Civilization and War PDF

The Thin Ice of Civilization
Author(s): Brett Bowden

Source: Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 36, No. 2 (May 2011), pp. 118-135
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210908
Accessed: 03-03-2019 15:32 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210908?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political
This content downloaded from 103.26.198.246 on Sun, 03 Mar 2019 15:32:59 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political
36(2) 118-135
The Thin Ice of Civilization © The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0304375411409017
http://alt.sagepub.com
(DSAGE
Brett Bowden1
Abstract
It is widely accepted that as time passes, the more we progress as both a species and as individ
human beings; the more we progress, the more civilized we become individually and collectively; t
more civilized we become, the further we are removed from the vestiges of savagery and barbaris
But is this really the case? It is also generally accepted that civilization is a good thing, both in terms
a process and as a destination. The markers and trappings of civilization—social organizati
urbanization, competent government, the rule of law, the arts, material well-being, and so on—a
seen as desirable and much preferred to the absence thereof. But what is the cost of this progre
And is civilization sustainable? Some years ago it was also suggested that there is a direct relationsh
between civilization (both the process and the state of being) and the proliferation of increasing
lethal armed conflict. This article takes a closer look at these troubling issues in light of the curr
state of affairs of our world and wonders whether it might not be time to rethink and reframe wha
is meant by civilization.
Keywords
civilization, progress, war, environment, security
Introduction
As a tertiary educated, car-driving, Internet-surfing, frequent-flying, connected-yet-wire

twenty-first-century human being who lives high above the tar-sealed earth in one of the w
great cities, I supposedly sit atop the peak of human evolution. (This city does happen to be
economically developed Western country where I get to have an occasional say in how
misgoverned—or perhaps more accurately, which party gets to misgovern me—through the c
of a vote, but I am not sure that it is particularly relevant to the situation; I could live in any num
of countries, north or south, east or west.) Not only do I lord it over the animal world, the plant w
and any other world that comes to mind, I am also regarded as the most developed and adva
version of my species and its forebears. In short, not only am I civilized, but I am widely cons
to be at the very forefront of civilization. To assume that I represent the "Last Man," howeve
some have done,1 requires a good deal of arrogance. Moreover, it arbitrarily seeks to bring dow
curtain on the process of humankind's social and political evolution.
' School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, Australia
Corresponding Author:
Brett Bowden, School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith So
I797T Australia
Email: b.bowden@uws.edu.au
Bowden 119
Naturally, I am not alone in this state of civilization—that would be impossible. One cannot be
part of civilization and be alone; it is necessarily a collective quality or state of affairs. Joining me in
my celebrated state of civilization are a good many of my fellow humans with whom I share this
increasingly crowded and fragile planet; all told there are currently around six to seven billion of
us and counting. I say many and not all of my fellow humans because it has always been the case
that some of us—individuals, peoples, societies, states, civilizations—are thought of as more or less
advanced, more or less civilized than others. I for one have not always been quite so close to the top
of the pile; not so long ago I was merely a rural, earth-bound being with a not so good public school
secondary education and solely reliant on dial-up Internet access. I know that my educated urban
brethren looked down their noses at me. Similarly, the ancient Greeks thought themselves superior
to their barbarous neighbors, likewise the Romans, the imperial Chinese insulated themselves from
the vulgarities beyond, the English looked down upon the Celts, Europeans conquered indigenous
savages wherever they found them, and so on and so forth through the ages.
Central to my present discussion about the nature of civilization is its symbiotic relationship with
the idea of progress; and not just any sort of progress, but progress with a purpose, progress that is
going somewhere in particular—progress toward perfection, or as close as we can get to it. In theory,
as time passes and the further we get away from the Big Bang and the primordial soup, the more we
progress as both a species and as individual human beings; the more we progress, the more civilized
we become individually and collectively; the more civilized we become, the further we are removed
from the vestiges of savagery and barbarism. Having long left behind the vagaries and insecurities of
some rudimentary state of nature, we might reasonably expect to be ever more deeply entrenched in
our relatively blissful state of civilization. Is this really the case? Have we really come that far?
In his recent lecture senes, "Guilt about the Past," Bernard Schlink observes, "What is both
historically unique and persistently disturbing about the Holocaust is that Germany, with its cultural
heritage and place among civilized nations, was capable of those kinds of atrocities." As he poign
antly notes, this "elicits troubling questions: if the ice of a culturally-advanced civilization upon
which one fancied oneself safely standing was in fact so thin at that time, then how safe is the ice
we live upon today? What protects us from falling through it? Individual morality? Societal and state
institutions? Has the ice grown thicker with time or has the passage of time only allowed us to forget
how thin it really is?"2 Schlink is right to stress that these "questions concern the very foundation of
our individual moral existence and our ability to live together in our society and its institutions. They
are questions that are unsettling and challenging even after decades of relative safety within the
political, economic, and cultural realms of civil society."3
Another reason that gives cause to pause and reconsider just how far we have progressed as
human beings in civilized society is the suggestion that the gap between the supposed Last Man and
the first, or at least one of the first, Neanderthal Man, might not be as significant as we might think or
expect, perhaps even hope. Neanderthals, who walked the earth for a few hundred thousand years or
so until dying out in Europe around thirty thousand years ago are varyingly classified as a subspecies
of humans {Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), or as a distinct species (.Homo neanderthalensis).
Despite their somewhat ape-like appearance, paleoanthropologist Trenton Holliday is "convinced
that if one were to raise a Neanderthal in a modern human family he would function just like
everybody else." Holliday contends that there is "no reason to doubt he could speak and do all the
things that modern humans do."4 Setting aside the many ethical questions surrounding the cloning of
Neanderthals, should it one day become possible, if Holliday is correct, then this raises questions
about what makes modern humans so special or deserving of self-praise for the evolutionary position
that we find ourselves in. What, if anything, is so special about our venerated state of civilization?
And is it anywhere near as secure as we might hope and believe?
While we might be more socially, politically, technologically, and culturally advanced than
Neanderthals, are we really that much more civilized? In order to get an idea of just how thick or
120 Alternatives: Global, Local[ Political 36(2)
thin the ice of civilization that so many of us are skating on i

