CIVILIZATION is a condition of life which only man has achieved, man who can neither fly nor swim, and yet has ranged the seas around and scoured the skies above, roamed all over the earth for treasure or for adventure, and flashed his messages from one end of the globe to the other in the fraction of a moment. The animal world has not much to do with what we call intelligence, and is guided by the urge of instinct and self-preservation, often bordering on what seems intelligence and yet essentially away from it. They live as their predecessors lived before them, back into the obscure dawn of creation. But civilization is a process that is all the while going on in our minds. Man’s thoughts leap ahead of achievement, always questioning, experimenting, always inquiring. They are products of his brain and eyes and fingers, but the brain is the more effective of these three assets. The apes too have eyes and fingers and use them well, unlike other animals. But with all that is said about the missing link, the link is missing still. Keen sight and deft hands do not count for much without that discontent which accompanies man’s developed brain power.
What men have always done through the eyes and are still doing is to accumulate the great and ever-increasing store of knowledge and experiment which they use to extend control over the material world. This knowledge and control produce a condition of life whose development coincides with the growth of civilization. The material part of civilization is a marketable commodity of which the rich are able io buy more than the poor. The difference, however, is fast diminishing. Modern technology, cheap transport alternatives, online payments, digital access with wide educational opportunities which are daily growing wider, are giving far more people a chance to share in this civilization which has come down to them. Nearly everyone can afford a mobile and keep in touch with the whole world, every can afford a piece of cheap soap and can keep clean, not everyone need trudge on foot. Of course we are not satisfied. To be satisfied will be to deny our human nature, But if glance back at the bleak and precarious existence of our remote ancestors, Can we doubt that our lot is more varied and brighter, and our chances of happiness easier within our grasp and more capable of fulfilment?
The story of the changes in man’s values and ideals is vast. The story of how he lived under the great civilizations that the world has known in the past is vaster still. The history of ancient Egypt goes back 4,000 years, and now after the latest archaeological finds it is true that the history of ancient India takes us still further into the past. Their relation to the story of the development of modern civilization will here be out of place. There were outbursts of the creative spirit of man which largely influenced their time and the times that followed until the outburst of a new spirit took the place of the old. How little material comforts makes for the essence of civilization can best be shewn by referring to the way our older generations lived. Since then, comforts been pushing the boundaries of modern civilization. Revolts, wars, renaissance, struggle for the freedom, environmental changes, modern technology, advancement in science succor the change into modern civilization.
Despite all these changes in its growth and development, it would be still true to say with the cynic that the more civilization changes the more it is the same thing. We must distinguish between its essence and it’s incidents; for in its essence it is based in any country on the more or less effective reign of social law. Wherever security is established, the arts, literature, science end the amenities that science has brought in its train flourish. A country is not civilized because they flourish, they flourish because the country is civilized. And in spite of the outward splendor of civilization the question still remains—is homo sapiens really progressing? In the optimistic years of the last century it was largely taken for granted that steady progress was developing. Yet there were doubters. An altogether new character was given to our civilization not only by the theoretical progress in the knowledge of nature and its secrets, but by the application of that knowledge in a technical sense. Yet that application has been productive also of much destruction and misery.
Liberty has been laughed at, hatred bas desolated the earth, and two wars have been followed by the distant rumblings of a third. The discovery that peace is preferable to war is not new. Disarmament proposals can be traced as far back ag the sixth century B.C. China, and universal brotherhood has been the keynote of religion from the earliest times. Such discussion is always theoretical, and the lust for strife and war seems to be permanent. Our progress in science must be guided by a much greater progress in ethical standards and by more practical sense of the essential unity of mankind. The real issues are always moral and spiritual. A.I and Scientific discovery must be adjusted to ethical development, if the future is not to be overcast and gloomy. Even if this is a somber forecast it is useful to consider the harsher alternative if only to know best how to avoid it and to see the happier prediction fulfilled. Modern civilization is not an unmixed blessing, nor is it an unmitigated curse. It is for man to increase the one and to lessen the other. And one would fain conclude this story of over several thousand year on a note of fulfilment and hope for a meaningful life!
sivaayyala 