In post-Enlightenment Western thought, the word civilization has been attributed various meanings and has especially been used as the opposite of barbarism and primitiveness. Enlightenment thinkers, who equated civility and civilization with the intellect and history of Europe, regarded non-Western societies as lacking civilization and as semi-civilized communities. Historical and cultural classifications that centered European civilization produced a hierarchical typology of cultures and civilizations, thereby turning the concept of civilization into one of the fundamental notions of Eurocentric thought. Defining a community as civilized, advanced, progressive, primitive, barbaric, or savage was not an abstract academic debate in the 18th and 19th centuries, but a political act with concrete consequences. The “civilizing mission” (mission civilisatrice) was a key conceptual tool in legitimizing European imperialism across a vast geography—from Africa to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
Norbert Elias’s observation on the function of the concept of civilization confirms this point: the word civilization “expresses the West’s self-perception. We could also call this national consciousness. In the past two or three centuries, this term has encapsulated everything by which Western society considered itself superior to earlier societies or to ‘more primitive’ contemporary ones. With this term, Western society aimed to describe its own particular character and the things it took pride in: its level of technology, the nature of its attitudes and behaviors, the advancement of its scientific knowledge or worldview, and many other things.”
At this point, the question of by what criteria a society can be considered civilized emerges as both a philosophical and political problem. The issue of the criterion of civilization remains at the center of ongoing debates surrounding the concept of civilization today. Is the measure of civilization progress in science and technology? As 19th-century capitalists argued, does civilization mean the same as capitalism, commerce, and the free market? Or does what makes an attitude, behavior, or order civilized depend on its being based on law? Are religious, moral, and aesthetic thought valid criteria of civility? According to these standards, is civilization singular or plural? If different civilizations have existed in history, where do these differences stem from? What are the common points and areas of transition between different civilizations?
The fundamental issue underlying these and similar questions is that civilization and civility are value-laden concepts. Lucien Febvre, who draws attention to this point, argues that civilization can be presented as an objective state based on empirical observation. Civilization, he says, is the sum of the political, social, and moral values collectively held by a community. Here, civilization refers to a community’s shared values and historical accumulation, and it implies no further judgment beyond this. However, such a definition is not sufficiently explanatory in terms of the function of the concept of civilization. Because civilization is also something desired, admired, aspired to—something advanced, noble, and valuable. To possess civilization is also to be capable of producing value.
Thus, by general consensus, societies that are able to organize, to establish order, and to build systems based on law are deemed civilized, and they gain a superior and more advanced status compared to societies lacking these characteristics.
The question of what kinds of privileges and responsibilities this condition of superiority imposes upon “civilized societies” is one of the key issues in debates over the history of civilization. Is a society considered civilized—such as 19th-century British society—superior to another society like India, which was considered semi-civilized due to the absence of a defined legal system? From Jeremy Bentham to Thomas Macaulay, 19th-century European intellectuals and jurists answered this question with an unequivocal “yes.” According to them, the most important criterion of civilization was the possession of law and order. In their view, neither Islamic law nor the Indian legal tradition within a Muslim-minority-ruled Indian society had a conception of law or order that met European civilizational standards. Therefore, the United Kingdom had to introduce a new legal system to Indian society, establish a new education system, and thereby implant the ideas of law and order—which were considered the criteria of civility—into the society.
The ancient Greeks operated under similar assumptions. They called non-Greeks barbarians because they did not speak Greek (logos) and therefore could not use reason. Aristotle saw no problem in drawing the following conclusion: “It is proper that the Greeks rule over the barbarians” (Politics, 1252 b4).
In his 1836 essay titled Civilization, John Stuart Mill defines the distinction between civility and barbarism as the capacity to organize and to act collectively:
“A savage tribe consists of a handful of individuals scattered or roaming over a vast geographical area. For this reason, we call large populations who live in settled communities, gathered in towns and villages, civilized. In savage life, there is virtually no commerce, production, or agriculture. In a civilized country, we see the fruits of agriculture, trade, and industry. In savage communities, everyone fends for themselves; except in war (in which they are even lacking), it is rare to see them act as a group. Savages do not like the communities of others either. Thus, we call situations civilized in which people act together in large masses for common goals and benefit from social interaction.”¹⁵
In the 19th century, the idea of civilization—which classified societies into a hierarchy and was used to express the backwardness of non-European societies—was not solely measured by law. Science, technology, and industry were also introduced as criteria for civility and civilization, and these were used to determine the developmental level of societies that remained outside the scientific revolution. Since science, technology, and industry emerged in modern Western civilization, non-Western societies had to choose the path of Westernization in order to become civilized. In this sense, the concept of civilization was used as a convenient tool to legitimize Eurocentrism and European colonialism.
