Luck, Wisconsin
English historian Arnold Toynbee was a professor at the University of London and
the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He also held positions with
the British Foreign Office. He is best known for his 12-volume A Study
of History (1934-61), which put forward a philosophy of history. Criticisms
of his Study include his use of myths and metaphors as being of comparable value
to factual data and his outlook on a view of religion as a regenerative force.
His other works include Civilization on Trial (1948), East to West
(1958), and Hellenism (1959).
"History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts a sleeping
culture, the barbarian always wins," quoted Toynbee. To me, this
statement means that whoever attacks first‹wins the war or whatever else it
may be. I feel that this statement is false based on my translation
because it would then be saying that we (the United States) will lose the war we
are beginning to fight and also because it isnąt always the invader who defeats
the defender.
In my opinion the U.S. has a much better chance of winning this war than the
Afghans do because we are a bigger country, have a larger military, and the U.S.
has superior leaders. Afghanistan also has a powerful leader, but the
country itself is much smaller in size and the population is much lower (about
18 million people while the US has almost 263 billion).
As far as the barbarian always winning, I feel that it is the stronger person
who wins. It doesnąt matter which side one comes from, the attacker or
the defender, either way the stronger man will win. During World War II
for example, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, we did
not let ourselves become defeated. We fought back and retaliated against
those who were trying to harm us and we did not lose.
While barbarians have always, and will always attack other countries and
cultures in many different ways, they will never run out of ways to attack.
Leaders and terrorists are getting smarter as years pass. They are
finding new ways to figure out how to get into a certain country and how to do
it without that country knowing until they finally attack.
"People are becoming too intelligent ever to have another big war. Statesmen
have not anything like the prestige they had years ago, and what is educating
the ordinary people against war is that they are mixing so much. ŠI
believe the last war was too much an educator for there to ever be another on a
large scale," quoted Henry Ford, U.S. industrialist and pioneer automobile
manufacturer, 1928(The American Scrap Book).
I feel that what Ford is trying to tell the reader is that in the same way that
the economy has progressed over the years, the terrorists have become more
intelligent and more knowledgeable about how to attack and how to complete their
tasks. It is also saying that leaders all over the world can out smart
each other and that if we were to go into another world war, there would be
nothing left of the earth because everyone would kill each other.
Ford was born in Wayne County, Michigan. He worked his way up from a
machinist's trainee (at age fifteen) to the post of chief engineer at the Edison
Company in Detroit. He built his first experimental car in 1896. In 1903,
with several partners, he formed the Ford Motor Company. In 1908 he
designed the Model T; the demand for them was so great that Ford developed new
mass-production methods, including the first moving assembly line in 1913. He
developed the Model A in 1928 to replace the Model T, and in 1932 he introduced
the V-8 engine. He observed an eight-hour workday and paid his workers far above
the average, holding that well-paid laborers become the consumers that
industrialists require. As the first to make car ownership affordable to
large numbers of Americans, he exerted a vast and permanent influence on
American life.
These two quotes by very famous men have a connection in the sense that they
both deal with war and how we most likely will never have a third world war.
However, there will always be wars between two countries. I
donąt think that the world has been "war-less" for thousands of
years, and it probably wonąt be until the end of time.
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