Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History Part 13

Mobilization of energy resources had been proceeding on a small scale for ages. Successful civilizers made this one of their chief tasks, mobilizing energy forces and materials and using them to build palaces, temples, mausoleums and whole city complexes with appropriate defenses against marauders and other enemies.

Administrative networks, adequate to produce such results, planned and directed the construction and administered and policed the operations.

Using elaborate techniques of communication, transportation, fabrication, beautification, accounting, planning, initiative, leadership, mobilization, maintenance and replacement of labor power, imposition and sharing of authority, discipline, adjustment to deviation and opposition, means for dealing with revolt and rebellion, the builders of civilization performed their necessary tasks.

As civilizations have matured they have grown at the nucleus, expanded abroad and experimented more or less successfully with various means of exploiting nature, man and human society. Most of the compet.i.tors for survival and supremacy dropped out or were forced out in the course of continuous survival struggles.

Survivors of the obstacle race dealt successively with personal rivalries; cla.s.s conflicts; civil wars; dictatorships; tyrannies; with overhead costs that grew more rapidly than income; with empty treasuries, inflation, depression, economic stagnation; with increases in top-heavy bureaucracies; with parasitism; with hooliganism; with the growing role of the military in decision making and administration; sharing the honey-pot with migrants and invaders; with rivalry and power struggle at home and abroad; with division, fragmentation and eventual dissolution.

Any student of the sociology of civilization must turn from this a.n.a.lysis of function with the conviction that whatever the advantages of civilization as opposed to earlier phases of human a.s.sociation, the pattern of civilization in action is workable only to a very limited extent. Civilization is not an example of perpetual motion. Rather it is a social life cycle, with a beginning and an end, and a peck of troublesome contradictions and conflicts in between.

Civilization is an integrative process. During the course of its compet.i.tive survival struggle, potential building units of an expanding civilization are tested out and included or rejected in much the same way that a stone-mason checks and tests the individual stones of which his wall is being built. The a.n.a.logy is not entirely accurate. A wall becomes a completed part of a total structure. A civilization is a process of existence from conception and birth to dissolution and death.

At any point in the process there is a delicate balance between integration and disintegration. As a matter of fact, both integration and disintegration exist and act, constantly, side by side. If the integrative forces are in the ascendant, form is built and function is accelerated. If the disintegrative forces are dominant, form breaks down and function stagnates.

This shifting balance and/or imbalance with its resulting build-up and/or break-down exists geographically, biologically, sociologically.

It can perhaps be best described as successive change. It cannot be referred to as evolution except in its integrative aspect.

Disintegratively it becomes devolution.

Civilization is a result of sociological build-up at a certain cultural level. It has not been universal in all human societies, but exceptional, both in time and in geographical s.p.a.ce.

What has caused the pattern of civilization to appear, disappear and reappear again and again during the period of written history?

There have been many answers. The most general answer is divine intervention by beings above and beyond mankind. Whether such intervention has taken place or is taking place, human beings are unable to say with finality, but several thousand years of recorded history, plus our own daily experience provides convincing proof that the political, economic, ideological and sociological constructs which have appeared and disappeared in the course of social history are, at least in large part, the products of human brains and human hands. They are man-made.

The social pattern of civilization, like other social patterns which preceded civilization and which continue to exist side by side with civilized communities, is the result of human ingenuity and human energy, of human inertia, inept.i.tude, and the human urges to build, decorate and destroy.

Variety in human culture is caused by the variety in the human natural environment, the human social environment and in man himself.

Natural advantages exist and vary from place to place. There are fertile valleys; there are also mountains and deserts. There are a few fine harbors, but for the most part landings are difficult and dangerous.

Certain islands have become the bases of civilizations, but this is true of only a very small number of many existing islands.

Civilizations have flourished in certain climatic zones and not elsewhere. At one historical period civilizations were established in the tropics and semi-tropics. In the present period they are located chiefly in temperate climatic belts.

Another source of differences between civilizations is the variation and the adaptability of certain peoples to the peculiar conditions out of which civilization grows.

