These terms, by and large, are constructive and, to a degree, creative. I might have written a parallel series of words associated with destructiviness. In every social situation construction and destruction are Siamese twins. One does not appear without the other. The same forces, the same implements, the same institutions and practices that construct can be used to destroy.
Through ages, men learned how to establish, maintain and perpetuate community and organize society. At every stage of the building process it was necessary to check, to question, to evaluate, unlearn, tear down, make a new start. Pushing up and tearing or wearing down is implicit in nature. It is an essential aspect of human society.
Each human being is a living example of production and destruction. Each generation repeats the affirmation, modifying it little or much in accord with circumstances.
Modification means purposeful change--partially or wholly abandoning the old and replacing it with something new. In the course of these changes the conservative elements in man and in society, voluntarily or under coercion, give up the old and learn how to use the new. The learning process is always more or less painful, especially to people past middle age.
The world-wide revolution resulted from a long-continued related series of affirmations, punctuated and interrupted by contradictions and conflicts.
Trends inherent in the world-wide revolution of 1750-1970 suggest a cycle that reached its high point at the turn of the century and began its downward course around 1900. The chief European empires were jointly and severally involved in the bitter struggle for survival and supremacy from 1870 onward. Until the outbreak of war in 1914, events followed an irregular course marked by the shifting relationships of Italy and the increased pressure from Germany for a showdown. The showdown was the war of 1914-18, continued in a second phase from 1936 to 1945.
Immediate political results of the showdown were victory for one side and defeat for the other side. Economic, sociological and ideological consequences were profound and far reaching. We noted some of them in the previous chapter.
UNESCO's _History of Mankind_ devotes its final volume six to the twentieth century. The authors note that the chief European powers emerged from the general war of 1914-18 "weakened in every way: in men and wealth, in the balance of their economies and the stability of their political structure and above all in their relation to other powers rising or beginning to rise in other parts of the world". (Vol. VI p. 10.)