Talk:Civilization

Template:WP1.0

Confusion

It may be that I am just stupid - which I tend to doubt - but this article has brought more confusion, and honestly - as a black African - outrage. I recognize that the contributors have tried to address some of the controversies and ambiguities with the term; but as a result we have an article that goes in ten different directions, and is still ethnocentered in the "Western world". The standard used to define civilization seems to always be Europe/the Greeks/the Romans. On what basis have these become the "ideal"?

The "civilized" West has been an initiator and/or a worsening factor in most of the conflicts we have today, through the aftermaths of Colonization. Yet it seems we have to unequivocally accept its supposed standards of civility, and decency, and its measurement tools to evaluate all human societies. In other words, despite the - admirable - efforts of several people, we are still left with an article that defines "Civilization", and recognizes civilizations, on the basis of their relative similarity, or difference from Western Standards. In other words, one's culture and society is more or less a civilization, depending on whether it resembles more or less Western standards and ideals. Not that I have anything against many of the modern-day standards, that are - in their current form - Western inspired, such as the "Universal" Declaration of Human Rights. In the contrary. But that said, I cannot be convinced that the culture and social systems of the Lunda Confederation, the kingdom of Great Zimbabwe, the Zulu kingdoms, the Native tribes of North America, or the Khoi-Khoi, do not constitute CIVILIZATIONS that are inherently equal to those of the Romans, the Greeks, or the Hindus: They all had principles of life, that they eventually happily broke at will, when it fitted the purposes of the time. And I believe that there is no objective argument against that.

Themalau 18:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't argue against that, nor would I wish to. But if you add those civilisations the article ends up huge, and if you remove the ones that are there now, there will be outrage from their authors. Alas, I don't know enough to fix the bits I think are horribly biased either. Tricky isn't it? The Real Walrus 15:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately Wikipedia has no article on the Lunda Confederation. Regarding Khoikhoi, whilst being an example of nomadic pastoralism, they don't meet the criteria established by most historians and anthropologists for being a "civilisation" (i.e. were not townsmen). I have added a link to Great Zimbabwe and the Sudanic civilisations (Ghana, Mali and Songhai). Regarding the North American Indians, while it could be argued that the Anastasi, Pueblo Dwellers and perhaps the Mississipian cultures were civilisations under the general meaning of the term, this was not general. The Iroquois Confederacy could have been said to have been a proto-civilisation, and the same could be said for such people as the Mandan. John D. Croft 13:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You missed the point entirely. by quoting "they don't meet the criteria established by most historians and anthropologists for being a "civilisation". What you mean is "they don't meet the criteria established by most WESTERN ACADEMIC historians and anthropologists"--Richardb43 (talk) 09:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Obscuring the definition of the term will not make the concept of "agricultural people with urban centers and centralized, hierarchical political structures" go away. Wikipedia needs an article on the concept. Civilization is the most-used term to describe such a culture. We could, I suppose, move this page to Agricultural people with urban centers and centralized, hierarchical political structures, but it is much more useful to treat this concept here, in the most commonly-used term for it. Fishal (talk) 13:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Richardb43, can you differentiate between the two or three definitions you perceive for us? Perhaps I'm missing something- I'm not actually aware of any definitions other than the vernacular "civilization" and an anthropological/historical "civilization" with a tendentious definition in the ballpark of the one Fishal has offered. This is making me confused about what you are arguing for. What ARE the alternative views of civilization you are referring to? TriNotch (talk) 17:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe he means that it is insulting to call some cultures "uncivilized". I contend that it is not-- as it is most often used today, civilization is simply a descriptive term. It need not imply that some cultures or races or what have you are inferior or less worthy or less intelligent. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging our differences. Fishal (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If you try to tie this article to the narrower "academic" definition, there are a lot of objections that you are being Euro-centric, and missing out many "civilizations" that are not town or city based. There are plenty of objections throughout the discussion, and even at times in the article. There is often reference to things such as "as it is most often used today", but that in itself is subjective, POV. It is most often used in that way by a certain group. So, somehow, the article needs to accommodate both, even many, Points of View. And especially the Intro needs to be not so agressively asserting one POV, the euro-Centric Academic point of view. RichardB43

As to examples:- Australian Aboriginies certainly contest they had a civilisation before Europeans arrived. They had religion, art, trade, some division of labour, land management, some degree of land "ownership". But they did not have permanent settlements as such, though they did have groups of shelters they returned to frequently, sacred grounds with carvings and art. Who really has the authority to say that this was not "civilization" ? Similary I think the American Indians, Zulus etc strongly claim they had civilization, without having towns. RichardB43

