Present efforts to shore up the insolvent U.S.A. economy and the resulting opposition of America’s leading European trading partners is not reassuring.  If western civilization has passed the zenith of its development and entered a period of decline and fragmentation even a figure of Napoleonic capacities would be sorely pressed to breathe new life into its disintegrating social structure.  At the moment, to the best of our knowledge, no such genius is in sight.

Western civilization is in some ways unique.  In the main, however, the development of its life cycle has been typical.  May we take it for granted that western civilization has turned its corner or may we assume that it is still replete with the possibilities of further maneuver, development and expansion?  Perhaps the best way to approach the problem would be to ask three questions:  What contribution has western civilization made to human nature, to human society and to mother nature, and what further contribution can it make in the foreseeable future?

Individuals, born or reared in any form of society are adjusted, shaped and conditioned by the social pattern of which they are a part.  Each society attempts to stamp the individuals with its own image and likeness.  The success or failure of this effort to assure individual adjustment to the social norm and conformity to its practices varies with the prosilitizing enthusiasm of the society and with the ration of adaptability and self-consciousness of its individual members.

Western civilization has produced a bourgeois human being intensively conscious of his capacities and anxious to try himself out in the rough-and-tumble of the market place and on the battlefield; to initiate, undertake, direct, administer.  In the main, these are characteristics of the human male, though the female often possesses them in a greater or lesser degree.

Western civilization has opened the doors wide to aspirants eager to win out in the game of grab-and-keep.  It has been equally kind to their chief executives, organizers and managers who rank second or third in the chain of command.  These individuals come from widely different backgrounds.  The social mobility of a bourgeois society gives them opportunity to climb high on the ladder of preferment.

Many of those who fall into line, adapt themselves to the civilizing process, accept with alacrity the chances that come their way, but do not reach the top of the success ladder.  They have the health, energy and assertiveness necessary to keep climbing.  They accept their assignments and carry them out with modest success.  They are the lesser executives who work themselves out by the time they are fifty and find some sinecure or safe position near the top of the social pyramid.