The Meaning Of Civilization

When contemplating the meaning of civilization traditional thinking would suggest that civilization is the refinement and development of human culture. It is central heating, air travel and spa pools. It is Shakespeare, Beethoven and Tolkien. It is physics, astronomy and nuclear power.

Mother culture teaches us that these things is what civilization is all about. The difference between civilization and indigenous living is merely a technological gulf without any deeper cultural influences.

But this isn't true. When our culture adopted the civilized life it wasn't a technological change. It was a change in lifestyle and a change in vision. We went from believing that man belonged to the world, to believing that the world belonged to man. We went from abiding by evolutionary laws to breaking them. It isn't technology that draws the line between our civilization and everybody else, rather it is vision.

The Vision Of Our Civilization Is Conquest

Our civilization is built upon the conquest and destruction of other life forms. We seek to subjugate the planet into producing a maximum amount of human food and thus a maximum amount of humans. In order to make room for all of us we reduce biodiversity. Foxes and wolves don't get to eat when all the livestock belongs to us. Insects don't get to eat when all the fruit belongs to us.

Civilization is not about the benefits like space travel and universities and neither is it about all the negative effects like poverty, war, crime, famine and plague. These are just side effects. The meaning of civilization, in our culture, is the conquest of the world.

This way of living cannot be sustained because our interference with the world is rapidly bringing the planet to its knees. Yet just because our civilization means destruction and conquest doesn't mean all civilizations have to be like that.

Indigenous cultures all over the world have been experimenting with settlement for a long time. 

In New Zealand the Maori established large fortified hill settlements, sustained by cultivation of yams and sweet potato. 

In the Americas there have been numerous groups who have developed complex settlements. Some had been abandoned before Europeans arrived such as the Hohokam and the Mayan civilizations, others were destroyed by the new arrivals.

The difference between these attempts at settlement between our culture and indigenous cultures is that the indigenous never believed that they were the owners of the world. They maintained the vision they had when they were hunter/gatherers and attempted to create a settled way of life with material luxury whilst continuing to obey the biological laws which had sustained them thus far.

Had our civilization not wiped out those who were experimenting with complex settlements that abided by evolutionary laws they very well may have created a way of life far more fantastic than our own. Yet they were in no hurry, they were happy to abandon a model if it wasn't working and start again. We cling to ours with a feverish tenacity because our culture tells us that our way is the right way for humans to live.

What our civilization did was break the peace keeping laws of the biological community. We had the vision that the world belonged to man, that we were special, and the laws that applied to the rest of the living creatures didn't apply to us. It is this breach which has caused a human population explosion, a mass extinction and the very real possibility that we could cause irreversible damage to the biosphere.

We Can Have Settlement Without Obliteration

The meaning of civilization does not have to be destruction. Most of us don't want to obliterate the world, we just want settlement with a degree of material comfort. But because our civilization is the only way we know how we assume that destruction and civilization must go hand in hand. Deforestation is just the price we have to pay for a comfortable mattress and a hot shower.

But the meaning of civilization can be different. It can just mean settlement without the conquest and destruction. We must become aware of the laws of the community of life that we are a part of and create our civilization within them.

Related Articles From Deep Ecology Hub:

• The Law Of Limited Competition
• We Think Evolutionary Law Doesn't Apply To Us
• Takers And Leavers
• The Story Of Civilization
• The Global Vision Of Deep Ecology

---

Return from The Meaning Of Civilization to The Development Of Civilization