Item number 77 - Original Query
Date: 94/09/20
> I am very curious as to how you define civilization, since you > apparently include every possible type of human > activity/lifestyle/technology under the term. If what you are saying > is that we should abandon the teaching of history (based on written > sources) and civilization (based on urbanism), in favor of teaching > anthopology, that is certainly a defendable position, one that I > would even enjoy seeing, but to remove what little meaning terms have > does not seem to me to be the best way to do it.
> Terrance L. Lewis
> History Program
> Social Sciences
> Southern University at New Orleans
> <tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com> or <LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com>
I admit I can't give you a ready-made answer to this, Terry. (Though give me a few hours, and I might.) However, several thoughts immediately do occur to me.
First, professors should make it clear to their students what model they're working with, namely the EUROPEAN model, and after they've been exposed to one or two alternatives, why not let them answer that question themselves? Excellent brain-tickler for all concerned. Then proceed from there in your course. As, for instance......
Why not be a little more subtle with students? Instead of talking/thinking about "civilization" -- i.e. "The" civilization --- why not substitute "civilizations," thus starting immediately to imply the existence of alternatives, especially alternatives that will invite comparisons? And, I suppose in partial answer to your challenge, this would not necessitate abandoning the conventional model of civilization, merely an exercise in changing attitudes, which, after all, is half the battle of educating young minds.
And presenting alternative models doesn't have to mean abandoning "history" and "civilization" for anthropology. My sense is that other civilizations have histories equally valid with our own and equally worth knowing. However, they require more effort in coming to know them.
Randall L. Pouwels
Department of History
University of Central Arkansas
RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu
Item number 80 - Reply #1
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994
> First, professors should make it clear to their students what model > they're working with, namely the EUROPEAN model, and after they've > been exposed to one or two alternatives, why not let them answer > that question themselves? Excellent brain-tickler for all concerned. > Then proceed from there in your course. As, for instance......
> Randall L. Pouwels
> Department of History
> University of Central Arkansas
> RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu
Again, I think we're *mostly* in agreement. I can't call any culture that doesn't have "towns" (as in groups of people living together, with most people making most of their livelihood from trade, manufacturing, etc.) a civilization. The problem lays, in my opinion, in the old idea that you need high walls and well-defined streets, temple structures and permanent markets, etc. to call such a unit a "town." I see towns (by my definition) in Western Africa long before Ghana, in central America long before the Maya. Perhaps I am stretching the term too much for some, and not far enough for others
"T"
Terrance L. Lewis
History Program
Social Sciences
Southern University at New Orleans
<tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com> or <LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com>
(PS -- while I certainly answer to "Terry," there are a lot of them around, and I've been plain "T" to my friends since 6th grade, about 25 years ago (eek!)
Item number 88 - Reply #2
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94
Randall Pouwells makes an interesting point, which I have heard before from my Africanist colleagues. The concept of "civilization" is itself, both a historical concept (sociologists who teach in our course have told me that they don't use it, preferring in their discipline to speak of societies and cultures) and a Western one. One problem with changing our World Civ. texts is that our students have been conditioned to use this concept in high school and are also accustomed to studying material in chronological order (a western, perhaps Judaeo-Christian) way of thinking. We could make our World History courses more palatable to Africanists if we could identify and trace themes through these courses and through our texts. Yet, what should those themes be? We need something that doesn't slight "Eurasia" , ignore chronological cause and effect, or turn the story of humankind into a sociological analysis of societies that is only synchronic? Does anyone have ideas for themes that would do justice to the West and the "non-West" while also making a world history survey intelligible to students? I would love to have some suggestions on this, since it would allow us to make our world civ. course here more compatible with our (also required) sophomore humanities course, which is shedding its "Western only" focus.
Ken Wolf, Department of History
Murray State University
Murray, KY 42071 (502) 762-6582 or 762-2232
e-mail <A23211f@MSUMUSIC.Bitnet>
Item number 89 - Reply #3
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94
With respect to Terrance Lewis' question about how I define civilization: This is a difficult topic for anyone teaching World Civ., especially if, like myself, they find definitions of civilization highly dissatisfying in the first place. My method is rather to "explore civilization."
By exploring civilization I mean several things:
Civilization will not die easily; nor may it even die. Western identities (and now increasingly identities of Western-trained intellectuals across the world) are tied to understanding history through the lens of civilization. The barbarians are always some "others." Barbarians never wish to study history as civilization, of course, for they are devalued. And this is precisely the problem with the paradigm.