Still another explanation of the presence or absence of civilization in particular times and places is the "great man" theory of history. All human communities, pre-civilized and civilized, have had gifted leaders whose thoughts and actions have brought about social changes. These "greats" were the divinely, ideologically or sociologically inspired.

Divine inspiration or revelation led to the founding of religious faiths. Ideological and sociological inspiration resulted in domestic cultural changes and the extension of economic, cultural and ideological activities into foreign lands, thus pushing the frontiers of nations, empires, and civilizations farther from the chief wealth-power centers.

Thomas Carlyle wrote that history is the lengthened shadows of a few great men. Arnold Toynbee concluded from his _Study of History_ that religion has been a prime motive force in the building and preservation of civilizations.

Technology has been a motive force of hard-to-define importance in revitalizing, changing, expanding and perpetuating civilizations.

Increased productivity, expressing itself as increases in income, acc.u.mulated wealth and various forms of capital investment, have provided the economic basis for population growth and the more effective exploitation of natural resources and labor power, advances in the means for transportation and communication, accounting, planning management and "defense."

Among the social motive forces responsible for the development of civilization is the acc.u.mulation of wealth in an impoverished world. The most important single factor in this connection was the development of a cla.s.s of businessmen in a society dominated by landlords, churchmen and soldiers. Landlords, churchmen and soldiers lived during periods of animal husbandry and primitive agriculture on the very narrow margins produced during bountiful harvests. When harvests were bad, husbandmen and farmers were reduced to starvation levels. Lacking means of storage and refrigeration as well as facilities for transporting heavy materials such as food, fuel and building materials, pre-civilized society acc.u.mulated wealth slowly in mobile forms (precious metals and jewels) and made few productive investments.

The advent of trade (business) and the trading cla.s.s created a small but potentially powerful cla.s.s whose income and wealth were not derived from direct contact with nature but came from trade, money changing, lending, insuring and other activities a.s.sociated with the acc.u.mulation and investment of wealth in profit-yielding enterprises. Only in a secondary sense did business depend on animal husbandry or agriculture. As their primary task businessmen devoted themselves to the exploitation of labor power and the storage and merchandising of the products turned out by herdsmen, farmers, craftsmen. Part of their profits went into more elaborate standards of feeding, clothing and housing themselves and their dependents. Another, and a more crucial part of their profits went into ships, warehouses, and the implements used in converting raw materials into consumer goods and services, transporting them to the markets, displaying them and persuading consumers to diversify their needs, purchase a greater variety of goods and services and thus increase the number and profitability of business transactions.

As this process mushroomed with the expansion of civilization, consumers demanded a greater number of more expensive artifacts and consumer capital goods, from housing and house furnishings such as bathrooms and well-stocked kitchens to refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, telephones, television sets, bicycles, automobiles and elaborate recreation facilities and equipment. The expansion of ma.s.s production and the ma.s.s market paced one another, constantly raising the ante.

Ma.s.s production, ma.s.s marketing and pyramiding profits resulted, first and foremost in the enrichment of businessmen. Their riches automatically pushed them into a position of pre-eminent importance from which they were able to make public policy and utilize public authority for the protection and advancement of their own cla.s.s interests. It also called into being a vast array of new professionals; teachers, engineers, scientists, technicians, social workers and propagandists, converting the "middle cla.s.s" from a shadowy remnant of feudal society into the largest cla.s.s numerically and the most influential cla.s.s politically in the entire modern community.

At the same time, economic enrichment and expansion increased the importance of the war-making apparatus. The expansion of civilization has involved a compet.i.tive struggle carried on constantly along several fronts, economic, political, cultural, ideological. The means of struggle in every civilization has included the military as a political force and as a final arbiter in deciding who should win and who should lose civil and inter-group wars. Victory and defeat determined the fate of land and natural resources, populations, capital installations, taxing facilities, domestic policing. This deterministic role of the war machine has never been more dramatically in the foreground than during the crucial years from 1910 to the present day, when war apparatus costs have topped the list of government expenditures.

