Being Civilized: A Historical Perspective (article)

As rulers and states have come and gone, one might argue that people living in the midst of a rise of a civilization might well have thought that life was getting better, that human beings were becoming more civilized, or were more civil. So it must have seemed—at least to the elite—in the period of Caesar Augustus, the Carolingians, and the early Muslim states in the Middle East. Similarly, middle- or upper-class people living in Europe before World War I thought that life could only become better; surely, no war could destroy their hard-won progress. So it was with my family whose members had no idea that their progress could be halted, even temporarily. On the other hand, people living in the midst of catastrophe might well have thought that human beings are decrepit and that things will never improve again; that they are living in a most uncivil period with highly uncivilized people all around them. Even in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, one does not have to reach far to find such societies.

Although things have become more civil or civilized, in order to see the progress, one must step away from any current situation. Let me emphasize several areas in order to speak to this phenomenon. I do so, realizing fully that they are so ordinary that one can easily overlook them in a world dominated in the media daily by one devastating event or other.

First, there is writing. It started out in most humble fashion in such diverse places as China, Catal-Huyuk in Turkey, Harappa on the Indus River, and along the Nile as the purview of leaders and

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priests who employed scribes to record their exploits and trades. Even then, writing implied reading, and with time the two skills spread to people other than the small elites. A huge leap came much later with the invention of the printing press and public education in the Germanies, which spread the two skills there to all classes as early as the late 18^th century. Today, thanks to portable devices, millions upon millions of people can read and write; some professors maintain that their students are not up to the task of reading a text or writing an essay, but the reality is millions upon millions across the globe write and read texts and e-mails. As early as the late 18^th century, information had created an eagerness to participate in public discourse—an adventure that has led this country and France into major revolutions, as it did later in the 19^th century in other parts of the world. Most recently, the ability to handle information has brought about tremendous political changes, albeit perhaps temporary, and not all of them positive. Reading and writing are but one “invention” that has spread across the globe and has almost forced more civil behavior. An outburst in the media about this or that person being imprisoned for his or her beliefs alone is often sufficient to bring leniency for that individual.

Similarly civilizing is the gradual improvement in health care. From the first medical scrolls in ancient Egypt to the insights of the ancient Greeks, and from the Arabic scientists to the Europeans much later, we have pushed our understanding of the human body into previously unheard of frontiers. In addition, we have made possible, at least in the industrialized democracies, access to health care for most ordinary people. Ever since Bismarck’s reforms in 1880s Germany, it is understood in almost all of these countries that it is a right of all members to have access to such care, and that provisions need to be made for it. The very discussion of medical breakthroughs, and the lack of coverage of millions of persons in this country, indicates that most people consider good medical treatment and coverage a right.

One example within this massive improvement, and thus a major civilizational advance, is the reduction of deaths of women and children in childbirth. When at one time women died all too often during this process, and additionally needed to produce double the infants to attain a workable replacement crop, they can now

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feel fairly assured in most societies that they will live to see each one of their small flock of children grow into adulthood.

One of the banes of the past was that human beings were oppressed, enslaved, and indentured. As a result of the concept that all people—men and women, the elderly and the children, and those who look and speak differently from the main social group—are actually human beings, these forms of oppression have reluctantly receded. That is not to say that various forms of oppression do not continue, but in the more advanced areas of the globe many persons for decades now have frowned on such behavior and endeavor to root it out. The further literacy rates and access to information have spread, the more pressure has been placed on recalcitrant societies to be more civil toward all of its members. Some societies still enchain women behind clothing and housing, and hold them from the public eye and public discourse, but even in these societies an increasing number of women are speaking out against this oppressive—that is, uncivil—behavior.

Along with the idea that we are all human beings, whatever gender or color, or even religious affiliation, came the concept that children and older persons are fully human beings. Children are now understood as earlier versions of ourselves when we are full adults, and the elderly are understood as later versions of ourselves. Treating both ends of the human life experience with dignity has partially been a religious insight and partially a recognition that a human being is indeed a human being, whatever stage it happens to be in. For children this has been particularly salutary. As childrearing modes improved to the point where today it is almost unthinkable in advanced societies to beat up children, recent examples in this country abound, when children grow into caretakers and parents they are less likely to beat up or torture their own children. The less of this traditional behavior, the less likely solutions in international affairs, for example, will be the use of war, or beating up others.

Finally, music, dancing, and poetry have never been solely the purview of the upper layers of any society. Stories were told, songs were sung, and poems were spoken on all levels of society as far back as the least explored moments of history. It is supposedly an indication of having attained a certain level of civilization,

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namely the more sophisticated the activity, the more civilized a society. The reality is somewhat different. It is not necessarily that a society engages in a certain form of artistic endeavor and calls it civilized; rather, it is that we have come to realize as a group that we need to be open to all artistic expression, to allow it to course like a river through our civilizations.

The point is that when we look at the progression of societies only through the lens of states and nations, wars and uprisings, we overlook the civilizational progress attained despite their ups and downs and seeming constant presence. True, progress toward better understanding of each other as human beings has not been linearly progressive, as Freud pointed out long ago. When a society, or a group of them, move too quickly into openness and inclusiveness, the less civil side of many of its members reemerges, as in Central and Eastern Europe from the 1920s to the 1950s, and pushes back to an earlier time. However, in spite of such setbacks, human attainments have gradually moved in the direction of civilized behavior—behavior that allows increasing numbers of us to enjoy its benefits.

Particularly impressive in this regard are two examples. WWII devastated Germany and Japan, with attainments in these areas seemingly demolished forever. Nevertheless, both societies picked up once more where progress had taken them before the war. My own family had practically lost everything during WWII, and yet the overall societal belief in the necessity for these essentials allowed for meaningful recovery. Not being beaten as a child, attending good schools, reaching excellent employment, covered by health insurance all along, and being able to enjoy art and music seem ordinary today…they were not in 1945 and could only be reestablished because of the strong traditions placed before the war.

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