Definition
The word civilization comes from the Latin civilis, meaning civil, related to the Latin civis, meaning citizen,
.and civitas, meaning city or city-state
The ancient city of Ur of Sumer, in present day Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq is known to be one of the world's
earliest Cities
In the sixth century, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian oversaw the consolidation of Roman civil law. The
resulting collection is called the Corpus Juris Civilis. In the 11th century, professors at the University of
Bologna, Western Europe's first university, rediscovered Corpus Juris Civilis, and its influence began to
be felt across Western Europe. In 1388, the word civil appeared in English meaning "of or related to
citizens."[1] In 1704, civilization was used to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil
case." Civilization was not used in its modern sense to mean "the opposite of barbarism" — as contrasted
.to civility, meaning politeness or civil virtue — until the second half of the 18th century
According to Emile Benveniste (1954[2]), the earlist written occurrence in English of civilization in its
modern sense may be found in Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh,
1767 - p. 2): "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from
".rudeness to civilization
It should be noted that this usage incorporates the concept of superiority and maturity of "civilized"
existence, as contrasted to "rudeness", which is used to denote coarseness, as in a lack of refinement or
"."civility
.Huntington's map of world civilizations (1996)
Before Benveniste's inquiries, the New English Dictionary quoted James Boswell's conversation with
:Samuel Johnson concerning the inclusion of Civilization in Johnson's dictionary
On Monday, March 23 (1772), I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary... He
would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to him I thought civilization, from to
civilize, better in the sense opposed to barbarity than civility, as it is better to have a distinct word for each
.sense, than one word with two senses, which civility is, in his way of using it
Benveniste demonstrated that previous occurrences could be found, which explained the quick adoption
of Johnson's definition. In 1775 the dictionary of Ast defined civilization as "the state of being civilized; the
act of civilizing",[2] and the term was frequently used by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).[2] Beside Smith and Ferguson, John Millar also used it in 1771
in his Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society.[2]
The history of the word in English appears to be connected with the parallel development in French,
which may be the original source. As the first occurrence of civilization in French was found by Benveniste
in the Marquis de Mirabeau's L'Ami des hommes ou traité de la population (written in 1756 but published
in 1757), Benveniste's query was to know if the English word derived from the French, or if both evolved
independently — a question which needed more research. According to him, the word civilization may in
fact have been used by Ferguson as soon as 1759.[2]
Furthermore, Benveniste notes that, contrasted to civility, a static term, civilization conveys a sense of
:dynamism. He thus writes that
It was not only a historical view of society; it was also an optimist and resolutely non theological
interpretation of its evolution which asserted itself, sometimes at the insu of those who proclaimed it, and
even if some of them, and first of all Mirabeau, still counted religion as the first factor of 'civilization.[2][3]
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, both during the French revolution, and in English, "civilization" was
referred to in the singular, never the plural, because it referred to the progress of mankind as a whole.