Growth of state functions with the expansion of the economy has resulted in the creation of a vast state bureaucratic apparatus. Heading this bureaucracy are the ministers of state, each with a separate department. Under the department heads are sub-departments, sub-divided in their turn into bureaus or separate offices. At each level, functions are a.s.signed and salaries are fixed. Entrance into this anthill is sometimes by personal favor, sometimes by examination. Once in, however, barring misbehavior, or some catastrophe like the abolition of a particular bureau, the office holder is in for life with a pension when he is retired for age.

Inside the bureaucracy there is a slow movement determined by seniority.

There is also some skipping, as when new bureaus are formed or when death or retirement offer opportunities for the favored few to move forward or skip upward. As we read the record, the bureaucracy existed in the days of Egypt's Amenhotep, or in those of Rome's Augustus Caesar, as it exists today--locally in every munic.i.p.ality, province, nation and empire and generally throughout western civilization.

Every civilization known to history has had its priestcraft as well as its statecraft. Statecraft sp.a.w.ned its bureaucracy. Priestcraft sp.a.w.ned its theocracy. Both patterns have inter-penetrated entire civilizations.

Each locality, region and district has had its representatives of state and of church. In some instances the church took precedence. In others the state was supreme. As the civilization matured, using war as the chief instrument of policy, the state in the person of military dictators has tended to predominate. In every civilization the state has collected its taxes and the church has collected its t.i.thes.

The net result, in every civilization, has been a ruling oligarchy, self-appointed and self-perpetuating, which has shaped policy, planned and directed administration, exercised authority and lived comfortably and at least semi-parasitically on the backs of the underlying urban and rural ma.s.ses, sharing its sinecure with its middle cla.s.s handymen. In some times and in certain localities the oligarchy has maintained a representative front. Elsewhere it has functioned arbitrarily. In extreme cases one man has ruled for a brief period. Generally the oligarchy has held the reins of authority.

Each phase of human society has had its oppositions, its confrontations, its conflicts, proportioned to its magnitude, its specialization and the interdependence of its component parts, its ratio of change to stability and its foresight, plans and preparations for dealing with changes when they occur. Since civilization, of all known forms of human a.s.sociation, is the largest, most specialized and most interdependent, it is in civilization that we should expect to find the most intensive and extensive contradictions, confrontations and conflicts.

Among the many oppositions of civilized a.s.sociation five are outstanding: the we-they relationship; rural versus urban life; subsistence versus acquisition and acc.u.mulation; hard work versus ease, luxury and parasitism; poverty versus wealth.

Civilization is not only complex and interdependent in form, it is avowedly compet.i.tive in its functioning. Politically, nation building, empire building and the establishment and maintenance of each civilization is a compet.i.tive struggle between declared rivals to gain and keep place and power. Economically, the efforts to get and keep natural resources and labor power and to use them to _Our_ advantage and _Their_ disadvantage dominates the field of livelihood. Ideologically _We_ are right, while _They_ are wrong. Culturally _We_ are superior.

_They_ are inferior.

The _We-They_ relationship developed very early in the history of the human family. Individuals and small, more advanced groups have reached a level of understanding and living based on the cooperative inclusive formula of _"We, Ours, Us",_ but every civilization known to history has accepted and adopted the compet.i.tive, divisive formula and poured energy and wealth into the political, economic, ideological and cultural struggle to take and keep for individual, local or cla.s.s advantage.

Resulting oppositions fragmented civilization: (1) urban vs. rural life, city vs. hinterland; (2) cooperation vs. compet.i.tion; (3) acquisition and acc.u.mulation vs. sharing; (4) riches vs. poverty; (5) the individual vs. the group; (6) status vs. change.

These fragmenting forces have been accepted, adopted and given priority by civilizations as they developed predominance. As they grew in magnitude they limited or subordinated the forces of integration and unification.

