Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History Part 14

At the outset the peoples were amateurs in the science and art of expansion, occupation, consolidation, exploitation. Through the hard school of struggle they became professionals. From victory to victory they gained in territory, in wealth, in administrative skill. One by one, rivals were eliminated, annexed or a.s.sociated with the nascent empire which was by way of becoming the central empire of a maturing civilization.

Generations of effort and centuries of time have gone into the empire building process. The farther the civilization has expanded, the greater the necessary input of manpower, wealth, enterprise and administrative talent needed to keep the enterprise strong, solvent, masterful.

Eventually the expanding civilization reaches a point at which the costs of further expansion are greater than the income derived from further extension of its authority. Up to this point expansion had paid its own way. Beyond this point it is a losing proposition--politically, economically, sociologically. At this point begin times of troubles; bad harvests; colonial or provincial revolts; power struggles between individuals or cla.s.ses in the homeland; new rivals moving in to share in the prospective plunder of the mother-city.

From this time of troubles the civilization enters a new phase of its lifecycle. Up to this point victory has brought plunder and prosperity which have financed new foreign adventures and led to new victories.

Beyond this point lies stalemate, economic stagnation, military defeat.

Building an empire and establis.h.i.+ng it as the central force in a civilization is a long and arduous process. Once the process is reversed, the decline may move quickly or slowly, but as it proceeds the civilization is fragmented and eventually dissolved or taken over by a more vigorous rival.

At all stages of this cycle there have been life and death survival struggles. Peoples, nations and empires entered the contest, played their parts, made their contribution to the up-building process. There were ups and downs, advances and withdrawals, victories and defeats.

There were many contenders for survival and supremacy. Usually there was one survivor which gave its name to the civilization.

The period of ascendancy of any civilization has been historically brief. The struggle to the summit was long and exhausting; the descent from the summit more rapid than the ascent. Literally, like the bear that went over the mountain to see what he could find, and who found the other side of the mountain, the civilizations that have reached the summit of wealth and power have found on the other side of the summit a steep downward sloping time of troubles that ended in dissolution and liquidation.

Civilization, as a sociological life pattern, has proved to be seductive and alluring in prospect, but in retrospect unsatisfactory and frustrating. Civilization has proved to be not an opportunity for the ambitious, but a trap for the ignorant, inexperienced and unwary. For the many contestants who set out to conquer the world the experience has been disappointing and on the whole disastrous. For the few who have reached the summit the experience has been frustrating.

Civilization as a way of life is like any other contest. The struggle is good for those who are able to benefit from it by learning its lessons.

Whether they win or lose is a matter of no great consequence. For the losers the experience often is heart breaking and death-dealing.

Students of social history have been tempted to draw a parallel between the biological life cycle of an individual and the sociological lifecycle of a civilization. There are elements of likeness between biological birth, growth, maturity, old age and death of human individuals and of human civilizations. All of the individuals and civilizations that we know have pa.s.sed or are pa.s.sing through such a lifecycle. The same thing may be true of the larger universe of which we are a minute fragment. However exact or inexact it may prove to be, the parallel certainly is unmistakable, alluring. It may also be seductive and mortal.

CHAPTER NINE

IDEOLOGIES OF CIVILIZATION

This study was laid out along inductive lines: an examination of the facts with such generalizations as the facts suggest or justify. We began our social a.n.a.lysis of civilization by presenting noteworthy facts concerning the politics, economics, and sociology of various civilizations. In the present chapter we deal with their ideologies.

We are accepting and following the fourth variant definition of "ideology" presented by Webster's New World Dictionary: "The doctrines, opinions or way of thinking of an individual, cla.s.s, etc." In this case we are reporting on the doctrines, opinions, thought forms and action patterns of entire civilizations.

Our concern is not with the doctrines, opinions and ways of thinking and acting advanced by elite minorities. Such an approach would involve a study of comparative ideologies. Rather we are asking what civilized peoples were trying to do, as measured by their political, economic and sociological activities, programs and purposes.

It may be presumptuous for an individual to generalize about civilizations of which he knows so little. On the other hand, if we recognize the limitations under which all a.s.sumptions and generalizations operate it is possible and often helpful to a.s.sume and generalize, although the generalizations may be no more than interim reports, subject to later amendment, correction or rejection.

What were the prevailing ideas of civilizations and what ideas were put into practice? What purposes dominated and directed the lives of civilized peoples? How successful have civilized peoples been in achieving their objectives?

At the outset we must realize that in any complex society there are wide ranges of ideology, from the body of ideas held by small uninfluential sects to the purposes, ideas, policy declarations and actions of governing oligarchies. We do not wish to defend or attack the ideas, but to summarize them and understand them in a way that will give a group picture of the purposes, ideas, policies and day-to-day activities of the civilizations in question. For convenience in our discussion we will take up, first, civilized societies as collectives, and then the operation of civilized ideology as expressed in the lives of individuals.

