Civilization

Syllabus For SBBU

Why students study the subject Civilization.

A)        The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

André Malraux, Man's Fate (1933)

Two approaches to approach the subject Civilization:

(a)    A pure academic approach in a sense that it is confined to the collection of the names of great civilizations and to gather knowledge of the features of great civilizations.

(b)   A pragmatic approach in a sense that it is tailored to understand the importance of understanding the importance of subject civilization in terms of understanding the rise and fall of civilization.

The major emphasis of syllabus is on pragmatic approach because:

Analyzing reasons those conspire against the rise/ or engineer the downfall or put civilization on upward trajectory vouches safes an insight into the dangers (posed from within and outside to one’s culture) and causes of strengths.

Every state has three things:

(A) Culture

(B)  Economy

(C) Politics

Fundamental questions (each philosopher and thinker attempted to answer):

(A) Relation between man and woman.

(B)   Relation between state and its people.

(C)  Relation between money and labor. 

Civilization is a word easier to describe than it is to define.

A solid working definition of civilization is difficult and depends upon judgment.

Definition of civilization 

A society with functionally interrelated sets of social institutions: class stratification based on the ownership and control of production, political and religious hierarchies complementing each other in the central administration of territorially organized states and lastly, a complex division of  labor, with skilled workers, soldiers and officials existing alongside the great mass of peasant producers.

What does it mean to be a great civilization?

Old perspective of recording History

A)    Large territories and populations.

B)    Powerful military with strong leaders.

New perspective of recording History (Besides above aspects)

C)   Strength is measured by peace and cohesion,

D)   Strength is measured by culture and scholarship winners.

Need of society

A)     Behavior is not programmed and long tender care is needed to not perish.

B)     Humans may die before finding out how to survive without a culture to provide behavior patterns.

Culture

Definition:

(a)   Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as the member of society.

(b)   The set of rules and procedures for meeting needs with a supporting set of ideas and values.

Material culture:

Material culture is the outgrowth of non-material culture and meaningless without it. Manufactured objects (bats, gloves); tools and physical substances and artifacts.

Non-Material culture:

Beliefs. Concepts. Values. Rules (of game etc).

Culture & Society:

Society is the organization of people. Culture is the organization of norms and values.

Cultural as a system of norms:

Culture is an elaborate system of norms_ of standardized, expected ways of feeling and acting_ which the members of a society generally acknowledge and generally follow.

(a)    Culture is normative as it defines the standards of conduct (norm for shaking hand etc).

(b)   Real culture (actually exists); Ideal culture (expected to exist).

Kinds of norms:

Folks ways

Problems:      How to wrest a living and divide fruits of toil or good fortune and relate agreeably to each other.

Trait that is selection through trial and error, sheer accident or some unknown influence from a number of possibilities is the folk way that is simply the customary, normal, habitual ways a group does things. (Shaking right hand, eating with knives, wearing neckties and eating toast is the American folkways)

Mores

Those strong ideas of right and wrong which require certain acts and forbid others.

Folkways those are more important than others.

Two classes of folksways:

Those which should be followed as a matter of good manners and polite behavior. (Use of wrong fork)

Those which must be followed because they are believed essential to group welfare. (choosing life partner and marriage)

Institution

An institution is an organized of social relationships which embodies certain common values and procedures and meets certain basic needs of society. Folkways and mores surrounding an important activity become organized into a quite formal, binding system of belief and behavior, an institution has developed.  

Basic institution:

Family life. Religion. Government. Education. Organization of economic activities

 Laws: law is the mean to end not an end in itself.

Laws serve to reinforce mores. Non-conformity to mores incurs punishment.

Values:        Values are ideas about whether experience is important or unimportant. Values guide persons’ judgments and behavior. Punctuality, material progress and competition are major values in American society. Value shift also affect the folkways and mores. For example value shift toward sexual permissiveness is changing the mores of courtship.

Cultural integration:

A pile of brick is not a home, a list of traits (a distinguishing characteristic), is not a culture. A culture is an integrated system in which each trait fits into the rest of the culture. In other words, the different parts of the culture all fitted together in an interrelated system of practices and values. The different parts of agriculture must fit together if conflict and confusion are to be avoided.

 Core of the culture of Indians was buffalo. It is no accident that hunting peoples worship hunting gods, fishing peoples worship sun gods, and agriculture peoples worship sun and rain gods.

Cultural Relativism:

We cannot possibly understand the action of other groups if we analyze them in terms of our motives and values, we must interpret other behavior in the light of their motives, habbits, and values if we are to understand them. Function and meaning of a trait are relative to its cultural setting. A trait is neither good nor bad in itself. It is good and bad only with reference to the culture in which it functions.

When Civilization fall.

Core is disintegrated. Practices are not in consonance to beliefs. Hypocrisy.  Split personality. Anomie. (a state or condition of individuals or society characterized by a breakdown or absence of social norms and values, as in the case of uprooted people).

When civilization rise.

Practices are in accordance to its beliefs. Beliefs are strong in themselves. Compatible with temper of time. Nation internalizes them.

The Clash of Civilizations (COC):  a hypothesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-War world. It was proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington.

Intellectual dishonesty:             Disregard cultural relativism. Cultural imperialism supersedes military imperialism. Retain biological distinction but taste is different.