Modern Civilization

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In previous posts, I described from my point of view, the series of events from creation of the universe, up to the current Holocene era on Earth, i.e., the last 12,000 years since the ice sheets retreated to their mountain homes.  Before I begin to address in future posts topical matters of current interest, I need to account for the rapid growth of human culture and technology during the Holocene.  From Neolithic hunter-gatherer to sophisticated urban dweller in the space of a few thousand years.  Biological evolution of the human organism moves fast, but not that fast.  The following is a quick review of when, how and why civilizations arose and the challenges they present to a species that was mostly as wild as Tarzan only 12,000 years ago.

Let’s start with when civilizations arose on Earth, a highly controversial topic.  The oldest known large towns or cities date from about 6,000 years ago.  Recently however, the Indian Navy, using side-scanning radar, located some obvious underwater ruins in the Gulf of Kutch that could be an early site of the city-state of Dwarka, home of the legendary Lord Krishna.  Sea levels were 100 feet lower than they are now about 11,000 years ago.  

I believe irrigation agriculture began in river deltas much earlier than we realize, before the most recent (Wisconson-Wurm) ice sheets retreated.  Ruins of the associated large towns were obliterated as sea levels rose.  Agricultural practices and the culture of town life survived these displacements and are represented in the earliest known Mesopotamian cities, dating from about 6,000 years ago.  Ancient Sumerian texts suggest their agriculture technology came from “the east”, perhaps referring to the Indus river delta.

Homo sapiens have been roaming the Earth for about 200,000 years, 70,000 of those years outside of Africa, starting on the Indian subcontinent.  For at least the last 10,000 years or so, substantial numbers of humans have we been living in built-up environments, in close proximity to thousands of other humans they don’t know.  This radical shift from living on the open range with your friends and relatives, to a mild form of confinement with strangers, has had profound effects on human mental life and behavior; a kind of “snake pit” effect, after the movie by that name.

Cultural anthropologists, starting in the Nineteenth Century, have closely studied the remaining societies on Earth which have not yet been heavily affected by modern civilization.  Although primitive humans had their own full plate of social ills, especially thievery and blood feuds, people living in modern towns and cities developed a whole new set of physical and mental illnesses virtually unknown to primitive people.  

If one is well integrated into a modern, smoothly functioning, high-tech society, one might say it was a good tradeoff.  No more periods of hunger, fear of attack from enemies and constant suffering from parasites and pathogens.  A pretty fair deal in exchange for a few minor neuroses, although calling them few and minor may be exaggerations.  

If on the other hand, one is an economic refugee living in a Third World shantytown; one gets the worst of both primitive and modern existence: hunger, disease, parasites, plus all the pressures of living with strangers in an overcrowded, dangerous and polluted neighborhood.

Either way, living in a modern, high-tech society has its difficulties.  From an evolutionary standpoint, Homo sapiens is still a wild animal, whose behavior is heavily influenced by instinct.  The essence of civilization is our ability to suppress those instincts, through conditioning and will power, in order to maintain social order.  This is the social contract Rousseau, Locke and others described.  

On the open range, primitive peoples greeted strangers with suspicion and occasional violence.  On main street, people pass by strangers, even unaccompanied women, with no more than a second look.  In a multitude of ways, people are forced by circumstances and social pressure to act out behaviors almost unknown to their Neolithic forbearers and sometimes contrary to our basic instincts.  Fortunately, our species is relatively generalized, resilient and able to subsist on many different kinds of foodstuffs, in many different environments.  Like the cockroach, crow, rat and dog, we are eminently adaptable - survivors. 

 

More disruptive cultural changes are yet to come, no doubt at an accelerated rate, but in the meantime it’s worthwhile to consider this rapid urbanization when examining causes and effects of everything from common neuroses and depression, to mass murderers, child molesters and hate mongers.  Among these aberrant behaviors are compulsive disorders, where sane people act in ways that damage their health or safety, usually, but not always, in exchange for a short term dose of pleasure.  Think of the seven deadly sins - smoking, drinking, gambling, shooting drugs, chasing women, etc.

In future posts, I’ll examine the causes and mechanics of these compulsive behaviors, but in the meantime, suffice it to say Homo sapiens has arrived, ready or not.  More than half of today’s humans live in the relative ease of modern civilization, compared to our primitive forbearers.  For us collectively, the world is there for the taking, the future is ours for the making.  

Did we get here by a series of accidents?  Perhaps, however, I subscribe to philosopher GWF Hegel’s proposition - that the potential for today’s human existence was inherent in the very beginning of creation, and definitely inherent in the spark of life that began on Earth a billion years ago.  For Hegel, the Idea of a sentient life-form existed as potential in the beginning and has progressively been realized, until modern times, when through human minds, the Idea has become aware of itself.