas are thriving throughout the world. Communism is no exception here: this doctrine which is being so widely used as a tool for the destruction of European political and cultural influence, is in fact a product of Europe. But in this cosmopolitan uniformity of material existence, of social life and even of intellectual trends moral ideas, the separateness of Western civilisation is being effaced. It is only the superficial side of Western culture, which has spread over the world. In consequence, even the notion of what really is and what in fact is not Western is beginning to be lost. There are many people nowadays who are inclined to consider Ankara and Tel-Aviv as belonging to the West. but at the same time to doubt if a poor and backward, but traditionally moral and orderly mountain village in Calabria or even in Old Castile can really be considered as Western. For many people — those who speak about the ."post-Christian era" and who view mankind in a biologistic manner as an incessant flow of change, in which there is nothing permanent and/enduring — the civilisation of old Europe is a thing of me past, or at the best. of a present time which is quickly coming to an end. They have lost faith in Western civilisation; they accept its decline, and even more: they do not regret it. They believe in the advent of a new civilisation, materialist and cosmopolitan, which will be as different from the old civilisation of the Christian West as the Christian West was different from the antique world, or as the civilisations of Arab Islam are different from old Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt. We do not share their views. And we are sure that millions of people in every country think as we do. We believe that the fundamental values of the Christian West have not lost and will not loose their validity. We believe that the Christian West need not die and we hope that it never will die. We believe that the material achievements of the Western civilisation are not its principal element but are only accessory, and that the real substance of this civilization consists in spiritual and moral principles. We believe, that the uniqueness of Western Christian civilisation is not an illusion or a lie, and that this civilisation has truly achieved a height not yet reached by other civilisations; the disintegration, which is now destroying its foundations in many places, does not affect this truth. (Feliks Koneczny said: "do not let us suppose that Latin — or Western Christian — civilisation will fall; we shall fall"). We believe that the Christian West has not lost its historical mission in the world: it still has the duty to spread Christianity among other peoples, to disseminate Christian moral ideals and principles, and to help other civilisations to rise to a higher moral level and to become fundamentally transformed thereby. We believe in all this perhaps more firmly than others — because we are Poles. We did not share in the centuries of Western pride and wealth and we are not guilty of the Western sins towards the rest of the world. which were born from an abandonment of Christian moral principles. We knew only misfortunes, sacrifice and effort. But this allows us to see more acutely the essentials: we are not affected by the disappointment of the present Western political decline; we see nothing new and unusual in disasters and ruins. But we know that life continues to flow after the earthquakes, that moral and cultural values do not cease to be valid, and that we still have to perform our duties. We do not despair of Western Christian civilisation; on the contrary we believe that the West, purified by misfortune and repentant of its sins. will raise its forces for new efforts and will become more faithful than before to its obligations, and will again achieve great things. Koneczny is a thinker who analyses the merits of existing civilisations and who rates Western Christian civilisation very high: -— not in what is accidental in its achievements, but in what essential in its foundations. During his long lifetime he studied the problem of civilisations in all its aspects, and arrived by inductive, objective investigation to conclusions, which allow us to understand better what are the essential elements of the Western Christian, or, as he calls it, the Latin civilisation: what makes this civilisation to differ, not superficially, but organically from other civilisations, and what is indispensable to its survival, health, and strength.

Koneczny's work is interesting for two reasons.

First, he invented a new method of investigating the life of human societies. He is an opponent of a priori judgements about civilisation an believes that problems connected with it should be weighed on the ground of accumulated facts taken from historical and social experience with the same impartiality and minuteness as in the problems of natural sciences. By the way. this inductive method, similar to the methods of investigation in natural sciences, has lead him to the rejection of some social theories drawn by other thinkers by analogy from those sciences.

Secondly, he arrived at the conclusions which we mentioned above. He sees in the Latin (Western Christian) civilisation the highest achievement so far of the historical development of humanity; he states what are the essential elements of this civilization and he teaches us a lot about what we should do to protect this civilisation from disintegration or decline. His practical lessons — intended by himself for the Polish nation which was and is permanently endangered by disintegrating influences from alien spiritual and cultural worlds — are similarly valid and useful for the nations of Western Europe or of America, which are subject, sometimes in lesser, sometimes even in greater degree, to the same disintegrating influences and pressures as Poland is. We hope that English and American readers will find Koneczny's work interesting and valuable, and with this hope we hand this book in to them. We asked a Western European admirer of Feliks Koneczny's thought."