civilization and the less-than-straightforward relationship be
perceived threats to it. I begin by briefly outlining and defini
relationship to the idea of progress and human perfectibility. I th
ship between civilization and war, an assumed ever-persistent t
I consider the relationship between civilization and the environ
threat posed to civilization by anthropomorphic climate chan
thoughts on the growing necessity to rethink how we conceive
Civilization and Progress

I have discussed at considerable length elsewhere the sociopoli
civilization, particularly its normative qualities.5 In a nutshell,
sociopolitical organization and self-government according to p
regarded as a key requirement of civilization. One of the primar
to considerations of civilization is evident in the followin
Hobbes' Leviathan:
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the
same consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and
their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because
the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and
removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time;
no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And
the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.6
One of the important lessons that is generally drawn from this passage is that life lived outside of
society in a state of nature is constantly under threat; there is little to no chance of peace among
humans without society. A related point is that some degree of sociopolitical cooperation and orga
nization is a basic necessity for the foundation of civilization. As Hobbes went on to explain, the
"procuring of the necessities of life ... was impossible, till the erecting of great Common-wealths,"
which are "the mother of Peace, and Leasure," which is, in turn, "the mother of Philosophy ...
Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy."1 Thus, it
is in society, and as members of society, that human beings are afforded the necessities of life that
allow them to engage in the creative arts and activities that are the outward expression of civiliza
tion. Without cooperation in political society, there is no knowledge of science and technology, no
leisure time which means no philosophy and fine arts, just as there is no industry and no personal
property, wealth, or well-being. At least in the first instance, it is the first of these hallmarks of civi
lization, the presence of increasingly complex sociopolitical organization, which is the prerequisite
and facilitator of the latter qualities. Social and political progress is said to come prior to virtually
every other form of progress; moreover, progress within the other subelements of civilization is
thought to be contingent upon it. Friedrich von Schiller later posited the situation in these terms,
"would Greece have borne a Thucydides, a Plato, and an Aristotle, or Rome a Horace, a Cicero,
a Virgil, and a Livy, if these two states had not risen to those heights of political achievement which
in fact they attained?"8 Hobbes believed not, and many thinkers before and since Hobbes's time
have agreed on the basic underlying principle.
While the sociopolitical dimension of civilization is important, there is also a moral and ethical
element to civilization that we cannot afford to overlook. Albert Schweitzer captures this aspect
Bowden 121
quite nicely
human bein
progress of
of ourselves
sion of civil
act affirma
the "essenti
individuals k
political co
"Civilization
progress, an
world."11 T
civilization,
ence for Lif
other-regar
that lives."1
It is evident
civilization
social—and
civilization
they develop
and impulse
of progress
lization,whi
the word pr
most intima
tioning of "
in the West
civilization
progress in
equality, an
"throughou
of history
Starobinski
despite its a
thinking by
history."18
to make se
wide-reachi
diverse rang
The deeply
Guizot's ear
account tha
"the first f
presents at
condition; o
ress, of dev
first glance,
developmen
122 Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 36(2)
"instinct" tells us "that the word, civilization, comprehe

