Re: [pf] "Civilization".

At 13:36 14/5/2001 -0500, Diane Fitzsimmons wrote:
>Here is what I posted last Friday to David's original post:
>
>As I read David's message, what comes to mind is "is there anything better
now than then?"
>
>The two biggest things that have affected me are race relations and
anti-sexism.  And I believe our greater openness about mental illness is an
improvement, as well as our efforts to stop domestic and child abuses.
>

· The reason I worded my "Try#10" version with specific questions, is that
I know people probably say to themselves: "things are better now, more
civilized; they have to be, or what was all that effort about?"

· This post now, is not an attempt to direct how the discussion goes - /I/
know there is now more tolerance, much less bigotry, than when I was young
in New Zealand - but I'm still trying to take a much longer view, and
probably more detached as well.

· My focus in not on the great buildings, the marvellous art and music, the
sewerage systems that reduce plagues and epidemics to manageable proportions.
  It's on the conditions that were there, that led or allowed suitable
people to do these things.

· For decades I have been concerned that recently, for example, there
haven't been any great composers, or earth-shaking insights like the
quantum theory, or creators who reached the common man, like Shakespeare.
And it's bothered me that the USA has been more like the Romans than the
Greeks, in spite of their great riches.
  In one or two thousand years, what will people be looking back at in
admiration and amazement? Pointing to as the seminal moment or period, that
changed the course of history?

· The nearest to that is easy travel; I suppose you can call that a measure
of Civilization.

· What conditions have to be in place before civilization can increase?

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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