Professor Anton Hilckman of the Mainz University in Western Germany, to be so kind as to introduce the present book to the English-speaking reader by evaluating Koneczny's contribution to modern thought, and by summarizing his main ideas. We hope that Professor Hilckman's introduction will stimulate the reader and attract him to read Koneczny's book itself — and perhaps in future also other Koneczny's books.

INTRODUCTION by Anton Hilckman

Anton Hilckman:

"One of the great spiritual aims of our time is the endeavour to understand history as a whole; several attempts have been made to achieve a universal historical synthesis, a general survey of universal history. This did not seem so pressing and urgent a task to the people of previous centuries as it does to us. of today. (This "today" we may understand as the period from the beginning of the present century.) Oswald Spengler's theory of history and culture was an attempt of this kind: planned on the grand scale and in parts splendid even if in detail it was vulnerable to criticism and if as a whole it was a miscarriage. There was no humanity for Spengler: humanity, was for him only an abstract notion, something non-existent, void of reality: and in consequence, neither was there any history of humanity. Not only had there been no such history in the past, but there could not possibly be such a history in the future. All that is historically relevant, says Spengler. has taken place within the compass of eight high civilisations, of which our own, the Western, is the latest; everything else is "non-historical being" and superlatively irrelevant. Spengler, whose historical thought is orientated by the biological sciences, considers the civilisations themselves as a sort of great mysterious organisms. They come to life, they blossom like flowers of the field; they are indeed a species of blossom, great, mysterious and wonderful; they bring their fruits to ripeness, and they wither and die because these miraculous organisms of the highest existing rank, like everything alive also are subject to the laws of life which are in their final aim the laws of death. An air of pessimism breathes through Spengler's learning. This is undeniable, although Spengler repeatedly and most energetically defends himself against the charge of pessimism. Today it is the historical doctrine of Toynbee, which stands in the forefront of discussion. Interest has been evoked among the educated public of the whole world by the extensive and deeply solid work of this author: a proof that the effort to understand history as a whole—to seize, one is almost inclined to say. Its innermost laws—has become one of the great longings, perhaps even the greatest longing of our day. Toynbee's doctrine represents in many respects an advance upon Spengler's historical picture. We do not find in Toynbee's work the dogmatic utterances of a speculative thinker who, believing himself to have discovered the essence of historical truth, tolerates no opposition to his theses; but rather the cautious formulations of an empiricist, who tries again and again to elucidate and to strengthen each of his opinions in the light of the facts. Again, in Toynbee's doctrine, we find place in history for the element of freedom; again, with him. man learns that in spite of all the powerful determining factors his fate is still put into his own hands, and he can create in liberty the future of his race. Philosophers of universal history are trying everywhere to comprehend the meaning of this age, to "lake the bearings of the present time” (Ortsbestimmung der Geenwart," the location of the present, is the title of a work by Alexander Ruestow.)