complex, something superior to the simple perfection of
happiness."21 This something more is the realm of humank
"the development of the individual, internal life, the deve
his sentiments, his ideas." Like Hobbes, and others, fo
harnessing of society is only part of the picture that is ci
sciences, the arts, display all their splendour. Wherever
signs glorified by human nature, wherever it sees created
there recognizes and names civilization." For Guizot, "Tw
that is civilization: "the development of social activity, an
of society and the progress of humanity." Wherever thes
with loud applause proclaims civilization."22
Another distinguished historian, J. B. Bury, one of the fir
history of the idea of progress, similarly asserts that the
has moved, is moving, and will move in a desirable directio
promulgating a grand theory, Bury contends that the "idea o
involves a synthesis of the past and a prophecy of the f
interpretation of history that regards the human conditio
direction." It further "implies that ... a condition of gener
which will justify the whole process of civilization."24 In
imity to a state of humankinds' individual and social perf
tainties of the Hobbesian war of all against all are left b
security of civil or civilized society.
One of the things that we have increasingly been confront
and eradicate in centuries past is the scourge of war betw
might seem a bit at odds with the ideas of civilization, pro
above, but just as there is a close relationship between ci
close relationship between civilization and war, and war
Civilization and War
The relationship between civilization and war is an important one; it is also a complica
William Eckhardt has poignantly noted, "We can learn a lot about war through the stud
tion. We can learn a lot about civilization through the study of war."25 Instinct would s
the more civilized we have become over time, or the further we have progressed from a b
of nature, surely the violent and bloody realities of war become ever more abhorrent an
able and are to be avoided at almost any cost. Indeed, this is one of the key lessons we
Hobbes about the uncertainties and brevity of life in a state of nature where every man i
to every man and each is either constantly at war with all others or preparing for it.26 J
Rousseau, on the other hand, claimed that the state of nature was the playground of the n
who by and large lived in a state of harmony with his fellow beings and the natural worl
erally. It was only with the coming of civilization that the Garden of Eden was disturbed
the other ills associated with modernity. As Rousseau eloquently put it, "The first man w
enclosed a piece of ground, to who it occurred to say this is mine, and found people su
simple to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, mu
many miseries and horrors," he adds, would humankind "have been spared by him who,
the stakes or filling in the ditch, had cried out to his kind: Beware of listening to this im
are lost if you forget that the fruits are everyone's and the Earth no one's."27 In Azar Ga
study, War in Human Civilization, in which he actually studies the origins and evoluti
Bowden 123
among hum
some, depen
closer to the
Admittedly
the relative
really a stra
that civiliza
cradle," wou
explains, "W
provide, and
the dragon-
War, that
importance
contention t
very imper
to Mill, sava
cooperation
barbarous p
against civil
numbers, an
account is t
ineffective
aversion to
According
tional capac
Toynbee ex
organization
somewhat c
of civilizat
instance, cl
at a certain
agency."34
arguing tha
the virtues
the area of
followed."35
ies and anal
dence" poin
than human
to farming
fighting fo
contracted
a surplus of
point where
gion, and w
to get other
might be te
This sugges
that there
Or as Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet put it in Vie de V

