Civilization

What is civilization? When in doubt turn to Latin; civilis = city or city-state; hmmm. That didn’t seem too helpful; how about what it is not: barbarianism, savagery, primitive or indigenous/tribal societies. That does seem quite right either. It also seems more than just being polite.

It seems to me that the essence of civilization is placing importance of the group over the individual; and the value of the individuals in those groups. Darwin talked about the survival of the fittest as to how species developed, survived and dominated. Civilization by contrast is when there is a consciousness of taking care of those who just might no make it otherwise. Even cave men and women took care of children and the old even though they contributed little obvious contributions to their survival. But I think they also realized both the young and the old had a great deal to do with their survival and had value just because they were a part of the tribe or family. Thus it seems to me the more that sense of caring for each other the greater the idea of civilization. Kill em and eat em vs care for them. Some so-called primitive societies seem to understand this better the some so-called developed society.

Then there is also what we have to know as social-Darwinism; which applies the biological ideas of the survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. A good example of this is the eugenic concepts we saw in Germany where the Jews were seen as deviants from the tall, blonde, blue-eyed Germanic ideal and thus should be eradicated.

I think that the term can also can be conferred on many of the current extremes of the Republican Party. I’m not talking here about the folk who treasure the past and traditions and the values of community but rather those who are ardently opposed to taxes, entitlements, building the infrastructure. Also I think it refers to those who believe that the redistribution of the wealth to the few because of some perceived superiority of these few. This is more like the survival of the fattest.

This type of social-Darwinism seems has been dominant in the last 3 plus decades. When Reagan ushered in the era of deregulation and limited government, lessening public projects and the like. This was then carried to an extreme under the George W. Bush era. All of this ended up with the bizarre inequality of wealth in our society, the stagnation of the middle class and the increasing dilemmas of the poorer folk in our society.

Civil and civilization do seem to go together. The more uncivil politicians and parties become the more our civilization suffers. The proposed budgets of Paul Ryan seem barbaric, lacking social concern. Refusing to talk and drawing lines in the sand are savagery. Lying about others is primitive and childish.

John Boehner recently said, “How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government? I’m for: No more.” Stealing? Oh yes, the poor folk making more than $450,000 a year who benefit from current deregulation and low taxes in contrast to those wealthy of the past who paid much higher taxes and when the middle class reaped the results of hard work. Taxes in the 50’s through the 70’s were in the 70 to 90% and the still made money. But at the same time middle class folk had good paying jobs and their standard of living increased along with the increased productivity of the economy.

The CEO who is getting 300 to 400 times the income of the folk who work in their industry seems much more like stealing to me. It also is uncivilized showing an incredible lack of care for the common good.

Perhaps the Republican Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal says it well when he refers to his own party as the “stupid party.” Taxes are the price we pay for civilization and his party is against them.