How Civilisations Collapse, A Warning to the West

Civilisations die from suicide, not by murder
– A Study of History, 12-volume by Arnold Toynbee

Extraordinary civilisations are not destroyed from the outside, they are ruined from within. This is the conclusion of Professor Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume A Study of History. In his exhaustive study of twenty-one major civilisations, he finds a rich elite destroy the culture, productivity, wealth and faith of the majority and create a dictatorship of control, leading to decline. An example would be flooding the West with millions of people from other faiths and cultures, regardless of the consequences, and the elite censoring the facts about the long-term costs, crises and failure of integration.

The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower
– Deuteronomy 28:43

How Western Civilisation is Committing Suicide

Secularisation was once called the future of the West, but its weak foundation has collapsed, giving birth to wokeness, which is at war with freedom, science, faith, family and history. Secularisation has failed and the void it has left created a culture of violence, open borders, political dictatorship, theft, lawlessness, sexual abuse, pornification, debt, laziness, division, obesity, selfishness – in short, a Godless civilisation heading to collapse.

Civilisations collapse when they run out of taxpayers to fund their defence, education, utilities & essential services

Overwhelming Debt, Immigration, Diversity, Family, Abortion & Welfare

Suicide by Debt. When Western debt-to-interest-ratio makes funding services impossible. The annual interest payment on America’s planned 50 trillion dollar debt at a 4% interest rate would be 2 trillion dollars. How can you fund services and make interest repayments?

Suicide by Mass Immigration. When millions of migrants enter a country, with no demand for them to accept their culture, religion and beliefs have created a failed state overseas, they reproduced their failed state in the West.

Suicided by Diversity. A multicultural and multi-faith society is the polar opposite of a multi-ethnic society based upon shared values. In a multicultural society, towns and cities pull further away from each other creating ghettos of failed cultures, within a formally successful culture. There is a strain on resources as large numbers of immigrants put pressure on housing, education and social services. This leads to social tension, as rapid cultural change leads to one group refusing integration and creating ghettos of poverty, benefit addiction, anger and crime.

Suicide by the Destruction of the Nuclear Family. J.D. Unwin, in his pioneer study of 86 civilisations in history, Sex and Culture, found that when one man and woman commit to each other, and have children, they give more to society than they take. When they are replaced with a promiscuous heterosexual culture of men who father children they can’t provide for, the productive taxpayer is replaced with the benefit claimant and society collapses through lack of a tax base. From the promiscuous culture emerges LGBT and a further weakening of the tax base.

Suicide by Low Birth Rates. When women are taught that marriage and children are a burden, low birth rates and abortion create a collapse of civilisation. The tax base of lots of young people working, like a pyramid supporting a few elderly at the top, inverts, and civilisation collapses.

Suicide by Increased Dependency Ratio: The dependency ratio compares the working-age population to those who are dependent, like children, the sick, the unemployed, the economic inactive and retirees. A low birth rate and low economic activity rate increases the dependency ratio, straining resources and creating a civilisation collapse event.

Suicide by Ideological War: Bad ideas can be sold easily when they are attached to an emotional message. Defund the police, queers for Palestine, reparations for ancient crimes, destroy the patriarchy, whiteness is evil, etc., have all been sold with emotion and fraudulent data, but they result in disaster for society. Crime is rampant, Islamists are empowered, businesses shut down, failed culture is rewarded, racism thrives against whites and the nation is at war with itself.

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand
– Mark 3:24

Men, Feelings, Victimhood, Environmentalism and Self-Loathing

Suicide by the Destruction of Maleness. Western Asians’ prosperity has soared due to the presence of strong father figures in Asian households in the West. These men hold their children to high values and teach sacrifice, discipline, education, saving, investing, delayed-gratification, sexual propriety and family planning. The destruction of the father as a role model in African-American communities has resulted the opposite.

