History of Civilizations (19 Sept 2014)

Thursday, September 18, 2014

7:47 PM

1. Changing Vocabulary (Civilization vs. Culture)

Claude Levi-Strauss - "Words are instruments that people are free to adapt to any use,
provided they make clear their intentions."

'civilization' - from 'civilized' & 'to civilized'
- (1732) an act of justice or judgment which turned a criminal trial into civil
proceedings

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot - 'the process of becoming civilized'

A Treatise on Population (Victor Riqueti - Marquis of Mirabeau)
- official debut of the word in print

Voltaire omitted the useful word 'civilization' from Essay on the Customs and Spirit of
Nations

civilization (in new sense) - the opposite of barbarism

the word appeared because it was needed
poli (polite), police (organized), civil & civilize had no corresponding nouns
- to civilize: to polish the manners, make civil & sociable
'civilization' rapidly spread from France to Europe
'culture' went with it
(1722) reached England & replaced 'civility'
Zivilisation (with Bildung) - Germany
opposition from beschaving (to refine, ennoble or civilize) - Holland -- civilisatie
'civilization' encountered resistance South of the Alps (Italian already had) -- civilta
'civilization' & 'culture'
- were synonyms
civilization - denotes both moral & material values
- Karl Marx (infrastructure & superstructure)
no two people agree on how the distinction is to be drawn (varies from country, periods &
authors)
A. Tonnies & Alfred Weber
- "civilization was no more than a mass of practical, technical knowledge, a series of
ways dealing with nature"
- "culture was a set of normative principles, values & ideals" = SPIRIT
since E. B. Taylor published Primitive Culture
- anthropologists (British & American) more used the word 'culture' -- primitive
societies (they studied) rather than 'civilization'
'cultural' - didnt suffer from complications (whole content of a civilization or culture)
'civilization (a culture)' - sum total of its cultural assets
geographical area (cultural domain)
history (cultural history)
transmission from one civilization to another (cultural
legacy/borrowing)
(1819) from singular to plural
- characteristics common to the collective life of a period or group
we feel uneasy about using the word civilization in its old sense
(in singular) civilization denotes the common heritage of humanity (share unequally)
- collective attributes of civilization in the singular
history of civilizations - history of continual mutual borrowings over many centuries
'industrial civilization' - the process of joining the collective civilizations of the world




2. The Study of Civilization Involves All the Social Sciences

Civilizations as:

a. Geographical areas
- maps
- constraints & advantages of their geo. situations
- "the decisive shaping of self by self" - "production of people by people
- to discuss civilization = discuss land, space and contours, nature, agriculture
- Goetz: tug-of-war between 2 Indias (humid vs. dry)
- early river civilizations (importance of communications)
- Arnold Toynbee: "All human achievement involved challenge & response
- greater challenge = stronger humanity's response?
-- but civilization does not always follow = need of improved technology
- every civilization is based on an area with more/less fixed limits
- Western/European civilizations = based on wheat & bread
- cultural zone: area w/n which one group of cultural characteristics is dominant (primitive
peoples: language, food crops, religious beliefs)
- geographers & historians discuss cultural zones (w/ reference to advanced & complex
civilizations):
identify areas - subdivide into series of districts - smaller units
- Western civilizations (in America & Europe) = divisions are permanent characteristics
-- Polish, German, Italia .. Scotland, Ireland, Sicily
- avid civilizations are to acquire the material adjuncts of 'modern' life

b. Societies (Societies vs. Civilizations)
- Arnold Toynbee continually used 'society' instead of 'civilization'
- Marcel Mauss: 'idea of civilization is less clear than that of society'
- society & civilization
1. are inseparable (both refer to the same reality)
2. represent 2 complementary views of the same object
- 'society' (wealth of content) -- Western civilization's society
- every civilization draws its essential insights from the 'view of the world' (determined by social
tensions) it adopts (Goldmann)
- PRIMITIVE vs. MODERN SOCIETIES (Claude Levi-Strauss)
- cultures (societies) & civilizations
- produce little disorder
- lack history & progress
- modern civilizations
- established a social imbalance -- to produce much greater disorder
- primitive cultures -- fruit of egalitarian societies (where relations between groups are
settle once & for all)
- modern civilizations
- based on hierarchical soceities
- most obvious external sign: presence & absence of towns
-- proliferate (civilizations)
-- embryonic (cultures)
-- Black Africa
- most brilliant societies & civilizations: presuppose w/n their own borders
- no society have all parts of the population developed equally
- underdevelopment (common in mountain areas/poverty)
- West's 1st success -- conquest of its countryside


c. Economies
- where society & civilization depends
- Political economy
-- rise/fall in the pop, economic growth/decline
-- study of all these massive problems
- People
- humanity's only major implement (form of energy)
- sole resource for building a civilization
- increase in the population -- helped the growth of civilization
- BUT NOW -- once an advantage became a drawback (end of 16th cent)
-- Industrialization (end of 18th cent)
> broke this vicious circle
- growing value + cost of human labour + need to economize on employees =
ENCOURAGED DEV'T OF MACHINES
- classical antiquity - had NO machines
- slaves (failing)
- e.g. Imperial China -- also suffered because it had too many people
- economic activity = surplus (something left when requirements are met)
- ultimate phase of civilization = emblem of capitalism & wealth
- civilization = reflects a redistribution of wealth
- population rapidly increased = more members enjoy a certain collective civilization
-- social cost of this transformation is heavy
- great problem tomorrow: to create a mass civilization of high quality