On Civilization and Humanity

Here’s a revolutionary thought. Maybe we aren’t really civilized enough. Maybe this whole argument about the various merits of civilization vs. primitiveness are just us finally coming around in our cultural evolution to the point where we have almost mastered civilization, but we have to integrate it in a way that lets us control it, instead of it controlling us; integrate it in a way that serves our humanity and increases cultural and bio-diversity, not the other way around. Once we get that straight, we will really be civilized.

In the early days of ancient Greece, what most site as the origin of western civilization, there wasn’t a practical separation of art, science, religion, mathematics, and literature like we have today. Literature and history inspired great art, which bore spiritual contemplation, the ideas of which were encoded mathematically, which allowed for scientific discoveries, which expanded understanding of humankind and our place in the world and cosmos. From what I understand, the great centers of learning strove to serve humankind to be more civilized: tolerant, wise, full of knowledge of the world, and sensitive as to how to go about living in the world. If you went to school at all, it was to learn the humanities, like philosophy, literature, or art; such cultural artifacts that describe the human condition.

Such liberal arts education is expensive and under appreciated, but even more so is the art of craft. From what I understand, most ancient Greeks never went to a University. The basic needs of our lives, when we break it down, are all crafts-based. A rural community would have horticulturalists, carpenters, cooks and animal caretakers. More sophisticated communities would need woodworkers, tailors, potters, glassblowers, metalworkers and masons. In simpler times of civilization, when you wanted to learn a craft, you went to an expert and asked them to teach you. You didn’t need a school for that.

So why do we now need twenty years of schooling or more to ‘graduate,’ only to become the servant to a machine? Would you rather be working for Wal-mart or weaving baskets? Would you rather spend your time growing food in the sun and rain or stocking shelves at Costco? Even if you are a graduate and have entered middle management, you still end up working for ‘the man.’ Personally, I know I feel more driven and more alive when sewing my own clothes at home rather than working for Ross or Payless.

Now, I am somewhat of a recovering Primitivism thinker. It is an absolutely essential body of knowledge that I think everyone needs to experience. We need to have wild places to sustain us, and we need to know how to sustain ourselves in the wild, even if we choose not to be wild all the time. But I don’t think that translates into ‘all civilization is bad’. Maybe wheat crops deplete the topsoil and make people high – but what about rice? There are fields in the East in places like China and India that have been in continuous cultivation for thousands of years. Thousands. I am no expert, but from what I can gather, people have been civilizing and un-civilizing themselves for a very, very long time.

So, hopefully, we can create real ‘civilized’ cultures in the United States and beyond by taking inspiration from our global history and global neighbors, inspiring regional cultures that complete the circle from primitive to technological and back again, and end up somewhere human-scale and fulfilling. Hopefully we can turn off the noise of the TVs, tear down the billboards, and make every school principle sit at the student’s desk for a change. We can support each other’s drive to be creative by bringing quality and craft and human importance back into the economic equation. And hopefully we will remember why we started this journey in the first place – the ultimate enlightenment of humankind to a place of peace, prosperity, and celebration.

image: consensus.net/sustainability