New paths are being explored. All these thinkers share a conviction that by examining historical facts in their entirety, judgments of general validity may be reached, even if nobody dare nowadays speak about "laws of history" in a strict sense. And this very hesitation seems to us to represent an advance from the attitude of the previous century, when there was so strong a tendency to judge the value of a discipline in the field of the humanities, like one in the field of natural science, by its ability to produce its own system of laws. The teachings, which emerge from history as a whole, are quite obviously of great practical value. From the experience and the understanding of history, politics take their orientation for good or evil, to be a curse or a blessing to the nations. That the nations could learn from history is generally recognised: whether in fact they have learnt much from history is another question. Can the nations then learn from each other?—can this nation learn from that? We believe it possible. It is quite certainly possible within the sphere of one single civilisation, a circle of nations, which have much in common. Had the Germans known in 1933 a little more of the history of England or of Switzerland, and had they made practical deductions from that knowledge, it would not have been possible for a Hitler to become a dictator of Germany, a demon to Europe and the bringer of such immeasurable sufferings upon Western humanity. We believe that the doctrine of a Polish thinker of our times, on history and on civilisation, can be of great importance to the general historical thought of the Western European nations as well as in the practical political shaping of their fates: provided, of course, that this doctrine becomes known. This statement of ours should not cause astonishment: Poland is the most easterly portion of Western Europe, the outpost of the West so to speak. For a thousand years the Poles were to the West a protecting wall against the East: against all that swelling flood which threatened Europe from an alien world that was arrayed more than once against our own world in hostility. A sentinel on a wall, a guard on an outpost, acquires an acute perception and recognition of what is foreign, what is alien, menacing and dangerous. It may therefore be of quite particular interest to make the doctrine of a Polish historical thinker accessible to the public of Western Europe. To the English-speaking public we present in this volume a translation of one of the major works of the Polish historical thinker, Feliks Koneczny. We believe that this historical doctrine can count on their interest, loo ; because we are fully convinced that this way of seeing history, with the consequent political ideas, is of the utmost importance for the community of Western peoples. Koneczny shares with most of the historical thinkers of our times the fundamental view of the plurality of civilisations. Historically speaking, there is no such thing as "humanity," or at least it does not yet exist; consequently there is no history of humanity as such, but only historical currents within each of the separate great human circles, which we now call civilisations. And these currents are at least to some extent, if not completely, independent of one another. This idea is not new: we meet with it in Vico, already in all its clarity, and today it is one of the fundamental assumptions of all historical thought. Unfortunately in the course of the history of ideas, this idea has suffered a great but accidental misfortune. The undoubtedly correct perception of the plurality of civilisations has become tied almost always to a completely different idea with which it has intrinsically no connection that the separate human civilisations are entities comparable with organisms, big creatures of semi-organic character upon which laws of life are binding, analogous to the laws of organic life. Already in Vico this idea is ringing; .we find it again and again throughout the more modern study of civilisations, in almost every one of its representatives no matter how they may differ otherwise in their points of departure and in their general views. We find this "biologic" treatment of civilisations in its most radical form represented by Oswald Spengler whom we mentioned above.

We believe that this "biologic" way of seeing the civilizations brings no benefit to universal history: nor does it benefit the study of civilisations, since the association of a correct fundamental perception—that of the plurality of civilisations—with an arbitrary and quite unproved additional assumption can only do harm. Had the study of civilisations held to the doctrine of Francis Bacon, who four hundred years ago created with his inductive method an instrument of progress for the natural sciences, this study would have avoided much error. But it has not done so. Only a very few of the great historical philosophers, who can be counted as precursors of the modern study of civilisations, have resisted the temptation of misusing the speculative method. In fact, besides the great Montesquieu, as forerunner of a science of civilisations based on empiricism and employing the inductive method, we can mention only the Polish thinker Hugo Kołłątaj, whom Koneczny explicitly mentions. Otherwise, it is precisely the "great names" among the philosophers of history who swear allegiance to the speculative method, even in respect of the very problems whose solution by the speculative method is quite impossible.

Feliks Koneczny, so far as it is at all possible in the field of humanities, is a thinker without preconceived ideas. His study of history begins from no postulates, except those, which he expressly mentions as such. We must acknowledge this as rather a great merit in him when we think how many preconceptions, mostly unacknowledged, load the historical philosophy of such a man as Spengler for instance. Koneczny absolutely accepts the principle that in comparing civilisations, and in considering history as a whole, the answers can only be obtained a posteriori; this means a complete renunciation of any a priori treatment. And a science which emerges when one keeps scrupulously and con sciensciously to the inductive method is a strict science, at least insofar as in the sphere of humanities there can be such a thing as a strict science. Koneczny calls his study the science of civilisations. That science which gathers together the whole result of all historical disciplines must necessarily become a science of civilisations, because the civilisations are the final spiritual units and the final moving forces of the course of historical events. Universal history becomes comprehensible only under the aspect of civilisations differing from one another and struggling against one another. We have already arrived at a situation in the history of ideas when the final constitution of a science of civilisations, as a separate discipline with its own foundations, can no longer be postponed. The last century saw the birth of many new scientific disciplines which dealt in part with problems which the science of civilisations must also encounter. Sociology in particular has been, and is. in fashion so to say: many people consider it as a sort of universal discipline, which contains general prescriptions for all other possible scientific disciplines in the sphere of humanities. Koneczny is not of this opinion and we agree with him. If we define sociology as the science of the ways and forms of social life—both of man and of animal—it becomes apparent that this does not embrace the whole complex of culture. There is still a gap in the system of humanistic sciences, which can be filled only by a new and specialised science; and this new science is the science of civilisations, for which no other discipline can be substituted. To this science we believe that Koneczny has made an altogether decisive contribution; and when in the future men will treat scientifically of civilisations, the name of Koneczny will occupy a place of honour. This opinion of ours will be accepted to by everybody who tries to gain a closer acquaintance with Koneczny's science, everybody especially who will follow him to an understanding of the particular way in which the Western civilisation differs from all others. That a civilisation is a scientifically definable notion and not only a convenient collective denomination for disparate things could be easily proved. Every civilisation is a coherent system of values, and of judgments on values; of moral distinctions and social precepts, which point to each other and depend upon each other. Putting it briefly, a civilisation is a general way of life. When we say that an Indian is culturally different from us.

