cole grey said:
Sounds nice.
That is "community".
Civilization implies a widespread effect.
The "civilization" you speak of having now is a result of input from MANY earlier "civilizations".
Also, if someone is just talking about learning to read, write a symphony, or light a fire, then forget my argument, you missed the point. The symphony writer requires someone to make his bread.
Mr. Grey,
Have you read Arnold Toynbee? In his terminologies, what we have today is a Universal State, which is the final stage of a Civilization immediately before its collapse. A Universal State is a Civilization that has already been dealt its Death Blow but which is scrambling about doing whatever is still in its power to stave off the final fall. Since the Demise of a Unifying Catholicism, the West has attempted to maintain political, economic and social stability through Revelotion and War. Frontier Territories have been invaded and subjugated in order to neutralize them as threats.
Universal States have always appeared to the unaided Historical Eye as though they were the High Points of Civilization. So one is puzzled upon first reading Toynbee. But once he is understood, it seems plain. Civilizations are only viable while there is a working moral concensus, that is, a reciprocal Civilized attitude reaching everywhere virtically in the Organization, as well as wide cooperation horizontally. Once a Civilization is infiltrated and subverted, thus compromising the moral concensus, wars and revolutions can only hold things together for so long. In the 21 Civilizations that Arnold Toynbee has ennumerated, none have ever been able to translate the tremendous capacities of their Universal State stages into the merest survival. They each dissolved into utter chaos.
The World Wars were devastating to European Civilization. The British, for all their boasting that they Won, lost their Empire. No longer in a position to exert an overwhelming influence, Asian Civilization has taken over the dominance of the World's Economy as more than half of the manufactured wealth in the World today originates in China.
China, is NOT a Universal State. Their Civilization had already collapsed into chaos, banditry and disorder. But for the last several cycles of collapse of its Civilized Dynasties, China had been setting Speed of Recovery Records. Confucian Morality has been deeply inculcated into the Chinese People, to the extent that they are Civilized almost by second nature.
As the New Chinese Dynasty emerges as the Greatest World Power (every Chinese Dynasty has become a Greatest World Power of its time, and this most recent one is not proving that it will be the only exception) it will do what every Successful Civilization has done before it -- it will exercise an attractive influence on the surrounding Barbarian Cultures. It will attract wealth and people worldwide will assimulate to it. Its strength, even without military threat being involved, will hasten the collapse of the West. It will be as though the West will be crushed by the mere gravity of the Rising East.
The problem with every Chinese Civilization, though, is that they have relatively little staying power. They rise quickly and fall quickly. The great wealth generated by their Civilizations gives bias to a Barbarian Streak that has yet to have been bred out of their Character. And their Religions while offering plenty of respect for Secular and Familiar Authority, give little instruction on the Charitable and Cooperative Moralities of the Higher Religions.
The only real hope for the West is a quick collapse, and the formation of a New Unifying Religion which could cement together a New Civilization. Perhaps there could be a melding with the Chinese Civilization. We need to remember that China had once allowed itself to be greatly influenced by Buddhism. Communist Brotherhood seems to be a fruit of Christian Doctrines taken to heart. There is an outside chance that there could be One World Civilization.
