The Primitive And The Civilized

"License."

The previous post presents two very short lists of benefits of civilization:

power

gadgets

medical science

potentialities

Why not just one list of four? Because I am summarizing an extremely condensed text in which the first list appears right at the top of p. 160 and the second near the bottom. It is no easy task to respond adequately to the entire text although the attempt is rewarding. 

According to our expository psychodynamicist, civilization is:

"'...a certain level of technology and a certain type of social organization.'" (p. 160)

The technology is agriculture and construction. The social organization is division of labour leading to class division. And there is an important point that we have not yet touched upon.

Rheinbogen the psychodynamicist claims that it is a matter of record that surviving primitive peoples have been decenter than civilized peoples. Wars, if they had them, were games, not slaughters, and they had very little theft, murder, rape, sadism or insanity. By contrast, being civilized fills us with:

"'...tensions and hatreds...'" (p. 161)

- and, as a result:

"'From petty chicanery and backyard malice, up to world war and the Almighty State, civilized man has to hurt his neighbor.'" (ibid.) 

This is a mixed bag. Individuals cheat and backbite. Economic systems, which take on a life of their own, generated administrators who became rulers and bodies of armed men to guard granaries. From these humble beginnings - small acorns - grew states that have waged wars. 

But there is hope. Here I pass from quoting to commenting. The benefits of advanced technology can be utilized to end causes of tension and hatred. Then we can become like the primitives.