Since this is an Encylopedia, why not try to cover all these types of civilisation, instead of arbitrarily narrowing the content to make it conform to some 19th Century definition. But also recognise and explain the nature of the debate. RichardB43

To this end, I propose that in the intro we use a very simple defintion something like "A civilization is a particular kind of human society or culture, exhibiting division of labour and a social hierarchy, existing in a particular time and locale." This is very all embracing. Then have a paragraph summarising the debate/contention. Then perhaps a paragraph elaborating on the Euro-Centric Academic defintion of Civilisation. Finally, when we get to listing certain civilisations, we could indicate against each as to whether it was town based or nomadic.RichardB43

If we don't do something like this, this article will forever go round in circles (I first contributed 2 years or more ago), and never really get tidied up. As it is, at the moment, it's a pretty scrappy article in need of a fair bit of editing and tightening.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just done two very minor edits (not really rating as changes) to help clarify a tiny bit. Hope they can survive.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

And now I'm going to start another section just to try to explore getting an agreed first intro paragraph.Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we agree a first paragraph of the intro

My first proposal-

A civilization is a particular kind of human society or culture; specifically, a civilization is a type of culture, society, etc., of a specific geography, time-span or group, in which members are organized into a diverse division of labour and an intricate social hierarchy. Most traditional authorities assert that this necessarily implies the development of towns, but others also claim other forms may rightfully be termed a "civilization".

My view is this concise, and covers both POVs.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the last time we sparred on this page was closer to four years ago.  :-) I remember the ghastly compromise we reached back then. When I went through and got rid of some of those definitions, I was trying to "tighten" the page. I felt all right doing it because I could not find a single source that gives the definition you give. Do you have a source? Fishal (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not big on citing sources. I am all for finding working definitions that avoid constant conflict. Is the first paragraph this "definition" actually so different ? If you are going to be dogmatic in citing sources you are never going to get any agreement, as other people will cite all sorts of sources giving other, conflicting definitions. A working compromise is required. I would contend this proposal is a lot tighter than the slighlty sloppy sentence that is there at present. But, if you want to battle for a dogmatic approach, I'm going to quickly loose interest, so it will be easy for you to "WIN". Do you want to go for a workable, fairly tight compromise, that might help to properly gel this article, or do you want to WIN ?--Richardb43 (talk) 01:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to win, just be accurate. Without sources, we have no accuracy, only our own opinions being thrown around... like we did last time. Fishal (talk) 01:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

So, what sources are cited for the present fairly loose intro paragraph ? What makes it accurate ? The first two sentences strictly read actually contradict each other. The first sentence says ANY type. The second sentence then goes on to say only Complex societies. Which is it ?--Richardb43 (talk) 02:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There are several sources in that paragraph, and in the section "Characterizing Civilization", that define it as urban, agricultural, etc. Your only source has been your own opinion. There is no need to be so confrontational. I don't want to be dogmatic or exclusionist-- I just want to write a helpful encyclopedia article that answers the question, "what is a civilization?" in a direct and unconfusing way. Fishal (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Are towns necessary for "Civilisation" ?

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which went on to be the largest empire the world has ever known. Yet it seems, from a very brief reading, that Genghis Khan came from a nomadic society. Does that disqualify the Mongol Empire as a civilization ?--Richardb43 (talk) 01:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The intro

Is it just me or is the intro an extended vioaltion of WP:NOT a dictionary? I don't find it at all satisfying in terms of relating what's coming in the rest of article. Marskell 11:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The intro evolved out of much discussion about whether the article should be spelled Civilisation (as British English) or Civilization (as American English). The intro was a compromise agreed by users that gave relevant space and an appropriate etymology for both terms. It is not intended as a dictionary, but to be "encyclopedic" to cover both usages. John D. Croft 21:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Understood. But an article lead section ought to "briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article." This doesn't do anything like that. I would suggest just starting from nothing and bumping what's there to an etymology section. Marskell 19:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The British English dictionaries and common usage (pace the idiotic MS Spellchecker)is civilization with a zed. The zed-less version is French. Dr Johnson should be cited for the etymology and the basic definition.

The intro definition did NOT arise from American/UK spelling differences, but from widely different understanding and acceptability of what the word Civilisation means. There is no common agreement on that, there can be no NPOV Article. For the sake of clarity some description up front is needed of what the article is and is not about, and subsequent sections can/should describe the dissenting/differening viewpoints.--Richardb43 (talk) 10:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's right. For a long time, a lot of people were really upset that the article's main definition excluded most tribal peoples, which seemed to be a condemnation of much of the world as "uncivilized". That lead section is necessary to explain that defining "civilization" does not mean condemning those who do not fit the definition. Fishal (talk) 12:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You might not MEAN to condemn, but many people do read it as a condemnation. And no matter how often you might want to say you do not mean to condemn, as long as YOU say you have the authority to decide on which "civilizations" qualify for the name, and which don't, then you ARE condemning. It's a bit like my mother calling black people coloured, because "it's not polite to calll them black". Sho totally goes against the wishes of the people whe is supposedly trying to be polite to. You are syaing to Australian Aboriginines (say) - "Your history is not one of civilization. But I am not calling your ancestors uncivilized." Can't accept that argument makes any sense. And what is this dogmatism for. To try to stick to some 19th Century idea of what constitutes Civilisation.