Drawing attention to this point, Gerald Heard, in his book Man the Master, published in the early years of World War II, emphasizes how “civility” came to be synonymous with “industrialization” and “mechanization”:
“By civilized people, we now mean industrialized people, mechanized societies. (…) We call people civilized if they use the same mechanical techniques to control the physical world. We define them this way because we believe the physical world is the only true reality, that this world allows for mechanical manipulation, and that this is the only valid way of acting. Any other form of behavior may be the result of illusion and can only be the attitude of an ignorant and simple savage. To have reached such a conception of reality is considered development, advancement, and civility.”¹⁶
The classification of societies that failed (or were unable) to develop such tools of domination to control the physical world as “primitive” became one of the fundamental assumptions of 19th-century European thought. In The Golden Bough, published in 1890 and profoundly influential on modern anthropology, James Frazer argues that humanity passes through the stages of primitive magic, religion, and science, and that it is nearly impossible for the modern civilized human to penetrate the worldview of the primitive man. Frazer describes how primitive societies attempted to control nature through various rituals, magic, and superstitions, and acknowledges that such actions had a certain internal logic. The shaman or sorcerer of a primitive tribe might try to bring an end to a drought, summon rain, or stop the spread of an epidemic through certain rituals. When examined through the critical lens of modern science, such beliefs are interpreted as a condition belonging to “the childhood of humanity.” Yet these are also efforts to control natural phenomena. Frazer states that these behaviors, mixed with magic and superstition, bear a strong resemblance to the “modern concept of physical causality,” though they are misapplied. There is a striking similarity between the primitive man’s attempt to govern nature according to his desires and the modern man’s effort to control nature through technological means.¹⁷
According to this definition of progress, which Heard criticizes, only those societies possessing modern technology and industry can be considered civilized. Within this political context, non-Western societies were reduced to secondary actors within the international system. Moreover, in addition to science, technology, and industry, the capitalist mode of production was also established as a criterion of civility. Alongside modern capitalism, a civilization ideal based on interest-oriented “entrepreneurship” gained ground, and human labor—producer of culture, civilization, and technique—was transformed into a commodity.¹⁸
Albert Schweitzer, who claims that agriculture and craftsmanship are the foundation of civilization, therefore believes that modern capitalism and technology have made civilization impossible. According to Schweitzer, it is not possible to reconcile capitalism with civilization, because the modern economic system is gradually transforming into a machine civilization and reducing the human being to the same existential level as the machine he himself produced.¹⁹ This, in turn, gives rise to the condition we call alienation.
Marx, adapting Hegel’s concept of the “externalization of the spirit and its becoming an objective entity” (objectification) to labor, states that the capitalist system leads to a profound alienation. Capitalism makes a categorical distinction between labor and capital, turning labor into a commodity that can be bought and sold. The worker or laborer (proletariat), who possesses no capital other than his labor, becomes alienated from his own labor because he does not work for himself and loses his authority and control over the things he produces with his own hands. In Marx’s words, “Labor is something external to the worker, it is not part of his nature.”²⁰
A person working under such conditions does not take pleasure in his work and loses the sense of satisfaction and happiness. His labor becomes an “object” external to himself. As a result of this “objectification” of labor, people become alienated from the things they produce with their own hands. However, modern technology not only causes the alienation of labor but also leads to a situation where humans can no longer control the things they have created. At the next stage, the things produced by humans (economic relations, international trade, technology, etc.) begin to control humans themselves. In this sense, modern capitalism and technological civilization condemn human beings to a deep alienation.²¹
For this reason, Coomaraswamy says, “in a true civilization (…) industrialism cannot be reconciled with civilization.”²² Reminding us of the Benedictine phrase laborare est orare (“To work is to pray”), Coomaraswamy states that human labor can only become meaningful through a higher point of reference.²³
In the modern era, the linear relationship established between technology and civilization has led to the emergence of a “technologist” conception of civilization, and the capacity for technological invention and advancement has become one of the main criteria of being civilized. Unlike the techniques developed by traditional societies, modern technology is based on automation, and due to its increasingly complex nature, it fundamentally transforms the relationship between human manual labor and nature. Modern technology not only transforms the human-nature relationship, but also reveals new and dangerous possibilities concerning the “essence of man.”