This is still the case in French.[4] However more recently "civilizations" is often used as a synonym for the
broader term "cultures" in both popular and academic circles.[5] This is understandable, because each
distinct civilization tends to have a distinct culture, and generally anyone who is a part of a civilization is
also a part of that civilization's culture. However, the words are not always interchangeable. For example,
a small nomadic tribe may be judged not to have a civilization, but it would surely be judged to have a
culture (defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute
.a people's way of life")
Civilization is not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture
and civilization stems from the writings of Rousseau, and particularly his work concerning education,
Emile. In this perspective, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accordance
with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to
an original prediscursive or prerational natural unity". (See noble savage.) From this notion was
developed especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder, and later by philosophers such as
Nietzsche. This sees cultures (plural) as natural organisms which are not defined by "conscious, rational,
deliberative acts" but rather a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational
and more successful concerning material progress, is seen as un-natural, and leads to "vices of social
life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice.[4] During World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled
Germany, argued in New York that this approach to civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism
and nihilism.[6]
In his book The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlined the idea that there are dual opinions
within society: one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both
ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having
lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same work, he defined civilization, saying that it "is the
sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as
".the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress
]edit[
Characteristics
26th century BC Sumerian cuneiform script in Sumerian language, listing gifts to the high priestess of
.Adab on the occasion of her election. One of the earliest examples of human writing
Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization
from other kinds of society.[7] Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types
of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government, social stratification, economic systems, literacy,
.and other cultural traits
All human civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence. Growing food on farms results in a
surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as irrigation and crop
rotation. Grain surpluses have been especially important because they can be stored for a long time. A
surplus of food permits some people to do things besides produce food for a living: early civilizations
included artisans, priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food
.results in a division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations
Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization is
sometimes simply defined as "'living in cities'".[8] Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to
.trade
Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the
state[citation needed]. State societies are more stratified[citation needed] than other societies; there is a
greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in the cities, has
control over much of the surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or
bureaucracy. Morton Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, have classified
human cultures based on political systems and social inequality. This system of classification contains
four categories:[citation needed]
Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.[citation needed]
Horticultural/pastoral societies in which there are generally two inherited social classes; chief and
.commoner
Highly stratified structures, or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf
.and slave
Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.[9]
Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized
societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic
people. Some people also acquire landed property, or private ownership of the land. Because a
percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services
for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or
tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early civilizations developed money as a
medium of exchange for these increasingly complex transactions. To oversimplify, in a village the potter
makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of
beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need
new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat, and the tanner may need a new pot. These
people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same
.time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled fairly
Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to
accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest state."[10] Traders and
bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, writing was necessitated by the size
of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally
.acquainted with each other
Aided by their division of labor and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other
diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion, development in the arts, and countless new
.advances in science and technology
Through history, successful civilizations have spread, taking over more and more territory, and
assimilating more and more previously-uncivilized people. Nevertheless, some tribes or people remain
uncivilized even to this day. These cultures are called by some "primitive," a term that is regarded by
others as pejorative. "Primitive" implies in some way that a culture is "first" (Latin = primus), that it has not
changed since the dawn of mankind, though this has been demonstrated not to be true. Specifically, as all
of today's cultures are contemporaries, today's so-called primitive cultures are in no way antecedent to
those we consider civilized. Many anthropologists use the term "non-literate" to describe these peoples. In
the USA and Canada, where many people of such cultures were displaced by European settlers, the term
"First Nations" is used. Generally, the First Nations of North America had hierarchical governments,
religion, a barter system, and oral transmission of their traditions, cultures, laws, etc. Respect for the
wisdom of elders and for their natural environment[citation needed] (7th Generation decision-making)
.sustained these cultures for over 10,000 years
Civilization has been spread by invasion, genocide, religious conversion, the extension of bureaucratic
control and trade, and by introducing agriculture and writing to non-literate peoples. Some non-civilized
people may willingly adapt to civilized behaviour. But civilization is also spread by force. If a non-civilized
group does not wish to use agriculture or to accept a "civilized" religion, it is often forced to do so by the
civilized people, who usually succeed due to their more advanced technology and greater numbers.
Civilizations often use religion to justify their actions, claiming for example that the uncivilized are
"primitive," savages, barbarians or the like, who should be "elevated" by "a civilized religion."[citation
needed]
]edit[
Cultural identity
Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, "
civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that
make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including literature, professional art,
.architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite
The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures,
sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its
influence on Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other nearby countries). Many civilizations are actually large
cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that
.person's broadest cultural identity
Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete
units. One example is early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler,[11] even though he uses the
German word "Kultur," "culture," for what we here call a "civilization." He said that a civilization's
coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Civilizations experience cycles of birth, life,
decline, and death, often supplanted by a new civilization with a potent new culture, formed around a
.compelling new cultural symbol
This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in
the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume A Study of History,
which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations."
Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of the failure of a "creative
minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere
.economic or environmental causes
Samuel P. Huntington similarly defines a civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the
broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other
species." Besides giving a definition of a civilization, Huntington has also proposed several theories about
.civilizations, discussed below
]edit[
Complex systems
Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, looks at a civilization as a complex system, i.e.,
a framework by which a group of objects can be analyzed that work in concert to produce some result.
Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by
the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social, and cultural interactions among them. Any organization
is a complex social system, and a civilization is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against
.superficial but misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations
For example, urbanist Jane Jacobs defines cities as the economic engines that work to create large
networks of people. The main process that creates these city networks, she says, is "import replacement".
Import replacement is the process by which peripheral cities begin to replace goods and services that
were formerly imported from more advanced cities. Successful import replacement creates economic
growth in these peripheral cities, and allows these cities to then export their goods to less developed
cities in their own hinterlands, creating new economic networks. So Jacobs explores economic
.development across wide networks instead of treating each society as an isolated cultural sphere
Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural
exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For
example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or
political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean
sea routes linking the Roman Empire, Persian Empire, India, and China, were well established 2000
years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations.
The first evidence of such long distance trade is in the ancient world. During the Uruk phase Guillermo
Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan.[12] Resin
.found later in the Royal Tombs of Ur it is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique
Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system", a
process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically,
politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration
began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic – is
the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic
and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation
of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BC.[13] Central Civilization later expanded to
include the entire Middle East and Europe , and then expanded to a global scale with European
colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to
Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like
the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by
Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as
the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have
expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a
.product of recent European colonialism
]edit[
Future
Active regional blocs, which enhance nations' cooperation and form modern civilizations
See also: Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Political scientist Samuel Huntington[14] has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will
be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the
conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries. These
views have been strongly challenged by others like Edward Said and Muhammed Asadi.[15] Ronald
Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that the "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and
the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a
difference in political ideology.[16]
Currently, world civilization is in a stage that has created what may be characterized as an industrial
society, superseding the agrarian society that preceded it. Some futurists believe that civilization is
.undergoing another transformation, and that world society will become a so-called informational society
Some environmental scientists see the world entering a Planetary Phase of Civilization, characterized by
a shift away from independent, disconnected nation-states to a world of increased global connectivity with
worldwide institutions, environmental challenges, economic systems, and consciousness.[17][18] In an
attempt to better understand what a Planetary Phase of Civilization might look like in the current context
of declining natural resources and increasing consumption, the Global scenario group used scenario
analysis to arrive at three archetypal futures: Barbarization, in which increasing conflicts result in either a
fortress world or complete societal breakdown; Conventional Worlds, in which market forces or Policy
reform slowly precipitate more sustainable practices; and a Great Transition, in which either the sum of
fragmented Eco-Communalism movements add up to a sustainable world or globally coordinated efforts
and initiatives result in a new sustainability paradigm.[19]
The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement,
specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale
makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist
.(see also: Civilizations and the Future, Space civilization)
]edit[
Fall of civilizations
Main article: Societal collapse
.There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization
Edward Gibbon's work "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" began an interest in the Fall of
Civilizations, that had begun with the historical divisions of Petrarch[20] between the Classical period of
-:Ancient Greece and Rome, the succeeding Medieval Ages, and the Renaissance. For Gibbon
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened "
the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as
time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its
