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Quote by: argonak Civilization is caused by an overabundant food supply leading to a certain level of leisuretime for a portion of the society.
Basically, when you've got enough food so that you can make things that aren't directly neccessary to your survival, you've started a civilization.
Barbarians can have complex religions, they can have complex governments (some ancient european groups had very complicated tribal structures), and they can be powerful warriors. But if 90% of the time they're hungry and looking for food, they're not going to spend much time building magnificent cities, studying complicated mathematics, and generally improving their quality of life. They'll be stuck fighting every second of every day for survival. Its not black and white though, its more of a road, with barbarism on one side, and civilization on the other.
So basically what creates a civilization is merely the free time to consider other things than just bare survival. But this doesn't neccessarily have to extend to your entire society, and historically it ussually begins with the rich and slowly filters down to the middle class and eventually the lower class. |
Excellent answer, and what is frightening is, what happens to civilization when the economy collapses and once again the masses are struggling just to survive? Civilizations rise and fall. What happens when they fall?
Another thought, in my judgement street gangs are barbaric and people like Bush and Cheney are barbaric. They lack culture and are into "might makes right" thinking. What happens when the leadership of a nation is Christian, but otherwise lacks culture? How about "The New World Order"?
What started this thread, is the Christian claim that it was Christianity that civilized the world, and the ignorance of the civilizations that lasted thousands of years before Christianity. What did those ancient civilizations give us?