Drawing attention to the words of American chemist Wendell Stanley at the 1955 Nobel Conference—“Life will very soon be handed over to the chemist, who will be able to synthesize, break down, and alter a living being as he wishes”—Heidegger states that the fact people listened to these words with admiration was a sign of a great catastrophe.²⁴ This attitude toward being and human life aims to change the nature of the human being through technology. Indeed, according to the movement of “Transhumanism” led by a group of scientists in recent years, altering the biological structure and psycho-somatic codes of human beings through technological interventions such as biotechnology and genetic engineering should be seen as an opportunity and be supported.
It is not difficult to see what kinds of great disasters the possibilities offered by modern technology have opened the door to—from the alteration of genetic codes to the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.²⁵
In Greek, the word techne, and in Arabic, the word ṣināʿa, carry the meanings of a way of doing something, art, technique, and craft. They point to the possibility of using technical and technological tools without alienation from oneself or from nature. According to Heidegger and the “anti-humanist” thinkers who follow him, it is possible to use technique and technological tools without losing our right of control and authority. However, this requires adopting a different attitude toward being and things.
Heidegger uses the word Gelassenheit—in the sense of “being in an attitude of letting-be toward beings”—to describe this stance. Gelassenheit, which was also used by Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart, is expressed in the Islamic intellectual tradition as a state of “detachment from being,” referring to the preservation of human freedom in relation to objects and things. Only through such detachment—through purification, refinement, and cleansing—can the domination of technique and technology over humans be prevented.
For this, we must abandon the stance of modern humanism that says, “Man constitutes the foundation of his own subjectivity,” and instead ground human actions in a higher and transcendent framework of reference. In this sense, the conception of technological civilization cannot be considered independently of the modern individual and the attitude of “being a subject” (subjectivity). The modern individual, in asserting himself as a “subject,” claims that beings gain meaning through this condition of “being a subject” (sub-jectum).
Indeed, in Western languages, the word “subject” comes from sub-jectum and literally means “that which lies beneath.” The fundamental error of modern humanism is its construction of the modern subject as “the substance underlying all things.”²⁷
References and Footnotes
- Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, Basic Books, New York, 1973, pp. 3–30. Geertz borrowed the concept of “thick description” from Gilbert Ryle; see: Gilbert Ryle, Collected Papers, Hutchinson, London, 1971, vol. II, pp. 480–496.
- Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994 (first published in 1939), p. 3.
- The idea that “commercial society is also a civilized society” emerged as one of the fundamental assumptions of modern capitalism in the 19th century; see: Ross Poole, Morality and Modernity, trans. M. Küçük, Ayrıntı Publishing, Istanbul, 1993, pp. 40–42.
- Huntington’s definition of civilization also fits within this framework: “A civilization is the broadest cultural entity that distinguishes humans from other species. (…) Civilization is defined both by objective elements such as language, history, religion, customs, and institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. (…) Civilizations are the largest ‘we’ within which we feel culturally at home, distinct from all ‘others’”; see: Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 43.
- Lucien Febvre and others, Civilization: Le Mot et L’Idée, La Renaissance du Livre, Paris, 1930, p. 12.
- See: Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion, trans. İ. Türkmen, İnsan Publishing, Istanbul, 1995, pp. 27–52.
- The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009, p. 33.
- Man the Master, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1941, p. 25.
- The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore, Avenel Books, New York, 1981 (first published in 1890).
- Fernand Braudel emphasizes this aspect of “material civilization” in Civilisation Matérielle, Économie et Capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe (1979).
- The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, World Wisdom, Indiana, 2004, pp. 206–208.
- Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. T. B. Bottomore and M. Rubel, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1973, p. 177.
- Hannah Arendt states that modern capitalism leads not only to “self-alienation” but, even more intensely, to “world-alienation.” Living solely for the “self” without any care for the world is one of the core elements of modern civilization; see: Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958, p. 254.
- Coomaraswamy, “What is Civilization?”, p. 208.
- The relationship between labor, its technical products, and civilization—and why it does not necessarily lead to alienation—will be discussed in more detail in our forthcoming book.
- Discourse on Thinking, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1966, p. 52.
- In The Future of Human Nature (Polity, 2003), he strongly opposes this view. For an evaluation of Habermas’s main arguments, see: İbrahim Kalın, “All too Human and That is the Problem”, Sacred Web, no. 13 (July 2004), pp. 153–158.
- Discourse on Thinking, p. 54. Heidegger revisits the problem of technology in another work: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Harper, New York, 1977.
- For an analysis of this issue, see: Alain Renaut, The Era of the Individual: A Contribution to a History of Subjectivity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997, pp. 3–28.
