How Soft Power Fades

When a civilization is at its high, it can dominate the neighbourhood literally and figuratively. Often via force (or threat of force). But also by influence and admiration. What we call hard power and soft power.

 

While the causes for the eventual decline of hard power are talked about, what about the decline of soft power? Arnold Toynbee believed the cause for that was entirely social. Which makes sense, since soft power is social after all. So what was Toynbee’s theory?

 

Initially and for a long time, the “creative minority” within that civilization is the driver of new ideas, new technologies, new achievements. But at some point, they “lose their creative power, turn self-obsessed and focus all their energies on self-preservation”. The word used in modern lingo to describe this group is “elites”. The majority begins to lose faith in the creative minority and with that, the splintering of the civilization begins.

 

Toynbee goes into the details of the splintering. It splinters into 3 groups, he wrote. The “dominant minority”, a shadow of the old creative minority. For some time, it is able to hold onto its power. But then the “inner proletariat”, the majority within that civilization who has now lost faith in the dominant minority/elites, rebels. And lastly, there is the “external proletariat”, the ones who lie beyond the boundary of the civilization but admired it.

“(They are) now no longer is in the thrall of the dominant civilisation and resists any attempt by it to dominate any more.”

 

Raghu S Jaitley puts what follows well:

“A civilisation in decline isn’t a pretty sight. There’s a lack of clarity on which way to steer it or even who will steer it. There’s an aimless drift in its affairs. There’s a longing for the glorious past or some kind of revolution that will usher in a new future. It is a fertile ground for demagogues.”

 

The theory seems to describe perfectly what has been happening in recent times, and has now accelerated to warp speed in the last 1 year. (In case you wondered, no, Toynbee is not explaining events of the present day retroactively. He died in 1975, and his theory was based on his study of the decline of 22 historical civilizations). As they say, history rhymes.