Latin Civilization Poland Koneczny

The Plurality of Civilizations, by Feliks Koneczny. 1962

A Fascinating Taxonomy of Civilizations. Poland is the Eastern Output of Latin Civilization

This work, originally published in 1935 in Polish and reprinted in this 1962 English-language edition, contrasts with the “all peoples are basically the same” thinking of modern multiculturalism. For this reason, author and scholar Feliks Koneczny is the beta noire of the LEWACTWO.

But no matter. Koneczny’s classic work is endorsed, in the introductions, by eminent British historian Arnold Toynbee, German scholar Anton Hilckman, and Polish patriot Jedrzej Giertych. In fact, Giertych (pp. ix-x) decries the modern tendency of Latin (Western) civilization being blamed for such things as colonialism and racism, and its current path of degeneration into hedonism and materialism. More on this later.

MODERN CIVILIZATIONS IN A NUTSHELL

Koneczny’s taxonomy of civilizations can be summarized by his dichotomous key (pp. 313-314): Sacral (Jewish, Brahmin) vs. non-sacral (remainder). The latter is subdivided: Supremacy of spiritual forces (Latin) vs. physical forces (remainder). The latter is subdivided: Public life based on public law (Byzantine) vs. private law (remainder). The latter are further subdivided, according to technicalities in the social system, into the Turanian, Arabic, and Chinese civilizations.

Technologies may or may not change civilizations. For instance, the railroads have fundamentally changed the west, while having comparatively little effect on the essentials of Brahmin civilization. (p. 179).

THE TURANIAN CIVILIZATION

Koneczny describes the history of Russia: “In Turanian civilization the head of the State was always the sole source of law; this has survived even among Islamic members of the civilization.” (p. 102). “In Turanian civilization public life is in general non-ethical, so that there occurs a constant ethical divergence between the practice of the State, and private affairs which always need some kind of ethic.” (p. 303). “Turanian civilization reached Ruthenia and Muscovy through Mongolian and Tatar influences…The Turanian mark lasts to this day.” (p. 297). “Moscow adopted the ideas of the State from the Mongols, her administration from the Tatars and from Kazan the customs of her upper classes (the tyerem, etc.). Orthodox building derives from the Asiatic East.” (p. 271). Lest the foregoing seem anti-Russian, note the existence of Russian thinkers who consider Russian history largely in terms of a cruelty-is-strength succession of tyrannies. For example, see INSIDE THE KREMLIN.

MODERN CONDITIONS: AN UPDATE OF KONECZNY

Koneczny’s classic has modern implications. The difficulties in transplanting democracies to many nations recount the fact that, to be successful, some Latin civilization must also take root in these peoples. For example, the phenomena of Islamofascism in certain Muslim countries, the Stalin-glorification and the resurgence of authoritarianism in modern Russia, and the Bandera-glorification in the Ukraine, all probably reflect the persistence of elements of Turanian thinking to this day.

On another subject, what would Koneczny think of the radical individualism that increasingly pervades many western societies? Would he conclude, with especial warnings to his native Poland, that the cultural Marxists are corrupting Latin civilization into a circus of increasingly-unbridled hedonistic individualism?