Civilization
An achieved state or condition of organized social life. Originally
referred to a process of making things civil - i.e. taking them out of the
context of criminality and violence. First appeared in the eighteenth
century. Now more likely to be used as a noun that can be simply
descriptive as in "comparative civilizations" but is usually a relative and
hierarchical term which depends on an abject other (i.e. barbarism). This
form appears for instance in Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis
(1893) "the frontier is the outer edge of the wave - the meeting point
between savagery and civilization". Civilization also has an ideal and
progressive sense (popular in the nineteenth century among liberals). Mill
wrote "Take for instance the question of haw far mankind has gained by
civilizationŠthe decline of war and personal conflict; the progressive
limitation of the strong over the weak; the great works accomplished
throughout the globe by the co-operation of multitudes" (cited in Williams
Keywords 1976 page 58). Conventionally (and ironically) the first
"civilization" is said to have appeared in Mesopotamia - in what is now
Iraq. Civilization often appears now in the term "Western civilisation"
which is an amorphous term referring to cultures which subscribe to notions
of "democracy", "freedom" and, increasingly, capitalism and can trace their
heritage to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Ironically the Renaissance
is widely thought to have arisen from the rediscovery of knowledge, lost to
Europe, but cultivated by the Arabs of North Africa.
Tim
Tim Cresswell
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion SY23 3DB
United Kingdom
Tel: 44 (0)1970 622782
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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