Presumably the most immediate purpose of all civilized peoples has been survival, getting on as a collective or group from day to day, through summer and winter, under normal conditions, and/or in periods of stress and emergency. If the group cannot survive it loses its ident.i.ty, breaking up into the self-determining parts of which it is composed.

Survival means continued existence as a group--in the face of disruption from within or attack and invasion from without. The group which survives continues to exist and to act as a group that maintains the common defense and promotes the general welfare.

Each social group competing for survival has a sense of its own ident.i.ty and a belief in its capacity to survive. This ideology is strengthened by the belief that the group has special qualities and is protected by powerful ent.i.ties that will guarantee its success in the survival struggle. The group considers itself better qualified to survive than neighbor groups. Such ideas, carried to their logical conclusion, make the group in question superior to its neighbors in survival qualities and a people chosen by its G.o.ds.

A superior people, chosen by its G.o.ds, is in a cla.s.s by itself. Other people, by comparison, are inferior. It is the destiny of the superior people to take the lands of their inferior neighbors, and, whenever opportunity offers, to defeat the neighbors in battle, capture them and force them to do the bidding of the captors.

Cults of ideological superiority are widespread. Put into successful practice by a victorious tribe, nation or empire, they develop into cults of superiority which a.s.sert: "We, the victors, are stronger, better people than our weaker neighbors." As one victory follows another the belief in superiority grows. People in an expanding empire or burgeoning civilization are obviously better survivors than their less successful compet.i.tors.

Compet.i.tive survival struggle modifies the cultures of both victors and vanquished. The dispersal and adoption of culture traits, supplemented by negotiation and accommodation, broaden the geographical area of the victors, increasing the population and adding to the material resources, the wealth and income of the enlarged group. It may also involve the corresponding decrease of the geographical area, population, wealth and income of the vanquished.

In order to protect itself, preserve itself, to enlarge itself and, where possible, to improve itself, each competing groups aims to set up standards of ideas and conduct to which all living members of the group are presumed to agree and to which they must adhere. When new members enter the group, by birth or adoption, they are duly indoctrinated with the group ideology. Early in their history the individuals and sub-groups composing every civilization adopted such standards and promulgated them by the decree of a leader or by the common consent of a.s.sociated groups, as the outcome of negotiation, discussion, give and take. During the history of every civilization such agreements were reached and recorded in compacts, treaties, laws, const.i.tutions, specifying the nature and limits of the collective cultural uniformity at which the community aimed.

The struggle for collective uniformity was long and often bitter.

Individuals and factions resented and resisted the imposition of group authority. Internal conflict led to civil wars in the course of which the group was divided or the solidarity of the group was reaffirmed despite hards.h.i.+ps imposed on disagreeing, divergent minorities.

Closely paralleling the group need for survival and uniformity (solidarity) was the need for group expansion, or extension. In the compet.i.tive struggle for survival which played such an important role in the life of pre-civilized communities, strategic geographic location was often decisive. Soil fertility, mineral deposits, timber reserves, access to waterways, location on trade routes all played a part in community survival, stability and growth.

Such geographical advantages are few and far between. Often they are already occupied and defended by stable communities. Their control and utilization are basic in determining the survival or elimination of rivals in the compet.i.tive struggle.

Above and beyond the need to occupy the "corner lots" of the planetary land ma.s.s was the urge of civilized peoples to advance from littleness to bigness as a goal in itself. Confined by limitations on communication and transportation, pre-civilized man was circ.u.mscribed and localized.

With the advent of cultivation, land workers were tied to a particular piece of real estate on which they lived and worked. When asked whether the village across the valley was Sunrise Mountain the local peasant could reply: "How should I know? I live here."

Reacting against restricted living and pressed by curiosity and the spirit of adventure, the imaginative and adventurous members of each generation pressed outward from the homeland toward wider horizons. Many traveled. Some migrated. Others pursued the will o' the wisp of expansion by adding field to field. The gra.s.s always looked greener on the other side of the mountain. The ambitious expansionist therefore tried to control both sides.

"Move on! Move on!" became the watchword, without any particular emphasis on quality. In one civilization after another bigness (magnitude) was accepted as a symbol of success, because "the more you get and keep, the happier you will be."

Mastery of strategic advantages, plus the illusion of mere bigness, without any specification to quality, became keys to survival and success.