Suicide by the Worship of Feelings. Feelings are not reality, yet wokeness says anyone who feels they are not receiving social justice are right, and the entire society should be reshaped to meet the demands of their feelings. Men in dresses must be welcomed in female safe spaces and men in sport can take gold medals from women, etc.

Suicide by Victimhood Mentality. Competitive victimhood is now a means to achieve success, to such an extent that people invent racism and even hire others to attack them, to claim they are victims of racism. All forms of victimhood mentality create a weak society, destroying it from within.

Suicide by Ideological Environmentalism. The first environmentalists were Christians, who believed we should protect the planet because it is where people live. Woke environmentalists believe humans should suffer in cold, in hunger and without cheap power, to save the planet. They are replacing cheap and efficient energy resources with expensive and inefficient green energy.

Suicide by Self-Loathing. When young people are taught a one-sided version of history, they believe their nation is evil and become ignorant of how the West gave the world human rights, and how it ended the Slave Trade. As they loath the West, they use their power and influence to reproduce the culture of failed states and cultures in the West.

Learn not the way of the heathen
– Deuteronomy 12:30

Racism, Incompetence, Diversity, Tyranny & Globalisation

Suicide by a Self-Inflicted Genocide. When young people are taught that ‘whiteness’ is an evil, a new generation arises that goes to war with ‘whiteness.’ This is racism. Caucasians are a minority in major European cities, such as London, and if the trend continues, they will become a minority in the United States by 2100.

Suicide by Incompetence. When competent people are forcibly replaced by incompetent people in business, government and in the sciences, etc., due to the preference for the pigmentation of their skin or tick-box diversity, a culture of incompetence arises. Affirmative action is a set of policies designed to increase opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups, but it has fostered a culture of placing people in positions of power they are not ready or qualified for. One might ponder why NASA has failed to achieve its targets? Has diversity become more important than achievement?

Suicide by a False Priesthood. Unconscious bias training officers, teaching diversity and inclusion are a drain on the taxpayer, government, business and schools, etc. They drain the country of resources, teaching division as wisdom and loathing of the West. The pastors and priests who encourage family and sacrifice for the greater good are being replaced by a cancer at the heart of society. A 2021 study by The Heritage Foundation estimated an average of 45.1 people per university worked on promoting diversity and inclusion in the US. That’s resources which should be used to teach maths, science and technology.

Suicide by Emboldening Tyrants. Woke warriors believe Islamist extremists like Hamas, Isis, Islamic Jihad and the leaders of Iran are misunderstood. They embolden and empower tyrants to destroy the West.

Suicide by Globalisation. A tiny percentage of the elite is enriched by shutting factories and manufacturing bases in the West and sending them to China (and other countries). In forty years, the West has enabled a hostile Communist State in China to grow to the world’s second-largest economy to the detriment of working people, poor human rights and the stability of the world.

War, China, Apocalypse and the Rejection of Christianity

Suicide by War With China. In the case of a conventional war, the United States will defeat China’s simpler untested military, but it will come at an extensive cost to the United States and the world, with the foolish global supply chains being cut and the West losing 20% to 40% of its wealth.

Suicide by Nuclear Apocalypse. If a nuclear war began with China or Russia, in the best case scenario, ‘Continuity of Government,’ will follow, as the elite dominate the survivors from underground control centres, herding them into camps to be farmers and essential workers. In the worse case, criminal gangs will rule the survivors leading to a century of chaos.

Suicide by the Rejection of Christianity. As the historian Tom Holland points out in Dominion, the West was made by Christianity. When you destroy the foundation of the West, you build a new foundation of sinking sand that collapses. Faith in Christ gave us strong families, the Protestant work ethic, sacrifice and discipline for the greater good, and strong mental health. Destroying Christianity in the West is to destroy the West itself.

How Secularisation is Destroying the West

Secularisation Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil and Speaks No Evil. Secular ideas, such as creating a multi-faith society is blind to evil. It cannot see, hear or speak the evil that exists. As an example, authorities in Rotherham, UK, failed to protect over 1,400 girls from sexual exploitation by grooming gangs for nearly two decades because the gangs consisted of Muslim men of Asian decent. The police and authorities could not see, hear or speak the evil because of fear of being labelled, ‘racist,’ ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘xenophobic.’

