When my grandfather died, I inherited his collection of “The Story of Civilization” by Will and Ariel Durant. This 11-volume series, 50 years in the making, stretches from “Our Oriental Heritage” (volume 1) to “The Age of Napoleon.”
The prose is magisterial. The Durants were shrewd, probing, superbly balanced in diction and idea. They did more than sum up the past. They sought wisdom.
I confess I have not read the whole thing. But I have flipped through the thousands of pages to consider what my grandfather underlined or commented on. And I did read the companion volume: “The Lessons of History.” (It only has 118 pages.) Two big lessons stick with me.
One of them is the wry observation that human beings are reliably violent and crazy. To try to rein in our more destructive influences, we create institutions. The family. Religion. Work. Nations. But institutions, founded by human beings, take on human flaws. One in three women and one in four men have been physically abused by an intimate partner; when children are abused, it’s usually by a family member. Many religions have histories of horrendous child abuse, and bloody warfare between sects of the same faith. Corporations commit crimes resulting in human and environmental damage. Nations are born through armed conflict and some die.
But I believe in institutions, particularly those whose purpose is the gathering of knowledge. Institutions help us try to articulate purpose. They help us coordinate our efforts in a way that is both transparent and intentional. The decline of support for longstanding institutions — see cries of fake news, of woke universities, of weaponized justice departments — is right up there with the decline of manners in predicting social upheaval.
The other takeaway concerns an economic crisis eventually faced by all civilizations. The broad idea is this: At the start of a civilization, everyone is pretty much equal. There are lots of opportunities and no guarantees.
But things change quickly. Some people are just a little hungrier or quicker. Their kids reap the results. Capital grows across generations. Eventually, say the Durants, every civilization comes to a crisis. It happens fast or slow. But, by and by, a tiny percent of oligarchs owns everything. The vast majority notice that their own lives are getting worse. At that point, history tells us, there are just two choices.
Progressive taxation. Redistribute the wealth. Take the largely unearned money from a staggeringly wealthy class and shove it down. Wealth can go a long way to reduce human suffering and make the foundations of our economy more sustainable. There are people here in Garfield County who have no homes and often no food. It’s solvable.
Armed revolution. Think the French Reign of Terror. It’s not clear that such revolutions actually improve the general condition. But heads roll and once the violence starts it spreads with frightening swiftness.
In both cases, the problem is that it’s always so much easier to break something than it is to build it. We can unravel institutions but if we’re not replacing them with anything better, then we’re just tearing through that thin paper veneer over our worst instincts.
Generally I resist the notion that there are only two choices about anything. But the Durants, steeped in human history, make a compelling case for a choice between the deep state (one whose rules tend to stabilize society) or mob rule. I find that I stand with the institutions. That used to be the definition of a “conservative.”
[This column originally appeared in the Sopris Sun on 12/17/2025.]
The prose is magisterial. The Durants were shrewd, probing, superbly balanced in diction and idea. They did more than sum up the past. They sought wisdom.
I confess I have not read the whole thing. But I have flipped through the thousands of pages to consider what my grandfather underlined or commented on. And I did read the companion volume: “The Lessons of History.” (It only has 118 pages.) Two big lessons stick with me.
One of them is the wry observation that human beings are reliably violent and crazy. To try to rein in our more destructive influences, we create institutions. The family. Religion. Work. Nations. But institutions, founded by human beings, take on human flaws. One in three women and one in four men have been physically abused by an intimate partner; when children are abused, it’s usually by a family member. Many religions have histories of horrendous child abuse, and bloody warfare between sects of the same faith. Corporations commit crimes resulting in human and environmental damage. Nations are born through armed conflict and some die.
But I believe in institutions, particularly those whose purpose is the gathering of knowledge. Institutions help us try to articulate purpose. They help us coordinate our efforts in a way that is both transparent and intentional. The decline of support for longstanding institutions — see cries of fake news, of woke universities, of weaponized justice departments — is right up there with the decline of manners in predicting social upheaval.
The other takeaway concerns an economic crisis eventually faced by all civilizations. The broad idea is this: At the start of a civilization, everyone is pretty much equal. There are lots of opportunities and no guarantees.
But things change quickly. Some people are just a little hungrier or quicker. Their kids reap the results. Capital grows across generations. Eventually, say the Durants, every civilization comes to a crisis. It happens fast or slow. But, by and by, a tiny percent of oligarchs owns everything. The vast majority notice that their own lives are getting worse. At that point, history tells us, there are just two choices.
Progressive taxation. Redistribute the wealth. Take the largely unearned money from a staggeringly wealthy class and shove it down. Wealth can go a long way to reduce human suffering and make the foundations of our economy more sustainable. There are people here in Garfield County who have no homes and often no food. It’s solvable.
Armed revolution. Think the French Reign of Terror. It’s not clear that such revolutions actually improve the general condition. But heads roll and once the violence starts it spreads with frightening swiftness.
In both cases, the problem is that it’s always so much easier to break something than it is to build it. We can unravel institutions but if we’re not replacing them with anything better, then we’re just tearing through that thin paper veneer over our worst instincts.
Generally I resist the notion that there are only two choices about anything. But the Durants, steeped in human history, make a compelling case for a choice between the deep state (one whose rules tend to stabilize society) or mob rule. I find that I stand with the institutions. That used to be the definition of a “conservative.”
[This column originally appeared in the Sopris Sun on 12/17/2025.]
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