Re: The joy of Civilization

On 31/10/2024 02:16, rbowman wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2024 01:57:05 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
 

On 31 Oct 2024 00:06:33 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>

You might say civilization was alive and well in contemporary Europe,
but it was vanishing in the Americas about a millennium ago.

>
Civilization originated in Mesopotamia. I have a book in my shelf on a
generalist introduction to the archaeology of the earliest
civilizations,
and it has a specific set of features that a society has to have to be
classed as a “civilization”:
>
   * Urbanization * Division of labour * Metalworking * Writing

 Obviously written by an archaeologist who thought western civilization was
hot shit. Spengler puts civilization as the late stage of a culture before
its decline.

I don't see how we can judge a civilisation - or any other form of social organisation, belief system or whatever,  except by its ability to support a large gene pool and its longevity.
Western shit hasn't done badly in that respect. So far
--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
Al Capone