I hope that helps to answer the question of how I define civilization. Organizing a course this way has its difficulties, especially if the class is of great size, because discussion is absolutely critical here. I struggle with the problems, especially because I grope along a path which few teaching world history travel.
As an aside, and because I am relatively new to H-World, could anyone inform me if there has been any discussion/debate about the work of Martin Bernal on these wires?
Cheers,
Pier M. Larson
Penn State University
History
Item number 90 - Reply #4
Date: 94/09/21
Why is civilization to be considered a European model... it certainly works in Chinese civilization as well. It seems to me that using the word civilization simply tells us more of what historians work on then about the nature of the human experience and should be discussed as part of a class on what we do versus those in other fields.
Steven A. Leibo
The Sage Colleges
LEIBO@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Item number 91 - Reply #5
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994
>> First, professors should make it clear to their students what model
>> they're working with, namely the EUROPEAN model, and after they've
>> been exposed to one or two alternatives, why not let them answer
>> that question themselves? Excellent brain-tickler for all concerned.
>> Then proceed from there in your course. As, for instance......
>>
>> Randall L. Pouwels
>> Department of History
>> University of Central Arkansas
>> RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu
>Again, I think we're *mostly* in agreement. I can't call any >culture that doesn't have "towns" (as in groups of people living >together, with most people making most of their livelihood from >trade, manufacturing, etc.) a civilization. The problem lays, in my >opinion, in the old idea that you need high walls and well-defined >streets, temple structures and permanent markets, etc. to call such a >unit a "town." I see towns (by my definition) in Western Africa long >before Ghana, in central America long before the Maya. Perhaps I am >stretching the term too much for some, and not far enough for others >-- but I still need a town before I see a civilization.
> "T"
> Terrance L. Lewis
> History Program
> Social Sciences
> Southern University at New Orleans
> <tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com> or <LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com>
T,
How would you react to the Mixtec Highland settlement pattern in the Post Classic where they are operating at a "State" level yet the majority of the "occupation" is living in scattered dwellings (probably holding extended families) usually referred to as palaces with as much as a kilometer between dwellings or more?
Sam Ball
Sam_Ball@NPS.GOV
Item number 99 - Reply #6
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994
> From: Sam_Ball@nps.gov (Sam Ball)
> How would you react to the Mixtec Highland settlement pattern in the Post > Classic where they are operating at a "State" level yet the majority of the > "occupation" is living in scattered dwellings (probably holding extended > families) usually referred to as palaces with as much as a kilometer between > dwellings or more?
> Sam Ball
> Sam_Ball@NPS.GOV
I'm not really familiar with the reference. What is going on in those palaces? The overseeing of agricultural holdings, or the administrating (and production supplying trade goods) of self-contained agricultural villages?
One problem that I think we're seeing is the belief that calling a culture something other than a "civilization" is somehow demeaning. ("We are civilized, they are barbarians") Granted, that is how the term is often used and believed in the general society -- but that doesn't mean that we have to use the terms that way. Were those living in some small town in Mesopotamia 6000 years ago any "better" than a neolithic farmer? I, at least, don't think so.
Again, I certainly have no problems with the idea of teaching cultures rather than civilizations, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to use the terms interchangabely, since that is really what I do (or at least try to).
"T"
Terrance L. Lewis
History Program
Social Sciences
Southern University at New Orleans
<tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com> or <LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com>
Item number 100 - Reply #7
Date: 94/09/21
Pier Larson's very creative methods for discussing civilization strike me as brilliant, especially since they (i) stimulate discussion, (ii) allow students to recognize the problems and involved (and shortcomings of any such attempts), and (iii) force them to sharpen their own ideas.
In response to Ken Wolf (and somewhat less so to T Lewis), any heuristic device meant to teach the question of "civilization" to undergrads, especially underclassmen and women, is going to have severe analytic shortcomings (and hence very open to criticism). For what it's worth, though, I start my World Civ. I course with the socalled agrarianate (i.e. pre-industrial) civilizations that developed out of the Neolithic revolutions, wherever (and whenever) they occurred -- i.e. the Fertile Crescent, India (Hindu civilization), China, Africa, and Mexico. I make it a point, when reading our text (McKay, Hill, Buckler), that all these civilizations developed common characteristics despite the surface (i.e. urban, industrial, commercial, literate, etc.) differences. By this, I mean they share(d) a "mode of production" based largely on rural, peasant food production; a close relationship with their natural environments that was "pre- scientific," a notion of time that was conditioned by the natural cycles (cyclic) of their environment; religions that stressed nature gods and spirits; an emphasis on control of nature through ritual appeasement of the nature deities; the existence of a class of religious specialists who, among other things, performed sacrifices, divined, and forecast the changing seasons; and the crucial role played by extended kinship networks in defining the place of the individual and in defining the community.
