Evolution of civilizations through chains of historical development

Evolution of Civilizations as a result of a chain of developments

Evolution of Civilizations

Prehistoric societies have produced major inventions, but indeterminable origin. One might think that the fire was domesticated in different sites and livestock and agriculture were introduced several times over the millennia obscure.

It is conceivable that the metal has been repeatedly invented by potters sensitive to land they were cooking or other founders of the long lines of blacksmiths, but as we complete the list of innovations due to the thousands of magicians technicians, to include the rafts and boats, myths and gods, sticks and strings making it count drift, engravings and symbols, ancestors of the scriptures, a crucial question moved.

During this long history unknown, each of the tiny people can not have discovered everything; every dramatic migrations. A dispersant on the planet's slow flows of human settlement could take from one site to another, nor conquer our stock of knowledge and skills already acquired. Outbreaks of civilization had spread through the effect of imitation, encouraged or not, voluntary or forced exile of pressure of population or the benefit of enslaving more conquests than destructive.

Archaeologists circumvent this difficulty by distinguishing the "ages" of stone, bronze or iron, by playing the roles of the invention and dissemination and reserving the last prehistoric century's finer differentiations, as ceramics, jewelry and tools they find trace. Only anthropologists, specialists in people they consider more or less "primitive" to venture more accurately, how to Mauss assigning to the ancestors of Melanesian and Polynesian South Pacific a civilization that would have been common.

In his Grammar of Civilizations Braudel presents them as "the first and most complex of permanence," but it does not clearly distinguish which ultimately fall into the common treasury several civilizations, if not all, of what particularized one of them, at such time and in such a space.

Background

It certainly fails to follow Durkheim in which civilizations are "a kind of moral environment that surrounds a number of nations" and remains true to Mauss, always attentive to the full range of tools and institutions. Moreover, he refuses to speak of a civilization as "a being or an organization, or a character, or a body, even historic." Braudel and eliminates the risk of philosophical idealism and evolution more or less historicized, but following their long tributaries of civilizations that are currently active judge, it is close not less likely to lend them to excessive permanence.

It is better to treat these hotlines in their real historical time, full of hyphens, and times of innovations as to analyze macro-realities as such. In this rigorous theoretical perspective, civilization must take place in the world system in which it falls, except to justify its future when the global system itself is transformed.

It must be related with the various companies that make up the global system. In other words, it must be reported to the people related and intertwined or separate, these companies include. Thus, it must be located on the three types of training that the macro-sociological analysis can discern - but not to separate - in every society: economic, political and ideological (or cultural).

Discussion

Archaic society's interviews in the shadows produced by legendary historical societies are likely civilizations relatively short spatial range. They shared their mark on the people of tribal organization variable and fickle alliances or conflicts, in which to recognize, however, quite a few common traits: parent's language, tools, weapons and know-how similar rituals similar arranged almost daily in the same way, etc.

In those nations where the elderly are rare, three generations coexist at most, so that, despite the claims of grandparents to grandchildren, the collective memory becomes clouded beyond five generations in the absence of documents strengthening the perennial oral tradition, but from the stories as documents stored by other bards and storytellers.

The common civilization has, for vectors, practices and representations submitted by example or word of mouth and a few tools possibly more durable than their manufacturers, those in particular that archaeologists dig up the mounds and other rich burials.

The ancient worlds become larger gradually, as organizations dependent increase production, strengthen the power and release men for other purposes. Thus are born in the valleys and on flood irrigated land, of tiny empires and perishable, but longer renewed, whose area of dominance increases for thousands of years, not without being broken down during the "dark ages" and other "means -Ages ," however, that they surrounded the smaller states, formed of broken empires defeated tribes or confederations most archaic, enrich the global system.

Perceived as an Eden by the people starving in that ripen later than the Bible and the Koran, the most durable of the empires gain glory or Pharaonic Babylonian, etc. seen by the dignitaries, the scribes and clerics of the Central Powers, the peoples devices appear as savages or barbarians that must be protected by a Chinese wall that we must conquer or to "civilize." In other words, people whose civilization is enriched by contributions and new attire come to despise or earlier civilizations which are yet heirs near and far.

In classes or groups elitist civilization lives on a superlative mode, as proof of excellence whereas no absolute criterion does not exceed the comparative objective differences from one civilization to another make lawful

It is also necessary to justify this assertion by some major theoretical details, valid also for all global systems.

A civilization is not identical with the global system where it is deployed, except to imagine that an empire can absorb all the peoples of the world, all the Parthians and the Germans harassing Rome, all the Mongols and the Manchus in the north of prancing China and all societies whose history is cramped or trace which archeology and ethnology can speculate there. The universal empire is never reached an asymptote; the plurality of peoples and societies characterizes all global systems. Moreover global systems such as unipolar worlds Egyptian, Chinese or Roman high time are themselves exceptional in most cases, such a system assembles several states are fighting the rule, aligning conquests, alliances, vassals and clients in changing configurations.