own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire
was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long."[Gibbon, Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.-Chapter XXXVIII:
Reign Of Clovis.--Part VI. General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.] Gibbon
suggested the final act of the collapse of Rome was the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in
.1453 AD
Theodor Mommsen in his "History of Rome (Mommsen)", suggested Rome collapsed with the collapse of
the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and he also tended towards a biological analogy of "genesis,"
"."growth," "senescence," "collapse" and "decay
Oswald Spengler, in his "Decline of the West" rejected Petrarch's chronological division, and suggested
that there had been only eight "mature civilizations." Growing cultures, he argued, tend to develop into
imperialistic civilizations which expand and ultimately collapse, with democratic forms of government
.ushering in plutocracy and ultimately imperialism
Arnold J. Toynbee in his "A Study of History" suggested that there had been a much larger number of
civilizations, including a small number of arrested civilizations, and that all civilizations tended to go
through the cycle identified by Mommsen. The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural
.elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats
Joseph Tainter in "The Collapse of Complex Societies" suggested that there were diminishing returns to
complexity, due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline
when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this
.figure in the 2nd Century AD
Jared Diamond in his 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" suggests five
major reasons for the collapse of 41 studied cultures: environmental damage, such as deforestation and
soil erosion; climate change; dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources; increasing
levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion; and societal responses to internal and
.environmental problems
Peter Turchin in his Historical Dynamics and Andrey Korotayev et al. in their Introduction to Social
Macrodynamics, Secular Cycles, and Millennial Trends suggest a number of mathematical models
describing collapse of agrarian civilizations. For example, the basic logic of Turchin's "fiscal-demographic"
model can be outlined as follows: during the initial phase of a sociodemographic cycle we observe
relatively high levels of per capita production and consumption, which leads not only to relatively high
population growth rates, but also to relatively high rates of surplus production. As a result, during this
phase the population can afford to pay taxes without great problems, the taxes are quite easily collectible,
and the population growth is accompanied by the growth of state revenues. During the intermediate
phase, the increasing overpopulation leads to the decrease of per capita production and consumption
levels, it becomes more and more difficult to collect taxes, and state revenues stop growing, whereas the
state expenditures grow due to the growth of the population controlled by the state. As a result, during this
phase the state starts experiencing considerable fiscal problems. During the final pre-collapse phases the
overpopulation leads to further decrease of per capita production, the surplus production further
decreases, state revenues shrink, but the state needs more and more resources to control the growing
(though with lower and lower rates) population. Eventually this leads to famines, epidemics, state
breakdown, and demographic and civilization collapse (Peter Turchin. Historical Dynamics. Princeton
.University Press, 2003:121–127)
Peter Heather argues in his book The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the
Barbarians[21] that this civilization did not end for moral or economic reasons, but because centuries of
contact with barbarians across the frontier generated its own nemesis by making them a much more
sophisticated and dangerous adversary. The fact that Rome needed to generate ever greater revenues to
equip and re-equip armies that were for the first time repeatedly defeated in the field, led to the
dismemberment of the Empire. Although this argument is specific to Rome, it can also be applied to the
Asiatic Empire of the Egyptians, to the Han and Tang dynasties of China, to the Muslim Abbasid
.Caliphate, and others
Bryan Ward-Perkins, in his book The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization,[22] shows the real horrors
associated with the collapse of a civilization for the people who suffer its effects, unlike many revisionist
historians who downplay this. The collapse of complex society meant that even basic plumbing
disappeared from the continent for 1,000 years. Similar Dark Age collapses are seen with the Late Bronze
.Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of the Maya, on Easter Island and elsewhere
Arthur Demarest argues in Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization,[23] using a
holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and epigraphy, that no
one explanation is sufficient but that a series of erratic, complex events, including loss of soil fertility,
drought and rising levels of internal and external violence led to the disintegration of the courts of Mayan
kingdoms which began a spiral of decline and decay. He argues that the collapse of the Maya has
.lessons for civilization today
Jeffrey A. McNeely has recently suggested that "A review of historical evidence shows that past
civilizations have tended to over-exploit their forests, and that such abuse of important resources has
been a significant factor in the decline of the over-exploiting society."[24]
Thomas Homer-Dixon in "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization",
considers that the fall in the energy return on investments; the energy expended to energy yield ratio, is
central to limiting the survival of civilizations. The degree of social complexity is associated strongly, he
suggests, with the amount of disposable energy environmental, economic and technological systems
allow. When this amount decreases civilizations either have to access new energy sources or they will
....collapse