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| Sauron The Despot |
This series is about exposing and discussing an epigenetic proclivity of civilizations that has developed down through history (How To Identify The Despotic Minority, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).
That would be the proclivity to commit suicide.
The series is founded on the work of the historian Arnold Toynbee, which is probably as relevant in our time of history and herstory as it was at any other such time.
I have parsed ten volumes of his A Study of History downloaded from the Wayback Machine, extracting references that mention "despots" or "despotism".
If one of those references interests you, and you want to find out more, you can download that volume and pursue it further.
II. Appendices
The appendices in today's post are composed of excerpts from those volumes which refer to despots and/or despotism:
| A Study Of History | Appendix |
| Volume One | Appendix A |
| Volume Two | Appendix B |
| Volume Three | Appendix C |
| Volume Four | Appendix D |
| Volume Five | Appendix E |
| Volume Six | Appendix F |
| Volume Seven | Appendix G |
| Volume Eight | Appendix H |
| Volume Nine | Appendix I |
| 1946 Review | Appendix J |
The Download Page for the PDF files, from which the excerpts in the appendices came, allows free downloads of Toynbee's famous work (A Study of History), one volume at a time.
Use the "PDF with Text" selection on the download page, because the "PDF" only selection is just a photocopy, not real text.
After downloading a volume you can read or search through the text of Toynbee's work as needed.
Each excerpt has a reference to the PDF page from which the excerpt was taken, which is a number at the end of each excerpt enclosed by brackets ('[' ']').
For example the "[14]" within the quotes in the following excerpt means that the excerpt is on PDF page 14 (i.e. not page 14 of the book):
"The leaders of the barbarian warbands were military adventurers and the
constitution of the successor states, as of the Roman Empire itself at
the time, was despotism tempered by revolution. [14]"
III. Purpose
These appendices are being used to quickly show that Toynbee meticulously, over a 25 years or so span of time, looked at many text lines of written history and herstory to point out how prevalent despotism was in the 'footprints and fingerprints' which various civilizations left behind.
He looked into civilizations we may never have even heard of, and the ones we have heard of as well, then presented his astonishing conclusion:
"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown ... In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority."
(How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 14). That short summary is jolting but it doesn't inform our understanding completely, so the ten appendices are presented so that we can grasp a little more of the reality that despots have been the most prevalent contributors to the demise of civilizations (About Toxins Of Power).
IV. Closing Comments
Several of the excerpts in the appendices shook me and awakened me because they are so very "now" ... I bet you noticed or will notice too!
This is a timely subject to contemplate "if you are so inclined", and is a public service of Dredd Blog.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
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