Next, we move on to looking at Western Civ., starting customarily with the Greeks and the Romans. This, of course, constitutes the "humanistic" model, characterized by such things as the notion of citizenship; a greater stress on individual identity; citizen participation in government; the importance of literacy in defining "history," literature, and law; anthropomorphic gods; and a noticeably heavier stress on "rationalism" (as opposed to "religion") on solvcing the mysteries of life, human survival, and the universe.
Of course, these stereotypes can and do break down somewhat when one examines various civilizations in detail -- but not completely. And one sees elements of "agrarianism" in, say, Roman civilization, and definite humanistic traits in Hinduism or an African village. However, these models do give students a handle on the multitude of information to which they're exposed in their textbooks and, for the more thoughtful ones (or at least the less passive ones), something to challenge.
Randall L. Pouwels
University of Central Arkansas
Item number 101 - Reply #8
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994
Expanding from the Mixtec Highlands comment, I have several thoughts.
The Kpelle of West Africa existed within the context of an acephalous state. For some purposes we can find a high degree of political integration (even "passports"). On other levels we see rather isolated villages, few exclusively non-agricultural occupations or specializations (metalworkers, weavers, etc.). From a European point of view, such peoples were uncivilized. The real problem, of course, is that as another pointed out, "civilization" is always used invidiously: "I am civilized, you are barbarian," even reciprocally, as with the Greeks and Persians. When the "Poro" of Siera Leon rose up in revolt against the British in the late 1890s, they did so simultaneously, coordinated by messengers who carried burned palm fronds all over the countryside. The Poro was, in fact, not just a secret society, but the pre-British governemnt of the area (or, a pre-British government), and reflected a high degree of social integration existing within a context of dispersed settlement patterns.
Similarly, the pre-Hispanic Phillipines, especially but not only around Lake Bai, supported a number of quite functioning states based in relatively small and separate communities. To the Spanish mind (de Morga and others) the Philippinos were "sin politica" and correspondingly uncivilized. To the Chinese (much better observers and interpreters of others' social complexity then the Europeans), many of the same peoples/nations/states were understood as being both civilized and worthy of diplomatic recognition (exchange of symbolic gifts from elephants to parasols). The Chinese were prepared to be much more flexible than the Europeans, in their definitions. The non-exclusive nature of Chinese religion may be crucial here, and should cause us to pause when we insist on finding some people to be "uncivilized." Also, as I wrote some years ago:
"Just as Lyndon Baines Johnson did not want Khe Sahn to be another Dien Bien Phu, Philip II of Spain did not want another _leyenda_ _negra_ (black legend) attached to his name or the crown of Spain. The _leyenda_ _negra_ was the stigma of civilization destroyer that was given to Spain as a result of the conquests of New Spain and Peru."
Gordon C. Thomasson, _Cornell Journal of Social Relations_ 15:2 (Winter 1980):172.
I would insist that geopolitical considerations motivated the portrayal of certain peoples as "uncivilized" more than any condition "on the ground" throughout the period of European expansion. One need only consider Samuel Purchas' dedication of _Purchas, His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Regions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered_ (London: Henry Fetherston, 1625-1626) to King James I (who inconveniently died during publication). In a gush of anti-p apist strategizing, Purchas commended to the king a union of non-Catholic kings from all around the world--non-White and non-Christian!--who would even exchange sons and daughters in marriage, as a barrier to Catholics girdling the globe with territories loyal to Rome. Once that "fate" was averted however, the peoples described by Purchas (in the same vein as the Hakluyt's collections of voyages of discovery), suddenly eclipsed into obscurity and emerged as insignificant and uncivilized "tribes" or peoples fit only to be conquered.
Given the consistently (over centuries/millenia?) political use of "civilization" as a concept, and only in part because as both historian and anthropologist with regional/area specializations in subSaharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America I see or allow in more data than those who approach the field from a "Western Civ" model, I tell my students that despite the textbook I am teaching a class on World Societies and Cultures" and I don't blush.
Gordon C. Thomasson
World History Faculty
THOMASSON_G@SUNYBROOME.EDU
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