A Definition of Civilization
A Definition Of Civilization by Philip Atkinson
All Human inventions are first thoughts before they become things. So the creations of communities such as cities, governments, armies, as well as communal achievements such as conquests and discoveries— everything that goes to make a civilization — must spring from a community 's thoughts. Hence:
Civilization: is the tangible expression of a communal understanding.
Communal Understanding: is that single understanding allowed by the set of values common to each member of a community. For example it is this influence that decided one community to persecute the scientist Galileo and suppress his notions, while another community to honour the scientist Isaac Newton and embrace his notions. It decides what the community thinks and does.
Expressed And Refined By Conversation
Communal Understanding exists, as it is expressed, in the unique language of the citizens, who mould it by their conversation.
Conversation: is the daily expression and exchange of individual opinions; a mechanism that refines communal understanding by promoting popular, while suppressing unpopular, notions. That is, all those ideas which match common feelings of right and wrong, will be repeated and magnified into reasons to act, while those which receive little or no support will inevitably be ignored; which makes conversation the ideas filter, or the mind, of the community.
A Community: is that group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, customs and law: tradition.
A Communal Mind: is similar in operation to an individual mind, except that audible conversation replaces silent thoughts; but the mechanism of understanding is the same—ideas, expressed in words, which are filtered by a code of values to determine which should become reasons for action. If a man is an irrational vegetarian crank whose conversation is mainly tirades against imaginary persecutors, then it is this
All Human inventions are first thoughts before they become things. So the creations of communities such as cities, governments, armies, as well as communal achievements such as conquests and discoveries— everything that goes to make a civilization — must spring from a community 's thoughts. Hence:
Civilization: is the tangible expression of a communal understanding.
Communal Understanding: is that single understanding allowed by the set of values common to each member of a community. For example it is this influence that decided one community to persecute the scientist Galileo and suppress his notions, while another community to honour the scientist Isaac Newton and embrace his notions. It decides what the community thinks and does.
Expressed And Refined By Conversation
Communal Understanding exists, as it is expressed, in the unique language of the citizens, who mould it by their conversation.
Conversation: is the daily expression and exchange of individual opinions; a mechanism that refines communal understanding by promoting popular, while suppressing unpopular, notions. That is, all those ideas which match common feelings of right and wrong, will be repeated and magnified into reasons to act, while those which receive little or no support will inevitably be ignored; which makes conversation the ideas filter, or the mind, of the community.
A Community: is that group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, customs and law: tradition.
A Communal Mind: is similar in operation to an individual mind, except that audible conversation replaces silent thoughts; but the mechanism of understanding is the same—ideas, expressed in words, which are filtered by a code of values to determine which should become reasons for action. If a man is an irrational vegetarian crank whose conversation is mainly tirades against imaginary persecutors, then it is this
References: A. Nuri Yurdusev, International Relations and the Philosophy of History: A Civilizational Approach (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 1. ^ Toffler, Alvin (1984), The Third Wave (Bantam Books) 2 3. ^ Berman, Morris, Dark Ages America: the Final Phase of Empire (WW Norton, 2006) 4 5. ^ Gordon Childe, V., What Happened in History (Penguin, 1942) and Man Makes Himself (Harmondsworth, 1951) 6 7. ^ Spengler, Oswald, Decline of the West: Perspectives of World History (1919) 8 9. ^ Wilkinson, David, The Power Configuration Sequence of the Central World System, 1500-700 BC (2001) 10 17. ^ McNeely, Jeffrey A. (1994) "Lessons of the past: Forests and Biodiversity" (Vol 3, No 1 1994. Biodiversity and Conservation) 18 19. ^ Kenoyer, Jonathan (1998). Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press. 20