CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE (CSS 2016)
Civilization is a social order promotion cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.” (Will Durant)
Introduction:
A civilization is a complex society or culture group characterized by a political form of government, an economic system, education system, a moral/belief system, language and arts Along with these core elements, civilization is often marked by combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, occupational specialization, urbanization and class stratification, standards of measurement, formal legal system, great art style, monumental architecture, mathematics, sophisticated metallurgy, astronomy, scientific sophistry and so on.
The word civilization is derived from the Latin adjective civil, a reference to citizen. Citizens willingly merge themselves together in political, social, economic and religious organizations which are in the interests of larger community. Over the time the word civilization has come to imply something beyond organization. It refers to particular shared way of thinking about the world as well as a reflection on that world in art, literature, drama and a host of other cultural manifestations. Its original meaning is the manner o condition in which men live together as citizens.
Definition of civilization:
An advanced intellectual, cultural and material development in human society marked by progress in the arts and sciences, language, knowledge and the complex political and social institutions.
According to Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) “It is the sum total of all progress made by man every sphere of action and from every point of views of all progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals.
According to Oxford English Dictionary civilization is the action or process of civilizing or of being civilized, developed or advanced state of human society
Characteristics of Civilization:
Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of velihood, settler cultural traits, forms of government, social stratification, economic systrems, literacy and other cultural traits.
- Cities:
As farmers settled in fertile river valleys, they began to grow surplus or extra food This extra food increased the population of the settlements. In time, the settlements grew into cities, such as Ur in Sumer or Babylon in Mesopotamia.
- Organized Central Governments:
As cities developed and expanded, the food supply and irrigation systems needed to be maintained. Governments, such as councils or religious leaders, began to oversee the business and existence of the cities.
- Complex Religions:
Religious leaders would conduct elaborate ceremonies to appease the gods (polytheism) and insure a bountiful harvest. Floods and droughts were blamed on the gods’ anger so rituals were conducted in the temples
4 Job Specialization:
As civilizations became more complex, artisans and craftsmen were needed to maintain specific items and tasks. No longer could individuals do all the work now some concentrated on teaching, scribing, stonecutting, and so forth.
5 Social Classes:
As jobs became specialized so did the status and needs of certain individuals. The need for a knowledgeable and educated religious leader was more respected than an unskilled worker. Herders were needed and respected for the food, while masons were needed for building. The slave was on the lowest rung of the social ladder warriors and kings were on top.
- Writing:
Records were needed to keep accounts on trade goods and food storage Writing was needed because the information became too great. In addition, one needed to express more complex ideas such as “belief” and “social order” where pictures and words simply would not suffice
- Art and Architecture:
This expressed the beliefs and values of a civilization, Different styles were developed and copied by societies. Often the art was used to impress visitors and people about the beauty and power of a king or a community.
8 Public Works:
The government would order these, although costly, to aid and benefit the community, such things as a wall to protect from attack or a canal to aid in irrigation would help insure the survival of a people.
CULTURE: MEANING AND ELEMENTS
Introduction:
Culture has great influence on individual value framework. It is a set of traditional beliefs and values that are transmitted and shared in a given society. Culture is also the total way of life and thinking patterns, speech actions and artifacts that are passed from generation to generation. However, this is dependent on the man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generation. In brief, culture is a total sum of customs, rituals, artifacts, beliefs and values.
According to UNESCO, culture is usually “Interpreted as art, we speak of culture in connection with behavior of people in the moral values and human relations. We denote if by action, behavior and attitudes considered useful for the interests of society or of a certain social group. We mean standard of living, of habitation and clothing, of physical culture. We appraise by it the culture of language, of thought, of work…”
Social anthropologists distinguish between “material” and “non-material” culture. The former includes technology, art forms, architecture, material goods and equipment’s used in daily life, house hold, agriculture, trade and commerce and other social activities. In the latter are included the literary and intellectual traditions, beliefs, myths, legends and other forms of oral tradition.