In the tumult warriors often resulting from this distribution, predominant civilizations should not be confused either with power or group of powers. Each company combines in forms more or less complex than the analysis can separate, economy, political organization and culture, but civilization can not be confused with any of these formations.

It is not an economy, even if it is responsible for skills and knowledge economy which builds on and it is not a form of state or a political organization more complete, though every civilization vehicle models and revenue of a political, nor is it a culture, but this explanation is, as the confusion between culture and civilization is widespread in those social scientists who use these terms without clarifying polysemic scope conceptual.

Macrosociology designated as culture of a society all the practices and representations that occur within a given ideological formation, said formation being composed on the one hand, the network of groups of guests, variously connected and intersected, when men register their existence and, secondly, the beam, initially absent or low, but gradually swelled enormously, of the ideological apparatuses specialized in cultural activities of all kinds. The entire stock of representations and practices through which men of the society to represent their world in its reality as in all metaphysical additions, utopian and others which they extend their experience of social life, is their culture. Civilization which is present in many people, assembled in many societies can not be confused with any of their own cultures: it is the set of traits shared in varying degrees, by the cultures in which it is widespread.

Analysis

In more concrete terms, we can imagine a civilization on the basis of what is too often overlooked or underestimated the features common to various customary daily life, that is to say, knowledge, say, skills, etiquette, etc., peddled in the networks of guests. Indeed, a common civilization is recognized by the kinship of languages, the similarity of uses for food, clothing, housing, family relationships, customs, traditions, festivities and rites of passage, etc. And it is also reflected in the relationship tools, handicrafts and rural standards of living together in the various clusters of people, etc.

In short, it is manifested by the fact that men live by similar customs, it being understood that the common features of traditional dense unevenly from one society to another, depending on the gradients of civilization which is common. In the geographic margins of each civilization, these gradients can be more complex by the effect of interference between two or more civilizations. Over time, similar margins are emerging as corporations; time related by the same civilization, are driven in different ways by their own history.

Heritages give greater visibility to the common civilization. Architectural heritage of the pyramids, temples, palaces and castles, estates less splendid but more useful for Highways, water and other amenities; heritage "landscape" more valuable, but rendered invisible by their obvious: you have to be dazzled by the terrace cultivation Bali and other sites, to reflect the fact that thousands of years of work have deforested, Desouches, Depierre, irrigation, drains, etc., lands useful to man, but according to technical and conspicuous for purposes that each civilization.

When business needs and adds prestige to urban heritage, religions, however, that mark their territories of pagodas, churches, monasteries, mosques and other places of worship, this singularity is affirmed more, while the forms of urban and rural habitat are specified, they are luxuries or miserable. And civilization, always customary in everyday life acquires additional visibility monumental materializing the skills of craftsmen-artists who enrich the work of the builders.

Added to this are, of course, the wealth and prestige that comes from adding additional, oral traditions of all time, written tradition gradually spread to shops and palaces, and the ideological apparatuses of all kinds, from which they eventually win the depths of peoples. So, the graphics become, like languages, distinctive marks of the various civilizations.

Maturation profoundly affects trade flows of civilization. On the one hand, indeed, she gave birth to a new type of world system, characterized by the establishment, ports and islands in the oasis well tolerated enclaves protected by various empires, trading networks that grow as far as their interconnections as possible, with little regard for the political control of territories crossed or rubbed shoulders.

On the other hand, many seek empires, not without success, to capture market exchanges to enslave them for their own purposes, which greatly expands their capabilities fiscal, administrative and military. Thus, the old-world systems are sometimes stronger, sometimes eroded by the efforts of merchants and the piracy that often accompany them in the marine areas, river and where the caravan trade unfolds.

Besides, one should not overestimate the trade that car a little amber, silk and spices between worlds that continue virtually ignore, as are numerous and fragile sections, strangers to another of these exchange networks. The strengthening of trade occurs only over very long stretches of centuries and the commercial networks do not lengthen significantly at the cost of slow progress and cabotage fleets and offshore navigation. The plurality of global low or no joined by the fragile and thin threads of the exchange remains the rule until the 14th-15th century, despite the frequent links dealers already on the edge of India, China and few folds of the Sunda Archipelago and the Mediterranean.

Trade and empires combine to give writing a civilizing value more abundant, the "Holy Scriptures" where religions brew their myths, their rituals and arcane legal codifications to such as the Justinian Code, or the lex Rhodia With glorious libraries, from Alexandria to Baghdad and Cordoba, create a new heritage, that of literature and art, like their predecessors, Hindus and Chinese that Europe discovered later. Moreover, the monumental heritage enriched by cities less sumptuous than the palace, but a wealth of more diverse and more radiant as it crossed the peregrinations of any kind and, gradually, more and provenance more varied.

