Civilizations that believe their history has ended are about to decline

Evidence

History ends at least once and occasionally more often in the history of every civilization. As the civilization’s universal state emerges, its people become blinded by what Toynbee called “the mirage of immortality” and convinced that theirs is the final form of human society. So it was with the Roman Empire, the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, the Mughal Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The citizens of such universal states “in defiance of apparently plain facts … are prone to regard it, not as a night’s shelter in the wilderness, but as the Promised Land, the goal of human endeavors.” The same was true at the peak of the Pax Britannica. For the English middle class in 1897, “as they saw it, history for them, was over. … And they had every reason to congratulate themselves on the permanent state of felicity which this ending of history had conferred on them.” Societies that assume that their history has ended, however, are usually societies whose history is about to decline. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 826 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The “end of history” moment produced civilizational despair rather than triumph. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 435; The zenith of past achievements often marks the start of decline we cannot see — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1552; Every civilization at its peak falsely believes its history has ended — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 826 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Every civilization at its peak falsely believes its history has ended #expands (0.92) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 826