Arnold Toynbee Challenge and Response position paper

The challenge and response

In order to create a new civilization, the basic need is to have challenges and responses. These challenges classified by Arnold Toynbee are: a hard environment; a new environment; blows which is characterized by military defeat; pressures; and penalization. (Toynbee 1935~1948)

Challenges create civilization by forcing the people into tremendous difficulties which leaves them no choice but to form a civilization. For instance, we can take the 4 river basin civilizations as an example of this challenge.

The term for this civilization is the “hydraulic civilizations.” Upon making or establishing of this civilization, there are certain physical challenges/difficulties that humans encounter. These challenges are flood, and recuperating marshy swamp lands into a more useful substance in order for the civilization to emerge.

Another challenge that Arnold Toynbee imposes is the blows. An example of blows is military defeat. Through these defeats, the nation in crisis might establish a civilization in order to protect themselves from the enemy that keeps on irritating/disturbing their lives.

Pressure and penalization can also be a challenge. When a group of people are penalized by their superior nations or other superior group of people, the inferior tends to develop a new civilization in the time of penalization and somewhat of a crisis.

When America was colonized by the British people, the settlers/colonizers that set foot on American soil had no representatives. For this cause, British imposed acts like the navigation act, stamp act, and many other harsh acts that bounded the colonizers to their authority.

The result of these harsh treatments by their motherland was the American Revolution. When penalized and ill-treated by the superior group, the challenge was on and the challenge was met with a response called the American Revolution.

But some responses to the challenges results in an underdevelopment. Harsh environment and surrounding which is a physical challenge sometimes create a civilization but they can also result in stagnation. The example of this proposed by Toynbee is the Eskimos.

In other hand, when the challenge is too light and too easy such as the people living in the tropical, tends to become third world country because they have no reasons to fight against an excruciating challenge that Eskimos had to respond to in order for them to survive. Tropical countries are nearly like paradise and this country has the tendencies to backslide because the citizens of these countries are not faced with the challenges so they become very lazy and incompetent.

The growth of the civilization happens when successful responses come from the creative individuals. These creative individuals withdraw from the society for enlightenment and returns to the society to solve spiritual riddles, philosophical riddle and etc. And through these problems being solved by creative individuals, the civilization grows.

But in contrast to this growth that was brought about by the creative individuals, the creative individuals who brought the growth to civilization also brought declination and the breakdown of the civilization.

These breakdown happens when these creative individuals cooperates with the society and becomes a dominant minority stopping to be creative. Since there is no presence of creativity involved, there is no enhancement or the growth of civilization but a decline or a breakdown.

When this first breakdown happens, the majority of the society under the dominant minority withdraws from the dominant minority. And of course the withdrawal of the majority results in a decline of social unity. But the worst part is that this breakdown is not the end of crisis but only a beginning of disintegration.

In disintegration, society split into three crucial elements. The first is the dominant minority and the second is the disaffected community which is to say that the majority of the society no longer follows the dominant minorities. And finally the third is the external proletariat.

The only way to stop disintegration when it is already begun is to petrify the society. This is called the petrification in Toynbee’s term. When a society becomes pertrified as hard as a rock, then it will eventually stop disintegration to occur. But the downside of this petrification is that there is no longer any development of the society because it is strongly bounded, stuck, and petrified.

As a process of disintegration, Universal state emerges. Universal state eventually falls but there are certain advantages like the communication, roads, legal system which facilitates the spread of higher religions. These higher religions results in universal churches and Toynbee thought that these churches keeps civilization alive while it evolves into one manifestation to other.

“But the idea that churches act as chrysalises, keeping civilization alive as it evolves from one manifestation into the next, is not the entire truth either, he writes. Toynbee argues that, rather than religion being a by-product of civilization, the whole purpose of a civilization is to provide an opportunity for one of the higher religions.” (Toynbee, 1935~1948)

The idea of the challenge and response was a truly fundamental but important factor to know how civilization emerged. But I disagree with total disintegration for I believe that there can always be creative individuals and there is always a creative individual who can bring growth to the civilization rather than declination and disintegration because of the lack of these minorities.

I also disagree with the golden mean of challenge because I think this gives Arnold Toynbee an excuse when arguments arise about his theory. The idea of petrification also gives Toynbee an excuse because when argument arises about some civilizations that cannot be categorized by his theory, then Toynbee can simply just say that the civilization is petrified or that the challenge is not a golden mean therefore the civilization couldn’t be established.


Toynbee, A. J. (1935-1948). A study of history (Vol. 1). London: Oxford University.