The glory of ancient Babylon is now outclassed by that of Byzantium and modern Venice, all examples to generalize to other worlds and other times. Not that we should be seduced by the ideas of Spencer which cities the main focus of all great civilizations, but simply because the consideration of urban phenomena used to weight the opinions that are too frequent religions "universal" senior officers and in any case, the essential reference points the so-called civilizations.

The Geopolitics of these religions, however, their role back to the exact extent appropriate to the macro-sociology. In all the old world systems, the primitive cults are subject gradually conquering pressure, that they come from clans specialized prophets innovative, state attention to the common discipline of their subjects or any other process.

The priests of any kind that these movements are sometimes produced in the units of the states most significant, in a prominent or subordinate, but not the powers that be are indifferent to their action.

Combinations of power and the sacred are simplified gradually according to some models validated by experience: religion imposed by the state to all his subjects (even by the triumph of a victorious church of its rivals, like Christianity) religion confused with the service of the prince or the city; religions tolerated under surveillance, as nations annexed by the traditions of a vast empire; religions imported by merchants, pilgrims (or later colonizers), but chased or tolerated within the limits of local franchises before their eventual consolidation; religions brought by military victories guaranteeing their relevance (in the way of Islam).

In all these figures, religions "universalized" or juxtaposed within the limits of an empire or in many states of the world system in place, take a great weight, when making their major anchors: in governing the ceremonies in which power and civic displays dynastic.

By monopolizing the formation of elites, or the selection to certain functions, appropriating the rites of passage for the entire population, in indoctrinating and watching it, by adding to its rites and prayers of any charitable institutions, caregivers or education in short as "directing minds," that is to say, entering the benefit of a secular habit, to the depths of the customary daily life.

Here is the civilizing aspect of religion, in that they normalize behavior, provide the power it requires respect and tend to govern conventional wisdom. All ambitions met in various ways from one religion to another 8 So that the practices and representations disseminated by each of them becoming, as well as languages?

or customs of everyday life, distinctive signs helping to specify the various civilizations, in other words, there is no of civilization Confucian, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, etc.. But at different times and in different areas, one or other of these qualities can manifest itself with particular vigor, among many features, historically variable, which specify such a civilization.

Conclusion

From this brief overview, probably erroneous in several respects, by the gaps in my information or my reflection, we still draw a conclusion that seems theoretically well-founded. Is that the prospect of a universal civilization feeding the daily lives of all people fairly similar customs, derived from the levels and kinds of life of Western populations and ending of the 20th century ideologies spreading among them, certainly varied, but nonetheless responsible for shared values.

All unfolding on the basis of capitalist economic institutions and in political institutions generalizing the parliamentary democracies of our time is a figment of the imagination, a projection arbitrary unscientific or even pragmatic one that is wishful thinking. Hence the practical conclusion: Civilization as a project should be subject to contradictory thoughts constantly updated to clarify the action of economic agents, state and cultural, whose business is international, and they want know it or not, the main vector of development of civilizations.

This new situation calls into question the very idea of?

"Western civilization," and this is actually made possible, ironically, by the power of this civilization and its maintenance as a reference usurped human development.

Toynbee's idea of?

a civilization replacing the other, a chain of civilization, an idea finally contradicted by the power of Western civilization which requires his continued dominance might be judged as a sham, could be replaced the idea of?

a schism within this civilization. Some might argue that this has already happened with the Reformation, but it seems that the description we make the state of our "civilization," which is undoubtedly the daughter of the schism, shows that the schism has turned imposture.

Our civilization has become today, by the force of his technique, universal civilization (hence the sounds of the "end of History" Fukuyama type and returning to the nineteenth century), the implication of this civilization can only come from within, and the heart of this civilization.

This is why we must pay attention to two facts: how the tension of the relations between America and Europe does not actually schismatic notions (of Europe compared to America) in What the rediscovery of the need to find references to transcendent even those who question our civilization does not reconcile the two poles perceived as enemies for centuries: the need for justice (tempo progressive) and the need for traditional (conservative tempo or reactionary).

The historical perspective is used to classify a civilization (rather than a country) as a unit, is of relatively recent origin. From the middle Ages, most historians have adopted a religious viewpoint or national level. The religious point-of-view prevailed until the eighteenth century among historians Europeans, who saw the revelation Christian as the most important historical event, taking as a reference for classification. The first European historians did not study other cultures rather than as curiosities or as potential areas of missionary activity.

The national point-of-view, unlike religion, is developed in the early sixteenth century from political philosophy and historian of the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli, who argued that the proper object of historical study was the State. The Spanish Francisco de Vitoria, founder of international law addressed the issue of the rights of the Crown of Spain in the conquest of America. However, many historians who later made?

the chronicle of the national states of Europe and America only studied societies outside the European culture, to describe their submission to the European powers, in his view more progressive.

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