But, I' rapidly losing interest. I never have found a way to come to a reasonable compromise with a dogmatic exclusionist. Unless there is some glimmer of comprehension that other people have a different point of view, why waste my time even discussing it ?--Richardb43 (talk) 02:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

New lead section?

I've written a new lead section and am working on rewriting much of the article. See User:Fishal/Civilization. Fishal 07:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I removed a lot of the world-systems theory stuff. It's not gone for good, but I'll try to put it all in one section. It's currently sitting in a very disorganized state in the draft in my userspace that I'm working on. Fishal 23:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the lead section was pretty poor. I've trimmed it a little. The main thing I've done is up front acknowledge there is not going to be an agreed NPOV of "civilization", but accepted that this article deals with the classical academic view of "Civilisation". I've also made smaller all the explanatory stuff about the different views, so that the basic definition stands out better.

Probably we really need to have two separate pages - Civilisation (The Western Academic view), and Civilisation (Alternative Views)--Richardb43 (talk) 09:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the term is as controversial as you make it out to be. I may be completely wrong here, but I've never seen a definition of civilization subsantially different from the one in this article. Before I made some big changes here (which I sourced, and which I discussed on the Talk page first), the article basically said, "Civilization is whatever you want it to be," which is entirely unhelpful to a reader. NPOV does not mean we don't present concepts as they are generally understood. See the section right above this one on equivocal definitions. Fishal (talk) 12:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of attack on Ward Perkins

I have deleted the attack on Ward Perkins. Not onl;y was it crawling with typographical errors, it was more appropriate on a page devoted to Ward-Perkin's theories or a page on the collapse of Rome, than here. John D. Croft 03:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Civilization

I urge users to not carelessly add any entry to this article without discussing it. Especially anonymous users. The section is called development of "early" civilizations, and please look up in the encyclopedia about what it means. Don't just add any countries/states' name just because you like it so or you found a obscure reference that evidently only described a legendary date.

Here is what Columbia Encyclopedia [1] have to say about civilizations:

“ The specific characteristics of civilization are: food production (plant and animal domestication), metallurgy, a high degree of occupational specialization, writing, and the growth of cities. Such characteristics originally emerged in several different parts of the prehistoric world: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, the central Andes, and Mesoamerica. However, some civilizations did not have all of these characteristics (e.g., the Classic Maya had no metallurgy, and true writing apparently never emerged in central Mexico or the central Andes). ”

Here is what Encarta [2] said about the development of early civilizations:

“ Historians have found difficulties in delimiting a particular society and correctly labeling it a civilization; they use the term civilization to refer to a number of past and present societies that manifest distinctive cultural and historical patterns. Some of these civilizations are the Andeanone, which originated about 800 bc; the Mexican (about the 3rd century BC); the Far Eastern, which originated in China about 2200 bc and spread to Japan about AD 600; the Indian (about 1500 bc); the Egyptian (about 3000 BC); the Sumerian (about 4000 bc); followed by the Babylonian (about 1700 BC); the Minoan (about 2000 bc); the Semitic (about 1500 BC); the Greco-Roman (about 1100 bc); the Byzantine, which originated in the 4th century AD; the Islamic (8th century ad); and the Western, which arose in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages. ”

--TheLeopard (talk) 19:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

anti european bias

if you are going to lump greece in with the minoans the starting date must be from the date the civilization that the minoans started from and the starting date for the minoans is around 2700 bc which pre dates china and pre dates caanites so why is the staring date at 2000 bc and in all fairness the minoans are treated as a seperate civilzation from the greeks also pick up any scholary book and european civilzation pre dates east asian--Wikiscribe (talk) 01:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I have little interest in the "What is a civilization" debate, so I will not weigh in there. However, I do wish to point out a possible problem with the evident pro-Minoan position advocated by Wikiscribe. The Minoan chronology article indicates significant doubts about the absolute accuracy of ANY Minoan chronology (in the sense of absolute dating), and certainly does not comfortably set the beginning date at 2700 BC. 2700 BC is a plausible approximation of the beginning of the Pre-Palatial period of the Minoans, but that may not be sufficient... The pre-Palatial is Bronze Age, but just barely- early Pre-palatial sites are strictly speaking only copper-using. They used the still-untranslated Linear A script- but not until the MMIB period, estimated 2000 BC. Finally, they may or may not have had cities; I've had a hard time locating much information on that. Keith Branigan, who edited Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age, refers to pre-Palatial settlements as cities, but describes them as lacking defensive walls, lacking monumental architecture, lacking organized town-planning, and lacking a dense population. This makes them significantly less "urban" than the larger communities of the Mississippian culture which I study. I leave it in the hands of others to decide if they qualify under those criteria (as cities or as civilizations), as this smacks of original research. But (since Wikiscribe mentioned the east Asian cultures) I would point out that the Longshan culture DOES have cities... possibly by 3000 BC. I don't think I have an anti-European bias; just a pro-archaeological-data bias. TriNotch (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

