TEHRAN – Political analyst Yuram Abdullah Weiler says “According to the historian Arnold Toynbee, civilizations decline because of their inability to cope with important challenges.”

Weiler is also of the opinion that we see this now in the inability of western civilization to cope with the environmental consequences of their growth-dependent economies.

“Likewise, we see the stratification of society in the U.S. manifest itself as racism,” Weiler tells the Tehran Times.

This is the text of the interview:

Q: What are the key factors to making a civilization?

A: According to the dictionary, civilization means social organization of a high order, marked by the development and use of a written language and by advances in the arts and sciences, technology, government and other areas.  More simply, a civilization is an "advanced culture," as opposed to a "primitive culture," where "culture" refers to the ideas, customs, manufactured goods and arts that make it uniquely identifiable. Characteristics of "civilization" include urbanization, the development of an urban elite and the stratification of society into classes.  Mesopotamia is often referred to as the cradle of civilization due to the development of the wheel, cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agriculture.  

According to the historian Arnold Toynbee, civilizations decline because of their inability to cope with important challenges.  We see this now in the inability of western civilization to cope with the environmental consequences of their growth-dependent economies.  Likewise, we see the stratification of society in the U.S. manifest itself as racism. Cultural historian Morris Berman suggests in his Dark Ages America that the same factors that made the United States into a great civilization--rugged individualism, territorial expansion, economic imperialism and unhindered greed--have set the U.S. on a path of decline leading to its inevitable collapse.

Q: What is the status of humanities to making a civilization?

A: Humanities refers to those branches of learning associated with human thought and relations, such as history, literature and philosophy, while excepting the sciences.  Since these areas depend upon the development of a written language, the humanities reflect the relative status of the civilization.  Without highly developed writing, there can be no written records by which government can oversee an expanding and increasingly complex civilization.  This can be seen in the last great civilization of the Near East, the Persian Empire, which governed nations from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley, all of which had diverse traditions, and organized them under a single administrative system.

Q: What is the status of philosophy in to making a civilization?

A: Philosophy deals with the theory or analysis of the principles underlying human behavior, thought, knowledge and the nature of the universe. Simply put, philosophy guides the members of a civilization by giving principles on how to think and acquire knowledge.  Without philosophy, advance past the unique culture status of a culture to the level of civilization cannot be achieved.  For example, the Persian Empire, with its monotheistic Zoroastrian religion, influenced philosophy by promulgating the world view that people could choose between good and evil.  Moreover, ancient Iran may have been the source of the later Greek philosophy of Heraclitus.  At a minimum, Zoroaster had an influence on Greek thought.