The Story Of Civilization



A culture is a collection of stories. The story of civilization is the collection of myths that drive our culture. These stories express our ideas of how things were, how they are now and how they will be in the future. They express our ideas about man's place in the grand scheme of things, our ideas about how the world began and how it will end. 

What makes humans unique is not their opposable thumbs or their ability to walk on two legs. What makes us human is our ability to tell stories and transmit culture from one generation to the next. 

The way people live is based on their cultural stories. It is the stories that determine their behaviour. Whatever the story says man will do, we will do. Our stories become our reality. 

For all of human history until very recently our stories told us that we were a part of the world, that we belonged to the world. So we enacted that story, we participated in the community of life, taking what we needed and leading a full life but not dominating. 

Then about 10,000 years ago a new set of cultural stories developed. These became the story of civilization. Then we began to enact it; we began to make the story come true.

Humankind Is Different

When mother culture tells the story of human history she says that primitive cultures were chapter 1 of the story - a long and boring chapter where we achieved nothing and lived at the mercy of nature, just as crude a lifestyle as an elephant, a spider or a snake. Civilization, mother culture tells us, is chapter 2 of the story - where mankind finally realizes his destiny and breaks the shackles of nature. With agriculture he is no longer bound to nature's restraints and can finally bring order to the world. It was when we truly became human.

The basis of the story of civilization is that humans are separate from the world rather than a part of it. We are a different order of being; a higher order of being. The rest of the world is different from us. The rest of the world is nature and we are mankind. Mankind is not part of nature, we are different. We are not bound by the laws of nature, we do what we want and we answer to no one. 

Mankind is not bound by the laws of nature. We answer to no one.

Based on this fundamental premise the story of civilization then goes one step further. Since we are separate from and superior to nature it is our role to subdue, control and rule it.

Without man to bring order to the natural world it would be in a state of perpetual anarchy. The world needs a ruler, and that ruler is man.

Because this is the story we tell ourselves this is the story we enact into reality. Because we believe it, we make it come true. We fill as much of the world as we possibly can with humans and human food without any thought of the consequences. We actively seek and destroy those species that compete with us for our food. We dam rivers, we cut down forests and we extract as much nutrition as we can from every square metre of farmland.

And according to the story we can do all that because the world is ours. It belongs to us. It's our environment, our rivers, our seas, our wildlife. We can do whatever we please with the world because it belongs to us and exists for our use.

The Story Of Civilization Through History

This story has been with us right from the beginning of our culture. As soon as our people began writing this is the story they wrote down: 

Our cultures most influential thinkers were enactors of this story:

Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man - domestic animals for his use and food and the wild ones for food and other accessories such as tools and clothing.
- Aristotle

This story, that mankind is different from and the owner of nature has had profound implications on the world. We were quite happy to destroy trees that did not produce human food or good timber and replace them with what we felt was more suitable. We were quite happy to destroy animals that were not good eating for us and replace them with ones that were. We were quite happy to do absolutely anything to the environment that produced a short term gain for us. 

The story of civilization is self destructive. If we destroy our land base we'll cease to exist.

The story of civilization tells us that this way of life is the pinnacle of human society. It can't be bettered.

But if you take a view with a wider perspective you can see that this is false. Because civilization tells us we are separate from nature we willingly destroy the land base. Any society that destroys its land base will eventually cease to exist.

Primitive cultures are not chapter 1 in the story of human history. They are people who are enacting a completely different story - the antithesis of the story of civilization. Their story says that man is a part of the world, and that story is sustainable.

The story of civilization is self destructive. It demands continual growth by exploiting the environment and exploiting other humans. The growth is exponential but once the land base has been exhausted the collapse is catastrophic. It has happened to every civilization that has gone before us. If we continue to buy into the story of civilization and see ourselves as separate from nature then it will happen to us as well.

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