[pf] Civilization

>Gary wrote:
>> I am glad that I lived when I did.  I got a good public education. And I
got what I paid for.
>
At 12:11 9/5/2001 -0400, Molly Williams wrote {at:
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pfvs/2001II/msg00894.html } :-

>Ditto, even in the 1960s and 1970s.
>
>~ Molly
>

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· On my compilation of a number of Positive Futures posts in March & April
1998 on the theme: "should we work hard" {at:
http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/DsWorkHard.html#21:03:55 }, I sent one:
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pfvs/apr98/0138.html in which I said:

“ I've had a good life: worked hard at what I can do well and was useful
(teaching physics), travelled widely (including taking the family to live
in India in 1988), read a lot, sailed on the ocean in our own yacht,
scuba-dived, flown sailplanes (Silver "C"), raised 3 great children to
independence, and provided companionship for my wife during the last 30
years. ” 
  Then:
“ Those of us who have lived through the flowering of western civilisation
since mid-century (we're clearly going down-hill now - no longer hopeful,
in general) often know that we've had a better, easier, more interesting
life than present and future generations will.
So, can we delineate some or most of the components of "a good life"?
Some sort of framework indicating what people like my two sons and daughter
in their 20s could reasonably aspire to? ”

· I now want to consider what we would have, if we looked at human history
without any mind-set or assumption that Progress has any reality. 

· My guess is that we might be able to agree on a meaning for Civilization,
but we would probably examine the last 5000 years and say that, with such a
definition, there have been varying degrees of Civilization, greater and
lesser, but with no provable trend.
  Or, we /might/ be able to show _for_some_particular_definition_, that
through the various ups and downs of Civilization, there /was/ a real
(hopefully upward, or increasing) trend.

· Whatever.

· I believe I'm agreeing with Gary (about my age) and Molly (noticeably
younger) that as of sometime in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century, we had
reached the current peak of Civilization (capitalized, to indicate:
measured against some definition or other), and have since that time been
into a transition period where world-total civilization decreases (and
chaos increases) as we transit through a valley and hopefully on to the
next peak - whether or not it's "more" civilized than the one we here have
experienced since the 1940s.

· So far I've said nothing much about a suitable definition. I think a
certain minimum of peace (maybe order) for most ordinary people, would be
needed. I'm adding that I regard expressing creativity publically, having a
certain amount of intellectual (and even emotional) ferment, would be
another component.

· I've never thought much about or studied this; what do others think?


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