David Butterfield

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739 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 20 May

David Butterfield’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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TRIGGERnometry · How Civilisations Die - Ancient Greece Expert David Butterfield · 20 May 2026 podcast

The reason is twofold.

Civilization as a word, like any word that ends in "-tion", all such words are processes in origin.

They come from Latin words which are about a process.

So even a word like nation, which sounds like a static thing, actually in origin means birth, coming into being.

So civilization, when it was used, was conceived of as a progression, a civilizing movement from not having the characteristics I mentioned, following some sort of linear progress, and then reaching the goal.

What was the goal?

When the term was used, it was mostly something looking like Western democratic society.

But I, perhaps you too, I'm extremely pessimistic about the notion of linear progress, about the fact that there's a clear T loss or end point in our society.

So I think that's the wrong way of conceiving of what a civilization is.

We're not necessarily heading somewhere better tomorrow.

Tradition's better because, as another word ending in shun, it's about the act of handing on.

Latin tradere, traditio, is the handing over.

And the reason why that's such a good metaphor to think of the history of the West is that it involves two kinds of people, and you need both.

One is someone in a position actually to pass on, actively to stretch the arm out and give to another the thing deemed worth preserving.

But crucially, that baton is going to be dropped if there isn't also the second person who is willing to receive it and sees the value in picking it up.

And that is really the metaphor we should use when we think of the West.

If you read modern books, modern op-eds, criticizing the term Western civilization, generally the arguments adduced are a series of childish and really not very logically powerful arguments.

counterclaims.

So someone will say, well, how can it be the West?

Because some of the countries that are part of the Western civilization movement are in the East.

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