Focus on Identity Politics: Secularisation created wokeness, which emphasises identity groups over shared values, it creates an ‘us versus them’ mentality. The woke spirit makes it impossible to have productive conversations about complex issues because it breaks down to the woke person accusing other people as being bigoted, racist, etc.

Shame and Cancel Culture: Wokeness creates censorship and public shaming, shutting down dialogue and fostering resentment. It is the rejection of Jesus’ teaching, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3).

Twisted, Delusional Social Justice Devoid of Facts: Younger generations embrace wokeness because it’s easy to sell a delusion when you control the media, Hollywood, social media, global institutions and filter history to strengthen your case. Meanwhile, older generations with experience based upon reality know their values based upon facts are being dismissed. As an example, ‘Queers for Palestine,’ is as logical as ‘Dinosaurs for asteroids.’

Evidence Versus Feelings: Wokeness cannot see reality, favouring clear-cut definitions of good and bad based upon ideology, not facts. This can make it impossible to address issues with varying perspectives because disagreeing with them is called ‘violence.’

Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?
– Proverbs 6:27-28

Secularisation and wokeness gave birth to ‘accusation culture,’ as science, facts, biology, data and knowledge are ‘cancelled,’ and those who cite them are called racists, bigots, xenophobic, Islamophobic, oppressors, supremacists and Nazis. The heroes of the past who fought for freedom are recast as part of the genocidal patriarchy of oppression. Wokeness is delusion, censorship and antichrist in nature.

Secularisation Has Failed

Secularisation has failed after its rise to total dominance from 1960, as people openly speak about civilisation collapse through overwhelming debt, immigration, the collapse of the family and LGBT, lawlessness, crime, chaos, and a decline in social values that Christianity provided.

Moral Decline: Rising crime rates, family breakdown and increased social conflict provide evidence that secular societies lack a moral compass. Faith in Jesus Christ provides a framework for right and wrong, and sacrifice for the greater good of family and society.

Loss of Community: Christian communities often offer a strong sense of belonging and support. Secularisation has weakened these social bonds, leading to isolation and loneliness.

Meaning and Purpose: Faith in Christ provides a sense of value and goals in life. Secularism leaves people feeling adrift in a meaningless universe and they make others suffer to achieve their goals.

Weakened Social Cohesion: Christianity promotes shared values that bind a society together. The decline in faith in Jesus undermines this cohesion and weakens societies.

Secularisation gave birth to wokeness, which is a disease of the mind, a cancer eating away at success, wisdom, competence, science, unity, knowledge, faith and family

Big Government and Ideological Dictators

Taxed to Death: Secularisation believes the answer to everything is more tax, bigger government and less freedom. Huge governmental bureaucracies fail because people who are not gifted by God to be entrepreneurs, drain the country of wealth through tax, to force through their failed ideological beliefs. As their policies fail, they ask for more tax and bailouts, until the economy collapses.

Eventually, there were less men who paid taxes than there were who received wages. As a result, the estate of the farmer was exhausted by enormous taxes. Farms were abandoned; cultivated grounds became woodlands. Universal dismay prevailed.
– Lactantius, c. AD 320, On the Decline of Rome

A Breakdown of Logic: Defund the police made sense to those in an ideological echo chamber, but as crime rates shot-up, shops closed down, people become unemployed and once thriving neighbourhoods became ghost towns of crime and vice. Jesus said, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23).

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God
2 Timothy 3:1-4

How the Woke Became Cultural Dictators

How do the corrupt elite create civilisation collapse? We return to Arnold Toynbee, a historian and philosopher, in his book A Study of History, points to the rise of a ‘creative minority’ in each civilisation that become the ‘Dominant Minority.’ As they grow in power, they coerce all others into a ‘Universal State,’ where free will, faith and family are replaced with compulsion to the demands on the minority. This is the spirit of wokeness at work, destroying faith, family, culture, history, business, competence and love of nation.