sounds like anti european bias to me especaliy coming from a native american tell me something has there been any evidence of the wheel being found in the americas pre european colonization i think that should be one of the marks of a civilzation touche my friend--Wikiscribe (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

No personal attacks, please. This article has a strong anti-Native-American bias, IMO. The Mississippians were in here once upon a time (I put them there), but they are here no longer. If you ask me, the whole messy list needs to be moved elsewhere. It is a distant descendant of a table that was practically the only content back in 2002, and now it's more of a distraction than anything else. An article on Ancient civilizations might be called for, but I'd fear it would become just a dumping ground. I say, turn the massive paragraphs into a list of links, remove the start and end dates, and keep it brief. Fishal (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that this article could use some rewriting generally, but I would agree about the list of links idea. We have separate articles on all those civilizations for a reason. Actually, I think I will Be Bold and do that immediately, and hope I'm not deleting important information. Anyone want to bet whether I'll be reverted by a bot for text-blanking? TriNotch (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I know the idea has been floating around for _years_. I need to get back to my own rewrite-- it's fairly a mess. If anyone wants to lend a hand, the draft is currently at User:Fishal/Civilization. Best regards, Fishal (talk) 06:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Possible Vandalism

Who wrote "Civilizations was made up by Abraham Lincoln. He was pretty weird =D =D =D" at the top of the article?

Archive

The re-opening of some old discussion sections, I think, showed the necessity of archiving the inactive ones. So I moved all the discussions for 2007 (and 2006!) to Archive 5. Fishal (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitions

I think I'll start one place for discussing this issue at the bottom of the page rather than doing it in three places, all over the page. Richardb, you have contended, both now and 4 years ago, that the standard definition of civilization, as defined in the sources I and other editors have cited, is wrong; essentially you contend that all human groups should be called civilizations. When I asked for a source that used the term in this way, you said that you don't like citing sources and that requiring published sources (i.e., following Wikipedia policy) is "dogmatic". Richardb, the article is a mess right now, with lots of uncertainty over definitions, largely because of a compromise we reached back in '04 (back when _neither_ of us were terribly interested in citing sources). Since then, many people have found good documantation supporting the standard definition, but the messy compromises, such as the "Problems with the term" section, remain. If you can't find any sources to back you up, I think that entire section, and similar equivocations about what a civilization is, need to be removed as unverified after all these years. Fishal (talk) 19:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not say your definition was wrong. I just said it was one viewpoint, which tended to be supported by lots of references precisely because it is an academic viewpoint. I never said I did not like citing sources, just that I'm not good at it. But how about this one. The very first lines in this discussion page-

"It may be that I am just stupid - which I tend to doubt - but this article has brought more confusion, and honestly - as a black African - outrage. I recognize that the contributors have tried to address some of the controversies and ambiguities with the term; but as a result we have an article that goes in ten different directions, and is still ethnocentered in the "Western world". The standard used to define civilization seems to always be Europe/the Greeks/the Romans. On what basis have these become the "ideal"?

Your dogmatic adherence to the academic "pointy-headed" definition alone is insulting to many, many people. The result was that many people attacked the article, changed it, and it did become a mess. All I tried to do was have a small section that acknowledged this contention. And this seemed to slow down the back and forth changes.

But, as you can't accept such a compromise, and you seem to think the article is "yours", then I'll leave you to it. And leave you believing that the academic view point is so much superior than that of the us plebs who actually have doubts and concerns, instead of your absolute certainty.--Richardb43 (talk) 08:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, that's fine; I'm the one who wrote the messy compromise version, which I was unhappy with-- but we need sources. Without sources, the article is just opinion, and you seem to think that that's not a big deal. Fishal (talk) 20:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you not read. It's lots of people over time that think it is a big deal that you insist on maintaining the pure academic version that causes so offense. But obviously pointelss arguing with you. Bye.--Richardb43 (talk) 08:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)