Dominating Chaos

Will Durant's Take

By Robert Ringer

Will Durant is best known for his eleven-volume masterpiece The Story of Civilization, which took an unfathomable fifty years to complete. The last several volumes of this immense project were done in collaboration with his wife Ariel. But throughout his long life, Durant somehow found the time to write a number of other, shorter books, including his first literary work, The Story of Philosophy, published in 1926.

Durant died in 1981 at age ninety-six. But John Little, founder and director of Will Durant On-Line, produced yet another Durant book more than twenty years after Durant's death. Just over a hundred pages in length, the title of this little gem is The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time. Though compiled and edited by Little, the words are Durant's. The enormous amount of information condensed into so few pages is a remarkable feat.

For purposes of this article, my focus will be on just one of Durant's subjects — progress — which is discussed in Chapter 5, "The Ten 'Peaks' of Human Progress." What, exactly, is progress? After a great deal of written reflection, Durant defined it as "increasing control of the environment by life." He also referred to progress as "the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form or will."

Durant listed, in the following order, what he believed to be the most important developments of man's "climb from savage to scientist," which I would refer to as "macro progress."

1. Speech. Without words, noted Durant, there would be no philosophy, poetry, history, or prose. Indeed, thought, at its highest level, would not exist.
2. Fire. Fire is the phenomenon that made tool-making possible, as well as cooking, the ability to see clearly at night, and protection from climatic conditions.
3. The conquest of animals. Durant reminded us that even though "animals are now our playthings (as in Fido and Seabiscuit) and our helpless food (as in red meat and dairy products)," there was a time when odds makers would not have been all that certain that man's brain would ultimately triumph over the brawn of beasts. I guess we're fortunate that our little home here in the Milky Way Galaxy goes by the name "Planet Earth" rather than "Planet of the Apes."
4. Agriculture. Civilization was not possible so long as men wandered as hunters. The archeological evidence is clear that women were primarily responsible for the development of agriculture, which brought with it the idea of a permanent home. Invoking his classic wit, Durant pointed out that "Man is woman's last domestic animal, and perhaps he is the last creature that will be civilized by woman." (My note: Judging from my own business experiences with men, women still have a long way to go to complete this task.)
5. Social Organization. This is the essence of the replacement of chaos with order. Unfortunately, by necessity, social organization also brought us government, politicians, and a legal system that no longer works very well. One of the great paradoxes of social organization is that in order to preserve freedom, certain freedoms must be restricted.
6. Morality. Durant believed that in many important respects man's character has probably retrogressed. Yet, he felt compelled to point out that "we are a slightly gentler species than we were: capable of greater kindness, and of generosity even to alien or recently hostile peoples whom we have never seen." This is definitely true of Western societies, but Durant didn't live to see the antics of modern religious lunatics in the new millennium.
7. Tools. As mentioned above, tools were made possible by the discovery of fire. For centuries, the clueless idealists among us have fought man's embracement of machines. But even the brilliant Durant, who had an obvious left-leaning view of the world, said, "It is not revolution but invention that will liberate the slave." Given today's middle- and lower-class comforts, this was a remarkable insight into the future by one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
8. Science. Durant referred to science as "victory of man over matter," but noted that it "has not yet been matched with any kindred victory of man over himself."
9. Education. Education, made possible by civilization, dramatically changed the notion of class by virtue of birth. Over the past fifty years or so, the spread of mass education has moved at an accelerating pace, which in turn has changed the makeup of civilizations even more rapidly. Unfortunately, it has also made chaos easier for man to create and thus more prevalent.
10. Writing and print. Today, it is incomprehensible to try to imagine a world where all knowledge, ideas, tragedies, atrocities, and brilliant thoughts were transmitted only by word of mouth. Though there is evidence of crude forms of printing in Germany and China more than a thousand years ago, the forerunner of the modern printing press was not invented by Johannes Gutenberg until the year 1454.

All of the above relate to the big picture of man's progress. But what about micro progress —- the progress you make in your day-to-day life? Are you "increasingly gaining control of your environment?" Through your thinking and actions, are you able to rise above a world that has become chaotic beyond what anyone could have imagined just a few decades ago?

No one can be certain of the true purpose of life, but thousands of years of human history make it apparent that man is programmed to move forward — to make progress. Unfortunately, as with all things, only a small percentage of the world's population makes the greatest amount of progress.

It's unlikely that you can do much to retard the progress of war, hunger, terrorism, or religious fanaticism, to name but a few of the most common ailments of our global village. But you do have the capacity to make a great deal of progress in your own life. To do so, however, it is necessary for you to consciously focus on making personal progress.

Progress toward what? Consciously or unconsciously, I believe that what most people want above all else is happiness, and everything they do is merely a means toward that end. Some of the more obvious facets of life that lead to happiness are good health, purpose, love, and wealth. It therefore seems to me that a life worth living is one in which you make a conscious effort, day in and day out, to make progress in areas such as these — and possibly one or two others that you may feel are of critical importance to you.

I purposely listed health first, because without good health, everything else is a moot point. No matter what your current health status is, you should make a conscious effort to do something every day to improve it.

That may mean not eating that peanut butter sandwich or hot fudge sundae you are so fond of. It may mean doing thirty minutes of exercise when you can't afford the time. It may mean conjuring up the self-discipline to miss a big sporting event on television in favor of getting to bed early. But, whatever it is, make it a point to do something every day of your life to make progress toward improving your health.

As to purpose, the only way you can be certain you have a meaningful purpose in life is if you can't wait to get out of bed in the morning and greet the rising sun. Each and every day, think about what your purpose is and make periodic adjustments to sharpen your focus on what is truly important to you.

Love is an obvious example. We all want to be loved. And everyone knows that to receive love, you have to give love. The danger here is in taking people for granted. When it comes to family and those closest to you, it should be a priority to make continual progress in showing your love in bigger and better ways.

Financial success is another important area. There are idealists who don't like to admit it, but the reality is that progress in wealth building makes progress in the other areas of your life much easier. Millions of words have been written about the subject of financial success, so it's not necessary to go into any kind of detail here.

I would say only that when it comes to wealth building, you should, above all else, focus on making progress in achieving more output from less input. To do this, you have to constantly focus on converting time into money. Relentless progress in this skill leads to wealth.

To make consistent progress in areas such as those mentioned above, you have to become adept at "dominating chaos." In today's world, chaos comes in many forms: e-mail, telephones, voice-mail runarounds, cellphones, meetings, and sensational kidnappings, rapes, murders, acts of terrorism, and natural disasters that saturate your television screen. The challenge is for you to progress more rapidly as a healthy, loving, wealthy, focused human being than the chaos around you progresses.

If you are not vigilant about shutting out as much chaos as possible from your life, chaos will dominate you. Remember, in laymen's terms, dominating chaos means being in control of your environment. And to accomplish this, you cannot allow the chaotic world around you to distract you. The harsh reality is that your bemoaning of tragic events throughout the world or, worse, becoming involved in any of an endless array of "causes" is unlikely to alter the course of such events one iota.

Your time here on earth is limited. Use it wisely by focusing on making consistent progress in such areas as health, purpose, love, and wealth. If you do well in these areas, you can feel proud in the knowledge that you are among those individuals on this planet who are not adding to its problems.

Whether you're thirty, fifty, or seventy years old, you should seek to grow every day of your life. Make no mistake about it, progress is your destiny — and you owe it to yourself to fulfill your destiny.

Go to top of "Dominating Chaos: Will Durant's Take"