In other words, the motivation which drives mankind to form a Culture is, in fact, of a strongly religious nature. In essence, it is an essentially spiritual or religious system of thinking which creates the necessary abstract thought forms to create a Culture out of nothing at all. But in retrospect, it is not so much what Charlemagne did, or the influences of his father and the Pope, which caused Charlemagne to become the central figure of Western Civilization. At the other end of the timeline, when the affairs of kings are unmasked as being nothing more than the affairs of strongly ambitious men, the close relationship with the underlying religious belief system disappears, and cynical resulting thought patterns destroy the life of the Culture. This is not to say that mankind loses all motivation entirely.
Material well being is still one of the strongest motivating factors known to mankind.
But material well being is rooted in an essential selfishness which virtually prohibits the accomplishment of truly great objectives, each of which is based primarily upon the sacrifice of material well being. Of course not. When they are appropriately inspired by some great myth, people are quite willing to lay their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the line for some truly great purpose. But when we come to the point of recognizing, based upon our intellect, that the myth is a fabrication, we begin to see self-sacrifice as merely foolish. Altruism is very much out of favor at the present point in our Civilization.