WHAT IS CIVILISATION?

Shannon News, 22 September 1925, Page 3

WHAT IS CIVILISATION?

And What Is Progress? W.E.A. LECTURE. Following is the report of » W.B.A. ieelure given at I'almerslC.u Dy; JW E. Mander. It will be read amUi u terest by local students Mr. Mander devoted the first paH of bis lecture to a review of the broadest outlines of tlie story historic civilisation ot Europe and the Middle Eastern world. Hot about 6000 years ago, at the dawn ot history, until the present _ tuneH described briefly the fns , t civilisation of Egypt, and is now Mesopotamia. This was - istence before 4000 B.C. * half, this eivihsation was SAvamp ed (between 3000 and 2000 8.C.) cjiavriit io folk overf loa\ ing waves of bemiuo ” bv from Arabia. But by B- • - ' on( j the time of Hammurabi, a s»econa (Semitic) civilisation h ad evolved j . these parts finding its lotm in Assyria: expressing .itself m sea-ti through the Phoenicians ot Lyre anu S do f but reaching its highest development at Babylon. Meanwhile lbe earlier civilisation continued to exis afoiSide it-in Crete and the Aegean ai Tne n first civilisation in Crete and Greece until about L-C----1200, when it Avas overwhelmed by the fair Aryan people coming southward off their northern plains. Then there Avas a “Dark Age”- there lin the newcomers had settled down had mingled their blood with that. of Die darker folk of the earlier civilisation, and had begun to evolve a ciAulisAtion of their own. But during this penod, the first historic civilisation continued to survive in Egypt; and the second (Semitic) civilisation still flourished in Phoenicia, in Assyria and m BabylJnf Thus the Greeks were able to pick up some of ledge of the two earlier civilisations, through their contact with Egypt ( r the first) Phoenicia and Babylon (for the second). The lecturer then described the development and decay of Greco-Roman civilisation Avhich, for a thousand years (roughly B.C. 600 to A.D. 400) spread all over the Mediterranean world. Upon the crumbling of this civilisation and the Roman Empie there follOAved another thousand years of darkness and chaos, the long dark Middle Ages. But by about 1500 the next civilisation, our own, began at least to. merge in western Europe. Mr Mander gave an outline of the development of modern civilisation during the four hundic years it has now existed, showing particularly hOAv some vestiges of the thought of Athens and Alexandria were carried over into the modern world.

Customary Belief. The lecturer then went on to deal with what he regarded as a very important fact, helping us to understand, in this respect, the course ot history. Consider first what happened to' ancient Egypt. Her brief but brilliant periods of the ‘flowering of civilisation occured Avlien she received a severe ‘shaking up.’ But in Egypt these shalcings-up occured so very rarely, because she was practically isolated by surrounding desert and sea. The result was that m Egypt everything became settled, stagnant. Religion, laws, social customs, art, morals, the economic system settled doAvn into a dull, unvarying routine. Everything petrified. As somebody has put it, “they must paint as their ancestors painted, physic as they p'hysicked, pray as they prayed, think as they thought. Uutil rudely touched from outside, it Avas the perfect image of a Irving society,’ That, said the lecturer, is the certain natural fate of every society that succeeds in fully adapting itself to its environment and is not disturbed cither by a change in that, environment or by forces from outside. The last state of any such organism or society is one of settled routine. Ia a human society, that means the complete domination of Orthodoxy, Custom and Tradition. When that state is reached, men cease to think they simply believe what they are taught to believe, what their forefathers believed. They lose all mit-

iative in thought and action. They live entirely in the customary belief and the customary Avays of life. So, generation after generation, they die as they Avere born. Their mental life is dominated entirely by the Past. The Advantage of tlie Greeks. Now sec what happened Avhen the Aryans came down into Greece, they were people of a northern race, barbarians; and their beliefs and customs related to the old life they had left, the old life on the plains. Most

of these beliefs clearly could not serve in the ugav conditions of life. As they graduallv evolved a new civilisation. the Greeks had, therefore, to revolve a neiv set of beliefs. They were forced to think things out, to work things out, afresh. Something they learned from the Phoenicians — shipbuilding, naAdgation, and the art of Avriting. Some ideas they picked up from Egypt, and some from Babylon. But —see the difference! In Egypt, itself, for example, the people had to accept these beliefs, to accept them blindly, without question, because they were part of the old established tradition. But the Greeks did not. They took them over, not as ‘settled beliefs,’ but simply as ‘ideas’ —the raw materials of thought. The kev-faets that explain that Avonderful flowering of Greek thought in Athens and elsewhere, are (Peso-. — They were a ncAV people vn that environment, and they had been obliged to discard most of the beliefs that, related to th e old life they had left. They wore then able to pick up ‘ideas’ from tAVO other, older cmlisations —that of ancient Egypt, and that of Phoenicia and Babylon. But they look these, not. as fixed, settled beliefs, but only as suggestive ideas which they must think out for themselves. Intellectual Life—anil Death. The Greeks had no priests. They