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned
Jeremiah 18:7-8

Today, your children must be taught to worship at the altar of confusion, doubt, self-loathing, LGBT, Communism and atheism. They are told their opinions do not count, and they must conform to the woke values that are universal, otherwise they will be deemed as bigots.

How Cultural Dictatorship is Developing in the West

Creative Minority: Toynbee continues by suggesting a civilisation thrives under the guidance of a creative minority with positive values. These are leaders, innovators, and thinkers who challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of knowledge and social organisation. They provide the spark for a civilisation’s growth, from poverty to wealth, such as the thinkers behind the Industrial Revolution.

Dominant Minority: But over time, the creative minority morph into a dominant minority. They become rigid and self-serving, clinging to power and stifling innovation. This shift marks the beginning of a civilisation’s decline. Hollywood’s transformation from the celebration of pro-American values to self-loathing and despising America is an example.

The Universal State and Dictatorship

As a civilisation weakens, Toynbee proposes the rise of a universal state, the beginning of dictatorship. This is a system of power that unifies most of the civilisation’s culture, but it’s a hollow victory with a flawed foundation. The universal state represents a desperate attempt to maintain order through force, not innovation. Woke leaders despising and censoring working class heroes in Canada, is an example.

Christianity Can Save the Day

Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave
– The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton

Toynbee acknowledges the potential for a ‘salvation’ of a civilisation through a process he calls ‘etherialisation.’ This can involve a religious revival, where people turn to spiritual values and ethical renewal. Christianity, for instance, emerged during the decline of the Roman Empire and offered a new moral framework that transcended social class. However, Toynbee cautions that religious revival isn’t guaranteed. The success of ‘etherialisation’ depends on the people’s willingness to embrace change and recommit to core principles.

Imagine a society losing its drive and purpose. According to Toynbee, ‘etherialisation’ suggests they find new meaning and inspiration in a higher power or spiritual values. This can act as a spark to revive the society and maybe even prevent collapse.

Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth
– Revelation 2:16

How a Revival of Christianity will Strengthen the West

Family Structure: Christianity promotes godly marriage and family values. A decline in faith in Christ leads to weaker family structures, impacting child-rearing and social cohesion.

Birth Rates: A religious perspective encourages procreation which contributes to higher birth rates. Declining birth rates in secularised countries are twinned with the decline in Christianity.

Nationalism and Sacrifice: Christian teaching emphasising duty and sacrifice translates to a stronger sense of patriotism, and willingness to serve one’s community and country.

Shared Values and Morality: Faith in Christ provides a moral framework and shared values that bind a society together. Secularisation weakens these unifying forces.

Personal Transformation: The drunkard gets clean, the slothful man puts in effort to live a life of purpose, the thief repents of his wrongdoing, the promiscuous get married, and the wicked choose righteousness. A million personal stories of hope transforms the nation.

Civilisations Collapse for Complex Reasons, but Themes Emerge

Internal decay: This can involve economic hardship, political instability, social unrest or a decline in innovation.

Depletion of Confidence: Overexploitation of the working and middle classes by the elite, leading to a lack of confidence, or willingness to fight for the civilisation.

External threats: Invasion, war, or natural disasters can overwhelm a civilisation’s defences and lead to its downfall.

Failure to adapt: If a civilisation can’t adapt to changing circumstances, like ending mass migration of people hostile to their culture or the rise of a hostile China, it may struggle to survive.

It’s important to remember that collapse isn’t always sudden or complete. Civilisations may decline gradually or even transform into something new.

Thus says the Lord:

“Stand in the ways and see,

And ask for the old paths,

where the good way is,

And walk in it;

Then you will find rest for your souls.

But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’ ”
– Jeremiah 6:16

By Paul Backholer. Find out about Paul’s books here.