‘Civilization’

A dialog from the PhilOfHi list, November-December 1997

N. Mohan asked about the anthropological and archaeological definitions of “civilization.” However, I don’t think the term is subject to objective definition, for it seems more ideological. That is, discussion must aim at a consensus over shared social values rather than over something that exists obectively.

The term civilization arose in the eighteenth century as an adaption of a traditional (medieval) French notion of aristocratic behavioral norms. The term was needed to counterpose the anarchy implied by the then fashionable Newtonian idea of social atomism which challenged the feudal emphasis on social relations. Civilization referred to a presumed atomistic social situation in which each social atom voluntarily submitted to laws that were necessary to protect that atomism, particularly with regard to private property. Civilization, then, meant a social order consisting of a free contractual relation of property-owning individuals. It was also understood to represent a stage of world history that followed upon savagery and then barbarism.

The notion of “civilization” subsequently underwent some evolution. In part this was because the new state institutions came to protect the social order, and so civilization was associated with either the state or the class structures that maintained order. Hence the anthropological identification of civilization with a “state-level” society, or with “class society.”

At the same time, empiricism was developing as ruling class ideology, and so another direction taken by the meaning of civilization was toward empiricism, a definition based on a constant conjuncture of traits that were symptomatic of the underlying social order represented in the original definition. This usually referred to the existence of cities and/or a written language. Typical of empiricist definitions, there was a certain fluidity in what were the essential traits of civization, but these two were typical.

In more recent times, with the advance of social science, it became evident these two definitions correlated poorly. For example, we know of sophisticated state-level societies without written language, cities, or even agriculture, and we know of arguably classless societies with what seem to be cities and a written language. I would conclude by suggesting that the notion of “civilization” has fallen on hard times. Because it is inherently Eurocentric, seems highly ideological, and out of touch with modern scientific results, it should be jettisoned altogether. That's not so easily done, however.

Haines Brown
www.hartford-hwp.com

Thanks for your interesting summation of the origins of ‘civilization’ as a term. I was taught that in addition to your two qualifications of urbanization and literacy, the early modern Europeans had to come up with some term to define what they were (and what they were doing) compared to the rest of the world they were exploring. ‘Civilization’ as a missionary duty became thus always was the cultural justification for imperialism, something you have hinted at in your mention that they placed the world into a hierachy of ‘stages' of civilization to attempt to comprehend the differrences (and of course satisfy their consciences). This is the ideology of ‘civilization’ that you speak of in my view. But this missionary quest did not really take off until high imperialism of mid-nineteenth century.

I have one question:

What are the cultures that we know of as ‘arguably classless societies with what seem to be cities and a written language?’

As well, what are the examples you are thinking of in the above paragraph for ‘sophisticated state-level societies without written langauge.’ The Incan Empire is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

For the qualification ‘without agriculture,’ are you thinking of hunter and gathering groups? The Iriquois Council? What?

Regards,

Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dear Phil of hi’ers:

The recent discussion of the term “civilization” interests me because while the historical analysis seems correct, current use dictates something else altogether.

My sense of civ. is that it denotes a large, old (over a thousand years), continuous and interconnected series of high cultures. Hence Western Civ denotes Greece to Rome to Christian middle ages to Renaissance and eventually 20th Century Euro-American literary, philosophical, musical and artistic thought. There is a narrative connection from beginning to end in that later thought refers to and is dependent upon the earlier. I don’t think this is Eurocentric, because India and China have civilizations on this definition as well.

The reference to cities is important insofar as literary, philosophic, musical and artistic high culture tends to flourish in cities. And written language is important as a precondition to all that. But what seems central is really the high culture. My anthropology friends think I am terribly old-fashioned and Eurocentric and elitist with my view of Civ., but oh well. It is a definition that has served well for the last 100 years or so, and I see little gain in changing it or dumping it altogether.

Think of what we lose if we dump the term. We can no longer look at Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe and Thomas Mann as a literary series. The connections between Greek, French, English, Dutch and German art from the ancients to the present are then incidental rather than a coherent narrative sequence. If we concentrate on cities or some other structural aspect of societies, then great gulfs emerge between Ancient Greece and modern France. This is just a smattering of an argument, but I think the gist is clear.

Randy Groves
Eurocentrism
J. Randall Groves, M.A.,M.A., Ph.D
Associate Professor of Humanities
Ferris State University
rgroves@art01.ferris.edu

just two pennies to the discussion:

a) It is necessary to distinguish civilization as a stage (enlightenment tradition) and civilization as a long-live cultural entity opposed to other civ-ns (tradition of danilevski, spengler, toynbee, bagby, coulborn, quigly, eisenstadt, etc)

b) I support three mentioned diagnostic features of civ-n as a stage: cities, state, and script, i see no problem that there are cases of partial presence of these features: the method is to define civilization as an ideal type (a la weber) with all three criteria, and then to deal with each given pretender as a reality more or less close to this ideal concept.

c) The most urgent problem from my viewpoint is to define properly the principal limits of civilization in order to treat marginal societies and cultures and to map strictly and properly the real boundaries of civilizations in each epoch.

My initial idea is to focus on the system of core “cultural patterns”(kroeber) that are common within one civilization for people with different languages, for people from various consequent epochs, etc maybe smb suggests another criterion? I’ll be very grateful.

d)It is necessary also to bridge the concept of civ-n with other well historically based macrosociological concepts such as society, empire, world-empire, and world-economy, oikumena (ecumena in latin).

F.e., is it true that namely a world-empire was an initial form of each civilization? I would like to hear falsification of this simple hypothesis, especially from professional historians (ancient greece comes to mind, but wasn’t it just a peripheral part of babilonian-persian and egyptyan civilizations, that evidently fit to the concept of w-empire?, delos navy union in the highest point of athens blossoming had many features of a specific “see” w-empire, but also with strong features of w-economy).

Any ideas on these links?

All for now
thanks for comments
nikolai

Nikolai S. Rozov, PhD, Dr.Sc. Professor of Philosophy
E-MAIL: rozov@nsu.ru FAX: 7-3832-355237
ADDRESS: Philosophy Dept. Novosibirsk State University
630090, Novosibirsk, Pirogova 2, RUSSIA
Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history).
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I’m leaning to the notion that civ-n is something we recognize after the fact. Early Shang or Hsai (Ehr-li-t’aan) doesn’t look much better than Benin to be honest; we give it more credit because by Chin-Han times (or even later Chou) we see writing and administration and all the other things we associate with “developed” civ-n.

In other words, some of those fervent debates about “Was Huari a State?” (or Harappa, or Benin) maybe miss a point. If they’d continue to develop for a thousand years, we’d have no doubt. Being chopped off young, we keep mumbling about chiefdoms.

f.e. is it true that namely a world-empire was an initial form of each civilization?

I doubt it. Mesopotamia was certainly warlike from the beginning, but the sort of subjugation that we associate with Akkad and Assyria doesn’t seem to have been on anyone's mind till 2400 BC or so.

ms44278@huey.csun.edu
Mike Shupp
California State University, Northridge
Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology
http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/index.htm