A Study Of History 1

In Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History, we see reference to the Dominant Minority, the Internal Proletariat, and the External Proletariat of Civilizations. We shall speak of these again, but for the moment we shall only glance in a cursory manner.

The dominant minority could be conceived as being parallel to the top 5% or 2% of the population which is presently referred to as having been enriched by the present government. The internal proletariat is the rest of the population, condemned to servitude as greeters in stores that sell shoddy goods from foreign lands. The external proletariat had a parallel in illegal aliens ( just as an example - do not take me to task on this.) Notice that the dominant minority was taken by surprise by the hubbub about illegal aliens, and wished to promote a policy of amnesty. Remember how many of the dominant minority had illegals in their employ. How many recent federal appointments were sabotaged by the lack of a green card? The first fellow chosen to follow Tom Ridge as head of Homeland Security fell prey to this. This shows how far apart the dominant minority is from the rest of the population. Not only do they draw themselves further away economically - but the rest of us just shake our heads and say that the rich get richer- but their view of the world tends to become skewed further away from the view of the internal proletariat.

The fervor of the population over illegal immigration shocked the dominant minority. All this example does is demonstrate how dominant minorities rule over the population with which it does not necessarily share the same world view.

This division showed up in the film Apocalypto. The dominant minority of the Indian civilization imposed a religion of terror and reign of violence. Toynbee holds that, as the dominant minority becomes less and less creative - the more it settles matters by brutish and violent methods; the more it abdicates all values bating its greed-the rest of the populace, the internal proletariat, develops its own view of the world, informed by its experiences, its poverty, its abasement, and creates a Universal Church. The Universal Church acts as a chrysalis to pass the culture of civilization from the dying civilization on to its successor, a new civilization. His primary example of this was the Church's role in the decline of Rome and the rise of Europe. Dominant Minorty, internal proletariat, and external proletariat; these are terms to remember.