Civilized man exploited natural advantages and augmented his power over nature and society by increasing his wealth and multiplying the population. At the outset of the struggle strategic geographical advantages were occupied and utilized by local groups. Through survival struggle, one of the groups, better organized, better led, more determined and productive, succeeded in securing possession of one strong point after another, until an entire region, like the Nile Valley or the Mediterranean Basin had been conquered and occupied by a single great power. The measure of success in the power struggle is the occupation of strategic strong points. Natural resources, including land and labor power, are among the chief spoils of victory.

Seven basic goals or principles were involved in the building of civilizations: group survival; propitiating the G.o.ds; recognizing and following aesthetic principles; achieving and stabilizing property and cla.s.s relations; expansion (bigness); individual conformity to the collective pattern; and collective uniformity in a united world of human brotherhood. At times and in places the basic propositions were accepted, rejected, fought over. Each civilization which followed them successfully was able to establish itself, maintain itself, and up to a certain point add to its prestige, wealth and power.

The first goal was success in the struggle for survival. Collective uniformity and expansion opened the path to wealth and power, in the city, state, the empire, the civilization. From a mult.i.tude of local beginnings the struggle for expansion and consolidation led to ever larger aggregations of land, population, capital and wealth concentrated in the hands of an increasingly rich, powerful oligarchy, protected and defended by a military elite pus.h.i.+ng itself ceaselessly toward a position from which it could make and enforce domestic policy and order.

A second collective goal has been propitiating and wooing the unseen forces of the universe: holding their attention; keeping them on "our"

side; relying on their influence for defense against enemies, mortal and immortal, and help in providing water in case of drought, fertility, a.s.sistance in healing the sick, comfort for the dying, consolation for the bereaved and success in business deals. These multiple aspects of ideology are summed up under the term "religion".

Each civilization has had its religious ideas and ideals, its religious practices and inst.i.tutions. Many civilizations have divided their attention between civil ideology and religious ideology. In some cases religious ideology took precedence, resulting in a theocratic society under the leaders.h.i.+p of religious devotees. In other cases, notably Roman civilization and western civilization, religious ideology was subordinated to secular interests.

In the early stages of western civilization, religious ideology took precedence over secular ideology. With the rise of the bourgeoisie, secular ideology moved into the foreground, making loud religious professions, but also making sure that business-for-profit had the last word in the determination of public policy.

A third collective ideological goal of civilization has been aesthetic; the yen for symmetry and balance; the love of beauty; the desire for harmony; the quest for excellence; the lure of magnificence; the search for truth. Out of these urges have arisen the pictorial and plastic arts, architecture, music, the dance, science, and philosophy, providing outlets, occupations and professions that have colored and shaped many aspects of civilized living.

A fourth collective goal of civilization has been the establishment and maintenance of social structure, including cla.s.ses and/or caste lines based partly upon tradition, partly on function and partly upon proximity to the honey-pot, the wellspring of wealth, income, prestige and power.

Since the principle of private property has been implicit in every known civilization, the owners.h.i.+p of land, capital and consumer goods and services has been a prerogative of the ruling oligarchies, shared by them with their a.s.sociates and dependents and used as their chief means of establis.h.i.+ng and maintaining the "you work, I eat" princ.i.p.al of economic relations.h.i.+ps.

Private property, and its derivative, unearned or property income, has enabled the ruling oligarchies of civilized communities to receive the first fruits of every enterprise. They have also enabled the oligarchs to establish a priority scale of income distribution under which those who held property and its derivatives could have first choice among available consumer goods and services. Second choice went to the a.s.sociates, retainers and defenders of the oligarchs. Third choice went to the preferred, professional experts who spoke for and represented the oligarchy. Fourth choice went to the artisans--skilled designers, builders, fabricators. What remained went to hewers of wood and drawers of water, the workers, women and men, who provided the necessaries, comforts, luxuries upon which physical survival and social status depended. Generally this proletarian ma.s.s, including chattel slaves, serfs, tenant farmers and war captives, were outside the pale of respectability. In a caste-divided community they were scavengers and untouchables, living a life close to that of domestic animals.

Most civilizations have permitted gifted individuals to move vertically, from the bottom toward the top levels of the social pyramid. Vertical movement was severely restricted, however. Generally people lived, served and died on the cla.s.s or caste level into which they were born.

Members of cla.s.ses and castes are not free agents. They have privileges and rights. They also have obligations and duties. Cla.s.ses and castes are functioning parts of an interdependent social whole which can maintain balanced order only so long as each segment recognizes its obligations and performs its duties.

Social balance therefore depended on cla.s.s collaboration. Successful collaboration, in its turn, is the outcome of a general acceptance of cla.s.s and caste and general willingness to go on living and functioning in a cla.s.s divided society.

A fifth collective goal of civilization has been expansion from the nucleus outward, with final authority exercised by and from the nucleus.