Culture has three dimensions. Firstly, it is a normative system, by which there is a social control in the form of sanctions, which make people follow generally accepted moral ethical norms. Secondly, there is an expressive system, music, art, literature and so on are cultural expressions of people. Thirdly, it is a system of ideas which enables members of a society to interpret the world meaningfully and the process by which culture influences a social system is called institutionalization.
Definition of Culture
➤ Professor White defines culture as
“Culture is symbolic, cumulative and progressive process”.
➤ According to Redfield “Culture is an organized body of conventional understanding manifested in art and art craft, which persist through tradition and characterize a certain human group”
Characteristics of Culture:
- Culture is learned: Culture is not inherited generally but it is learned and acquired. A child is instilled with cultural values at an early age Cultural learning can occur by informal learning and by formal learning Enculturation is the process of learning values of one’s own culture from childhood. If a person teams the culture of a society other than the one in which he is raised, it is called acculturation
- Culture is dynamic: Culture is not static it is dynamic. It evolves according to changing social, political, economic and technical modification
- Culture is shared: Culture is socially shared, based on social interaction and creation. It cannot exist by itself It must be shared by the members of a society Cultural values are widely held. Each culture has certain widely held and commonly accepted values that differentiate it from other cultures.
Elements of Culture:
Belief Beliefs consist of large number of verbal or mental statement about any object based on person’s specific information and judgment of something about that object Belief system aids men in differentiating right from the wrong, good from the bet Lawful from the unlawful.
Values: Values are socially practiced norms which are very difficult to change and
are shared by most of the member of the society Customs: Customs are apparent modes of behavior that form culturally approved or acceptable ways of behaving in particular situations. They consist of every day or routine behavior. For example marriage is done through social customs
- Rituals: A ritual is a series of symbolic behaviors that occur in fixed sequence and are repeated most often. Funeral obsequies in a given group may be called ritual
- Language: Language is considered to be a system of communicating with other people using sounds, symbols and words in expressing a meaning, idea or thought Many languages use gestures, sounds, symbols, or words, and aim at communicating concepts, ideas, meanings and thoughts. This language can be used in many forms, primarily thought oral and written communications as well as using expressions through body language.
- Symbol: is anything that stands for something else. The symbolic characteristics of culture are a subtle, notion, as are all symbols. Symbols are seen in every act of faith.
- Stories: Culture is often embedded and transmitted through stories, whether they are
deep and obviously indented as learning device or whether they appear more subtly.
The stories preserve cultural heritage and national psyche of a group
5.Artifacts: Artifacts are the physical things which have particular symbolic value for culture.
Layers of culture:
There are three layers of culture which are
- Body of cultural tradition
The body of cultural traditions distinguishes one society from the other. When people speak of Arabic or Western Culture, they are referring to the shared language traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others
2. Subculture
The Second layer is the subculture. In a complex diverse society, people have come from many different parts of the world. They often retain their original cultural traditions. As a result they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society.
3.Cultural universals
The third layer consists of cultural universals. These are the learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity worldwide. No matter where people lived the world, they share these universal traits like respect for parents / elders and affection for children…
Relation between Culture and Civilization
Culture is a part of civilization. The community’s diverse culture acts as a fragment to form a civilisation. Culture and civilisation are associated with each other in that culture is a precondition for developing civilization, and civilization represents a platform for cultural advancement. Both are contingent, and change in either two leads to variation in the other.
Culture and civilization require some medium of expression, like society, though tangible or intangible. There is a need for means to demonstrate their existence; it can also be through actions, preferences, behavior, etc. The culture and civilisation of any nation or society define the people living there. It helps other people to know them based on where they come from. Like, the Indian culture is very rich, and we have a variety of everything here. Most people from outside India love it and come to visit it because of the culture here; to know more about the people.
In recent decades there has been an emphasis on the “thick description” of culture and civilisation, which forces us to believe that cultures and civilizations are not essences floating in the air but directly rooted in well-established geographical and cultural codes. They encompass the political and religious conflicts of the times and are increasingly given to incommensurability, relativism and perspectivism. But cultures, languages, civilizations and traditions cannot be incommensurable.