had no fixed, solidified traditional thought—nobody of customary, ready made belief. They had no one on earth to tell them WHAT to THINK! Lucky people! Lucky people, obtaining ideas from earlier civilisations, but free from tho imposition of ready made beliefs. Lucky people forced by circumstances to think things out for themselves! So, for three centuries, we find in Athens and the lonian cities—and later for a little Avhile in Alexandria —such an outburst of question and thinking as is almost Avithout parallel in history. _ And then? Then tlie Greeks in their turn Avent the ay ay of all flesh. They died. Not physically, for another five centuries! But intellectually they had died by 100 B.C. By that time they had finished thinking out things for themselves. By that time they had reached a state in Avhich they too looked to the Past for their beliefs. In Greek life the point was reached at last —all too soon—at Avhich- —-instead of thinking things out. for themselves men only asked what Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, Epicurus, Zeno and the rest had thought, two or three, four or five centuries before. Mr Marnier then dealt with the rebirth of the questioning spirit, in western Europe'fifteen centuries later, and with tire development of thought since then. To-day, he said, avo can still watch the two tendencies struggling for mastery. There is the

1 nd/ney to find things out. to think things out, for ourselves. So long as that tendency is dominant, the soul of civilisation lives. On the other hanVl, there is the tendency to impose, to accept, 'ready-made beliefs’ from the Past. And when that tendency again becomes dominant-that means death. Basis of Civilisation

Civilisation can exist only on two conditions. First there must bo a production of surplus wealth, over and above Avhat the producers need to maintain themselves. This surplus may be tlie result of slave-labour, of superior natural resources, of efficient economic organisation, or of the use of harnessed power and machinery. But, in on c . or another of these Avays, the actual producers of material things must produce a surplus, above Avhat they themselves consume—or else, it seems, civilisation is impossible. Does chulisation require teachers? Docs it require judges, doctors, policemen? Does it require statesmen,, scientists, artists? All thes e must be 'kept’ Somebody somehow must produce the material things they need., So it is a condition of civilisation, that the producers (labour, power and machinery) shall also support a non-producing section of the people. The second condition is that these non-producers shall be of some use.' They are not freed from material production merely for idleness and pleasure-seeking. If they are not en- ■ gaged in the production of material tilings, then they must be engaged in some other kind of service to civilisation. Otherwise there is no reason why they should be freed from the work of material production. PoAver —Slaves Nor does this apply only to those who are not engaged in productive work' at all. In New Zealand (not counting motor-cars) Ave have working for us a quarter of a million horse-power, generated by coal and steam, by benzine and by falling water. That is. equivalent to the avoi'K of a million or two million sla\ r es. This harnessed poAver. is enough to keep not only the non-producers, but also to keep the actual producers of material wealth for 2 or 3 hours every day Avhen they Avould otherAvise, have to be Avorlcing. Tlie eight-hour day in industry is nuidu possible by the work of this quarter of a million horsepower. So even the productive workers have been liberated from production to some extent; and they too must justify the use they make of the leisure they thus gain. Less time spent at productive work and more leisure —that is not a ’gooa thing” in itself. Whether or not leisure in a good thing depends, obviously, upon the use that is made of it. Loss time spent at productive Avork, and more at tlie kincma, at the races, in bed, or in gossiping—that does not mean an achnince in ervilisaton. What is Civilisation

Now, (said-Mr. Mander) —wliat do I mean by real civilisation? I mean a conditional Avhich men live together as an orderly organised community. I mean a state in Avliich their lives are subject, not to the caprice of an autocrat; nor yet to settled custom, so “settled” that it cannot be changed; but subject to Law which though not capricious can be changed—cither by the people or their rulers. 1 mean a state in Avhich the citizens do not settle their disputes by fighting, but by reference to the laAv or by arbitration. But, besides all that. 1 moan a state in.Avliich there is some striving after what Plato classified as Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Perhaps, as this is the last of a hundred lectures I have given here, you will permit me to end this course with a declaration of my own personal faith I believe that these things— Trull). Beauty and Goodness—are indeed the things by Avhich the value or any individual life, and also of any particular civilisation, may be judged. Putting it in another way, I believe that the value of every human life and every civilisation should be measured by the extent to Avliich it shows:—(l) A striving after knowledge .together with, intellectual independence; (2) A sense of Beauty; and (3) in the sphere of personal character, Courage, Honesty, a sense of Duty, and Consideration for others. What is Progress

To me, an “improvement in civilisation” means an impro\ 7 ement in these human A’alues The mere increase of material wealth and a higher standard of liA’ing are, at the best, only means to this end. If they do not lead to a rise in these values, then an increase in material Avealth and a higher standard of living do not mean an improA'ernent in civilisation. Ihe shortening' of the hours of labour, again, means an advance in civilisa-

lion only if the larger leisure results in an advance here. . More material wealth a higher standard of living, an easier life, a" safer life, more pleasures in life: these things in themselves do not (to my mind) mean ‘progress’. But intellectual independence, a striving after knowledge; a sense or beauty; courage; honesty; a sense oi duty; consideration for others —these are the things by which I .-judge the individual —myself, those whom 1 meet, the characters that appear in history. And by these things, and these alone, I judge* the value of evqry people and every civilisation. To me. these are the tests,, the only tests, or progress in civilisation and the advancement of mankind.