Civilisation
Friday, November 21st, 2003 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerPondering my rather uncharacteristic fondness for The Postman (see previous entry), the word "civilisation" came to mind several times. (Yes, I know that is a dangling participle. I like to dangle my participles.)
Once upon an Enlightenment, "civilisation" was assumed to be good more-or-less by definition, Rousseau and the Romantics notwithstanding. Since then, the name has acquired a bad name in some quarters. Civilisation was seen as artificial, unnatural, and an excuse for committing appalling acts of barbarity (irony intended) against native peoples, orientals, women, Gaia and what have you. Romanticism and its many children and grandchildren led us to believe that civilisation was something we needed to escape.
In some ways, and according to their view of civilisation, they were right. If I were an eighteenth-century gentleman required by social convention to spend three hours a day dressing and grooming myself, I might well hanker after a simple life in tune with nature. If I were a child of the industrial revolution, I would have good reason to rail against the "dark satanic mills". If I'd lived through two world wars, I might have despaired of civilisation altogether. And in all three cases, I would have the luxury of doing so only because of the very civilisation I was criticising.
I am not just talking about technology here, though it is true that advances in technology have enabled a substantial number of people to live long, healthy and relatively free lives for the first time since we gave up hunting and gathering. Wary as I am of arguments that draw in etymology, I think it is no coincidence that "civilisation" derives for "civis". However, when I am thinking of civilisation in the positive frame of mind that accompanied my Postman post, I wasn't thinking about cities in the physical sense (which can often be pretty ugly and unpleasant) but, to use another word derived from "city", politeia, the sum of relationships in the polis, or city-state (I admit this is only one view of politeia; it just happens to be the one I like).
What makes civilisation in this sense worth having, and worth making sacrifices for, is not the political (in the modern sense) structure, but the network of unacknowledged relationships, what Colin Ward calls "Anarchy in Action" (it's ironic that those who most acknowledge human co-operation are known as anarchists). It is the way we agree, usually without thinking, to treat each other as members of the polis (or these days, the cosmopolis). It is not so much the dramatic achievements of civilisation, like the Taj Mahal or the moon landings, as the unspectacular things, like schools, pedestrian crossings, libraries and, yes, the postal service.
Let's have another look at that scene from the film I posted.
It may just look like a scruffy girl sitting on a horse and handing out letters, but for me, it is iconic of how I see civilisation. It may sound daft, but an image like that evokes an almost religious awe in me, a feeling that this is what it's all about.
Once upon an Enlightenment, "civilisation" was assumed to be good more-or-less by definition, Rousseau and the Romantics notwithstanding. Since then, the name has acquired a bad name in some quarters. Civilisation was seen as artificial, unnatural, and an excuse for committing appalling acts of barbarity (irony intended) against native peoples, orientals, women, Gaia and what have you. Romanticism and its many children and grandchildren led us to believe that civilisation was something we needed to escape.
In some ways, and according to their view of civilisation, they were right. If I were an eighteenth-century gentleman required by social convention to spend three hours a day dressing and grooming myself, I might well hanker after a simple life in tune with nature. If I were a child of the industrial revolution, I would have good reason to rail against the "dark satanic mills". If I'd lived through two world wars, I might have despaired of civilisation altogether. And in all three cases, I would have the luxury of doing so only because of the very civilisation I was criticising.
I am not just talking about technology here, though it is true that advances in technology have enabled a substantial number of people to live long, healthy and relatively free lives for the first time since we gave up hunting and gathering. Wary as I am of arguments that draw in etymology, I think it is no coincidence that "civilisation" derives for "civis". However, when I am thinking of civilisation in the positive frame of mind that accompanied my Postman post, I wasn't thinking about cities in the physical sense (which can often be pretty ugly and unpleasant) but, to use another word derived from "city", politeia, the sum of relationships in the polis, or city-state (I admit this is only one view of politeia; it just happens to be the one I like).
What makes civilisation in this sense worth having, and worth making sacrifices for, is not the political (in the modern sense) structure, but the network of unacknowledged relationships, what Colin Ward calls "Anarchy in Action" (it's ironic that those who most acknowledge human co-operation are known as anarchists). It is the way we agree, usually without thinking, to treat each other as members of the polis (or these days, the cosmopolis). It is not so much the dramatic achievements of civilisation, like the Taj Mahal or the moon landings, as the unspectacular things, like schools, pedestrian crossings, libraries and, yes, the postal service.
Let's have another look at that scene from the film I posted.
It may just look like a scruffy girl sitting on a horse and handing out letters, but for me, it is iconic of how I see civilisation. It may sound daft, but an image like that evokes an almost religious awe in me, a feeling that this is what it's all about.
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Hey!
Rousseau, Romantics (and yours truly) aren't against civilisation.
But it's too uncivilized an hour to argue in favour of this bold claim. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 10:03 pm (UTC)Re: Hey!
Date: 2003-11-22 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 04:32 am (UTC)I'm still trying to clarify my thoughts here. What I was trying to do - not very clearly because of the late hour - was to tease apart the various strands associated with "civilisation". Why, for example, do we describe Sweden as more civilised than America? (well, we Euros do, anyway). It's not a matter of technology, or drinking tea rather than coffee. It's not even about individual freedom, though that's certainly a part of it, or the welfare state. Swedes aren't civilised because they have social welfare, they have social welfare because they're civilised (gross oversimplification!).
What I'm trying to put my finger on is the kind of thing that makes people celebrate beauty or knowledge for its own sake, pick litter off the street, trust the postman to deliver their letters without reading them, bake apple pies for new neighbours, write open source software, devote hours to creating a website on some obscure topic just in case someone might be interested, do voluntary work, organise committees to improve the neighbourhood, water plants, teach, blog ...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 04:46 am (UTC)BTW, unless my googling has led me down the wrong path, she's Kevin Costner's daughter (in real life, not the film). This makes the scene where she tries to chat him up a bit weird (as it happens, he doesn't even notice her invitation to dance because he's hot on the trail of Olivia Williams, for which he can hardly be blamed).
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 05:29 am (UTC)If it actually makes any sense. I think I have to give up writing centenses Tolstoy style. But I'm Russian - can't really help it.
BTW have you played "Civilisation" computer game?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 01:43 pm (UTC)