turn; the life and death power
struggle within and between its constituent peoples, nations and
empires; the use of war as the final arbiter in these struggles; the
rise of the military to a position of supremacy in policy making and
public administration; an all-pervasive pattern of exploitation within
the urban nuclei and between rival provincial factions; speculation in
the necessaries of life; the growth of overhead costs far beyond the
increase of production and of income; the degradation of currency;
multiple taxation; the abuse of credit; inflation, unemployment and
chronic hard times.

Western civilization differs from its predecessors in one crucial
respect: it is planet-wide. Previous civilizations known to history have
been limited by oceans, deserts and other geographical barriers. The
revolution in communication and transportation has by-passed geographic
barriers.

The French saying "the more things change the more they remain the same"
finds ample justification in the story of western civilization and its
predecessors. In one instance after another, for at least six thousand
years, civilizations have been built up to summits of wealth and power.
Then, on the downward sweep of the cycle, they have declined, decayed
and been dumped on the scrap heap of history. No two of these cycles
were exactly alike. Each cycle was a social experiment that followed a
well marked path. There were variations, innovations, deviations from
the norm, but institutions and practices were strikingly similar. In
this broad sense, and despite minor departures, the life patterns of
civilization have appeared, disappeared and reappeared with close
similarity in structure and function.

Western civilization has had a life cycle of approximately a thousand
years. During that millennium it has undergone many changes--political,
economic, sociological, ideological. Throughout these changes its basic
characteristics have remained; have appeared and reappeared. In the
1970's western civilization retains the essential features which justify
us in describing it as a civilization.

The great revolution which began about 1750 and has increased in breadth
and depth throughout the past two centuries had led to vital changes in
structure and functioning, particularly of the West but generally in the
entirety of human society. So far-reaching are these changes, and so
deep running, that human society, particularly in the West, has outgrown
o