What is Civilization?
Just what is “civilization?”
I asked myself that question after writing last week’s post about Christopher Columbus not being the first to discover the New World. And his still being celebrated for paving the way for Europeans to bring “civilization” to the west.
Will Durant spent 50 years writing “The Story of Civilization” and says that civilization is marked by four elements:
economic provision
political organization
moral traditions
pursuit of knowledge and the arts
The Native American societies of North America lived by the above principles for centuries before the arrival of Columbus.
Here’s my definition of civilization: