The Future of Man
Santoni, Ronald E.
The Future of Man Reviewed by Ronald E. Santoni With the sins of excessive nation'' alism now threatening the survival of civilization, Change and Habit is timely, important, and in need of...
...The Future of Man Reviewed by Ronald E. Santoni With the sins of excessive nation'' alism now threatening the survival of civilization, Change and Habit is timely, important, and in need of urgent attention...
...In an atomic age, Toynbee submits, man is in a position of having to choose between political reunification or mass suicide...
...Being human, man cannot abrogate his responsibilities by withdrawing behind a claim of being doomed...
...RONALD E. SANTONI is an associate professor of philosophy and acting chairman of that department at Denison University...
...Yet, whatever the shortcomings of this book, its masterly grasp of historical data and processes, its profound human sensitivities, and its call for THE REVIEWERS HARRISON E. SALISBURY is assistant managing editor of The New York Times...
...Moreover, Toynbee's either-or logic, his labored use of metaphor, his tendency to identify Christianity with practiced abuses of it, his failure to deal carefully enough with the structure of his proposed world-authority, are areas for justifiable questioning and criticism...
...And, since wars are fought by local sovereign states, and these states are likely to continue to wage war with one another so long as they keep their sovereign right to do so, the elimination of war requires abolishing local sovereignties and relegating the possession and control of all atomic weapons to a single world-authority...
...Having the power and responsibility of choice, man can choose to abandon his honored, but self-defeating, institutions of war and national sovereignty, to give up his formidable habits of tribalism and political disunity, and to decide that the counter-movement towards unification shall prevail...
...Toynbee's book is a plea for rationality and sanity, a passionate, desperate call for world-mindedness rather than nation-centeredness, for a concern that focuses on the welfare of mankind rather than one's tribe or country...
...In the atomic age, any attempt to follow this pattern would only bring about the mass suicide which, given Toynbee's proposal, a world-wide world-state is specifically intended to avoid...
...As such this book addresses one of the most crucial issues confronting national sovereignties today—an issue which demands sensitive, honest reflection and candid expression on the part of Americans—and, for the good of mankind, its suggestions and challenges should be heeded...
...With philosophical sensitivity, Toynhee returns the issue to his view of human nature...
...He is the author of a forthcoming study of F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Last Laocoon," to be published by Oxford University Press in the spring...
...So if a world-state is to be established at all in our age, it must be done, Toynbee insists, by peaceful means and common consent...
...C. W. GRIFFIN JR...
...One of the distinctive features of man's nature is his "apparent power to will," his apparent freedom to choose...
...He is the author of "William Faulkner: An Interpretation...
...ROBERT SKLAR is an assistant professor of history and American studies at the University of Michigan...
...Toynbee's view of man's contemporary predicament, though not entirely original, is presented lucidly and forcefully...
...man to put his species ahead of his nation, combine as a stimulus for self-re-examination and enlightened resolve...
...Toynbee's view of Nationalism (along with Communism and Individ-dualism) as a post-Christian ideology which, from a historical point of view, regresses to the idolatry of man-worship, will, though ringing with existential accuracy, offend many...
...Moreover, survival in an atomic age demands the elimination of the institution of war...
...JOHN S. GAAABS teaches economics at Hamilton College...
...But, although the overwhelming advances in technology have made conditions ripe for reunification of mankind, the temper of Western civilization down through history has been one of opposition towards unifying political movements, and there has been an "exacerbation of divisive political feeling," including that of disunifying Western nationalism...
...Faced with the problem of producing and distributing food to two or three times as many people by the year 2000, science, despite its capability of performing these extraordinary feats, will be paralyzed in its efforts unless the food policy of the world is determined and executed by a single-unit world food authority...
...These obstacles and habits of tradition do not, however, make man's doom inevitable...
...His suggestion that China, given the possibility of a reversion from "her present Westernizing national-minded-ness to her own traditional world-mindedness," might once again play the part of world unifier, will, understandably, arouse considerable controversy...
...IRVING MALIN teaches at City College of New York...
...For Toynbee, then, the renunciation of local sovereignties is a necessary condition for the continuation of civilization, and nationalism is simply a death-wish...
...is a free lance writer...
...If the book succeeds, we will proceed to act, knowing that it is we who are now alive who "bear the responsibility of holding the trusteeship for the species of which we are the momentary representatives...
...A problem arises with the realization that, in the past, all would-be world-states have been established by military conquest...
Vol. 30 • November 1966 • No. 11