We mean by this that the relation of man to man, the relation of different social factors to each other, are not the same in India as in Western Europe; different civilisations mean different ways of seeing values, and different ways of resultant behaviour. Differences of civilisation are differences too in personal life-aims, as well as in the consequent differences in attitude and conduct towards others. Clearly these differences are of the utmost importance, since the civilisations are the highest subdivisions of humanity under its spiritual aspects. It is impossible to turn to humanity and to pass silently over the differences of civilisation, as if these did not exist or as if they were of secondary importance. Only in the light of a science of civilisations is it possible to understand the present antinomy of East and West. Only a science of civilisations is able to point out to Western man his highest aims, which at the same time mean a duty towards the whole world. Again and again Koneczny indicates that every political theory and every political praxis which disregards the differences of civilisations within humanity, or which does not reckon with those to a sufficient degree, is doomed to total sterility and in consequence must come to nothing. The science of civilisations, as thought of by Koneczny — as a science concerning the unfolding of the humanifas within time— must be self-transformed into a central science among the humanities; and it is also easy to see that the insights and conclusions of such a science, embracing the totality of what is human, must be of the utmost practical importance. We do not hesitate to consider the doctrine of Koneczny to be one of the sharpest weapons which can serve in the struggle for the defence of the West. His view of the differences between the basic forms of civilisations allow him to interpret the history of the Western nations in many respects quite otherwise than has usually been done before. It is not the Imperial idea, of which the Germans felt themselves to be the bearers, which now appears as the truly Western idea: but something quite different, the idea of a federal Europe conceived as a brotherhood of nations, equally free and with equal rights. The Imperial idea, on the other hand, originated much more in the Byzantine world; and during the whole of the Middle Ages the role of the Byzantine world was to the Western world rather that of a temptation. In view of this, the Ghibellinism of the Middle Ages appears in quite a different light. The peculiar phenomenon of Prussianism obtains only thanks to Koneczny's doctrine of civilisations a true explanation. What is the essence of this extraordinary phenomenon? — Prussia, which was something like a permanent provincial rebellion against all that was generally European? To this question too we find in Koneczny an answer which is basically accurate. But it is his explanation of Russianism which we consider to be, above all, one of the greatest merits of Koneczny. Exactly in the present situation of the world, a clear comprehension of the spiritual roots of this phenomenon with which we are so ill at ease is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, even the leading intellectual personages of Western Europe are inclined in a vast childlike innocence to believe that the whole of the present state of affairs in Russia is only transitory, and therefore to underestimate the menacing reality of modern Communist-led Russia. To shock the optimists into wakefulness is not a pleasant duty. but it is a duty none the less, and Koneczny does not evade it. Today Western civilisation stands in face of the gravest and most dangerous crisis in her whole history. She stands confronted by a menace which comes not only from outside but also from within, since for many people within the domain of the Western world itself the traditional values of its civilisation no longer present a living spiritual obligation. In the circumstances, everybody who sharpens our awareness of this obligation is welcome to us.

We believe that Koneczny's doctrine is the concern of the whole of Western European society. Even if this or that detail of his words will not pass the test of time, the essence of his doctrine seems to us unassailable. Everyone to whom the fate of his own country, as well as that of Western society, is dear, can learn much from Koneczny."

For more, see: Anton Hilckman on Feliks Koneczny and the Comparative Science of Civilization