Some peoples, according to this worldview, might even be incapable of reaching some of the milestones of civilization (and therefore could be disregarded or even sacrificed to European expansion). In spite of the etymological association of civilization with Enlightenment ideas, nevertheless, it is clear that many nineteenth-century Europeans understood civilizations and cultures through a lens of Romantic pluralism: different civilizations were essentially different, might have had different origins, and might be subject not only to progress but also to degeneration or disappearance. In the middle of the nineteenth century, these core beliefs became the foundation of what is known in the history of anthropological thought as classical evolutionism (lucidly explicated by George Stocking). At the same time, the concept implied (rather undemocratically) a hierarchy of peoples according to where they stood presently on the continuum between primitive or savage and civilized. Civilization rested on a universalistic, democratic optimism that all human societies were united by the capacity for progress along the same path, either on their own or through the tutelage of others. Writers have never agreed on the precise form of development denoted by civilization, but generally the concept was understood to include some or all of the following: written language, the dominance of intellect over passion and superstition, dissemination of knowledge by education, religious monotheism, political organization, technological mastery over the natural environment, and the progress of economic subsistence through modern agriculture, urban commerce, and manufacturing.įor the Enlightenment philosophers, who saw civilization outside of Europe as well as within it, the concept implied a unitary standard of human values. Although the last definition gave rise to a looser usage-seemingly interchangeable with designations such as "people," "culture," or "race"-"civilization" in the nineteenth century was usually applied to what were considered "advanced" groups, often appearing as the last of a developmental triad with "savagery" and "barbarism." Eventually, "civilization" would accumulate additional meanings: the process of acquiring culture or refinement, the sum total of cultural assets at a certain level of development, and the identity of a group sharing these assets. The same concept was expressed in English by the word refinement (before the advent of the word civilization) and in German by Kultur (even after the invention of Zivilisation). CIVILIZATION, CONCEPT OF civilizing missionĪccording to the historian Lucien Febvre, the French word civilisation was first coined in the middle of the eighteenth century, and denoted the state of being conditioned into civility or polite society (often associated with a state, civitas).
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