Opposites and oppositions lead to confrontations along cla.s.s lines, geographic lines, cultural lines, color lines, racial lines. The traditional confrontation of rural vs. urban life is doubly underlined by two factors: first, the countryside operates generally on a use economy with pay for services largely in kind or by barter. The city operates under a market economy with payment for services usually in money. Second, the standards of life and work are more primitive in the countryside than in the city. Third, as the civilization advances toward maturity, city population increases while it declines in the countryside. Consequently vigorous, energetic, adventurous people leave the deteriorating countryside.

Increasingly the owners of land and capital live in the cities, visiting the countryside for holidays and recreation, leaving rural areas to servants, peons, serfs and slaves. Small owning farmers are bought out or expropriated. Unable to make a living in the countryside they move to the city. Lacking city skills they work as casual labor or are unemployed. The city is divided between enterprisers, their subordinates, owners of country estates and members of the state bureaucracy on one side and va.s.sals, servants, serfs, and slaves and the unemployed on the other. The rich and powerful become richer and more powerful. The poor and dependent grow in numbers--protest, demonstrate, riot, revolt.

This cla.s.s struggle dominates public life in the urban centers of every civilization. The rich offer petty reforms and minor benefits to the impoverished, semi-employed city ma.s.ses. At the same time the urban oligarchy breaks up into rival factions: the Ins and the Outs. The Ins hold public jobs, spend public money, award contracts and pa.s.s around favors. The Outs wait and maneuver for their turn at the public pie-counter. Both Ins and Outs appeal for ma.s.s support.

Oppositions and confrontations lead to conflicts which have studded the life of every civilization. Conflicts include wars which may be divided into six groups: (1) Wars of expansion, conquest, colonization directed toward the enlargement of the territories included in the civilization.

(2) Wars of survival among adjacent nations and empires. (3) Wars fought to suppress unrest and revolt in the colonies and dependencies of an empire or civilization. (4) Wars fought to repel the invasion of migrating peoples attempting to occupy territory over which an empire or a civilization claims jurisdiction. (5) Peasant, serf and slave revolts and rebellions against the authority of empires or civilizations. (6) Civil wars to determine the leadership of particular empires; wars of leadership succession; conflicts and power seizures within particular oligarchies.

In every civilization final decisions regarding domestic and foreign issues have been made by an appeal to arms. There were laws and legal inst.i.tutions in many civilizations under which confrontations might have been prevented and armed conflict avoided. Where these legal means failed to provide solutions, contestants turned to armed force as the final arbiter.

Compet.i.tive survival struggle has played a prominent role in the life of every civilization known to history. Compet.i.tion at its highest level employs armed force as its instrument of policy. War, domestic and foreign has, therefore, dominated the history of every civilization.

Walter Bagehot called war a state maker. In the same context, war may be referred to as a civilization maker.

Conflict, including war, has played a major role, often a determining role in building and maintaining civilizations. It has also been a major and perhaps _the_ major factor in undermining and destroying civilizations. Arnold Toynbee contends that war has been a "proximate cause" of the overthrow of one civilization after another. No observer of current western civilization can fail to note the determining part played by war during the first half of the present century.

Every completed civilization known to historians has pa.s.sed through a sociological life cycle: origin, growth, expansion, maturity, violent premature dismemberment and death in the compet.i.tive survival struggle or gradual decline and eventual dissolution.

Every completed civilization has had small, local beginnings, on an island like Crete, or a group of islands like the j.a.panese Archipelago, or a tiny spot like Latium on the Tiber River, or an isolated area like the desert-surrounded Nile River Valley in Africa. The seed ground or nucleus of each civilization has been a small, well-knit group of vigorous, energetic people, well-led, living in an easily defended, limited area, enjoying relative isolation, but also having ready access to the outside world.

At the beginning the growth cycle has moved slowly, from victory to victory, as competing neighboring peoples have been brought under the authority of the victor in local wars. After generations or centuries of struggle a point is reached at which the nucleus of the growing empire begins to expand, through trade, colonization, diplomatic alliances, conquest, into an era of survival struggle in which rival cities reach out for the same piece of fertile land, the same markets, the same mineral deposits. Again the life and death survival struggle tests out the people, their leaders, their ambitions, determination, tenacity.

Earlier struggles were local. Now the struggle area has become regional.