throughout the earth the more we shall see war and conqu
want."39 To the contrary, it is claimed that "the more c
we might expect them to be."40 To put it slightly differe
warlike peoples rose civilization, while the peaceful collec
ends of the earth."41 He makes the further point that as
lization, war began to take on a different character. Civil
warlikeness."42 Defining war as "armed conflict between
and paid for killing and wounding and capturing each oth
and causing some minimum number of deaths," which is
a similar case "that warfare really came into its own onl
some 5,000 years ago."43 Following Wright, Eckhardt con
lization, whichever came first, promoted each other in a p
of one, the more of the other; and the less of one, the l
civilized yet vicious circle forms the basis of Eckhardt's
fare" in which "more developed societies engaged in mor
orfully puts it, "civilized peoples took to war like ducks
and historical records," with "wars serving as both midw
of civilizations in the course of history."45
Evidence to support this general thesis comes in th
war-related deaths. On the basis of his monumental stud
278 wars from 1480 to 1941 and a further 30 "hostilities"
"at least 10 per cent of deaths in modern civilization can be
Furthermore, in respect to the general "loss of human li
greater cost, both absolutely and relative to population."46
the work of others, Eckhardt believes this is a particular
accept "that war is some function of civilization, then ci
20th century deaths."47 In his study of war-related deat
as "any armed conflict, involving at least one governmen
military deaths per year," Eckhardt calculates that there
deaths during the period.48 Of these 150 million war-relate
percent of all deaths have occurred in the past five cent
accounting for more than 73 percent of the total death to
around 12.8 percent of all deaths while the seventeenth
responsible for about 8.7 percent. The sixteenth century is t
than one percent of deaths, and then only just.49 It is estima
the bloody twentieth century, wars were responsible for t
people, or about 1.4-1.5 percent of the total population wh
expand the definitional parameters to include lives deliber
poses, Zbigniew Brzezinski calculates that the twentieth
has witnessed somewhere between 167 and 175 million ki
decade of the twenty-first century has seen roughly three
A key question here is: will the twentieth century be an aber
is it the beginning of a trend? Who in 1910 might have pr
in the twentieth century? The next ninety years will go s
On the basis of his study, Eckhardt writes that "we may
been increasing over the past 50 centuries." He adds t
explain the increase in war deaths over these 50 centu
increasing significantly faster than population growth." F
ßowden 125
over these c
deaths were
population a
up to alarmi
civilized soc
death toll to
the countera
taken place
for around 6
modern Eur
in human his
In his essay
we have no
expected wo
though we h
rather than c
all, it would
lization go a
gives birth t
promoter, th
A similar po
has conclude
child has no
cause of the
This in effec
rise to civili
brings abou
has proven t
to civilizatio
drugs, war o
If wars of t
just how ser
predict with
about the dec
a magic crys
world affair
cold-blooded
repudiated b
march of ci
proving to h
as I have sou
sible to dise
"There is no
Nowhere is
Civilization under Threat
It might well be that war poses no immediate threat to human civilization, after all, the f
human social existence that we describe as civilization has existed for around five or six tho
126 Alternatives: Global1, Local, Political 36(2)
years. While particular civilizations might rise and fall; civil

more resilient. As Toynbee explains, "civilizations have com
'C') has succeeded," or has thus far endured. So, despite th
lence, civilization keeps "shambling on."63 That does not n
absolutely no clear and present danger of any kind threat
instance, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2
acterized by world leaders and commentators from across th
civilization—that is, a threat to the collective achievements
more of a threat than fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism.6
poses a serious threat to civilization, or even Western civiliz
at least not without a major escalation in scale. Nevertheles
some old some new, which not only pose a challenge to th
humankind, but by some accounts, these threats have combi
of disaster.65 In the worst case scenario, they threaten the on
which we are a part, and the planet on which we rely for o
tainability and future viability of the ways of life to which
since the end of the Second World War, can no longer be t
A long-standing existential threat to our planet is the dan
kind that are closely monitored by National Aeronautics an
of the dinosaurs is thought by many to be a constant rem
largely beyond human control and has often been played
Closer to home, the greatest threats to civilization have t
come from catastrophic human-generated threats such as n
cally, nuclear weapons are one of the prime boasting poin
if a nation is smart enough to develop a nuclear bomb—or s
by whatever means necessary—then surely it is an advanced
the best of them. This was very much the situation during
nically, in the name of ensuring their security, the United
an arms race trying to prove which socioeconomic system w
perfect. During this race to the top, or perhaps the botto
United States' nuclear arsenal reached as high as about 30,0
the Soviet Union's arsenal peaked at around 40,000 warh
observed, this represents more than enough firepower to g
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists determines and sets
Doomsday Clock, which in 2007 was advanced from seven m
midnight. In short, midnight effectively equates to the end o
This is the closest we have come to midnight since 1984, w
the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union
the clock being set at three minutes to midnight. The riskiest
early years of the Cold War when the clock was set at two mi
nuclear holocaust might have diminished somewhat with t
moved back one minute to six minutes to midnight in Janu
tion Treaty talks between Washington and Moscow and in
binding) made at the Copenhagen Climate Change Confere
the twenty-first century. Today, there are concerns about r
gers posed by rogue regimes and non-state actors seeking t
nuclear materials for a so-called dirty bomb.
As suggested above, the Doomsday Clock now also includ
caust, including climate change and biosecurity, the latter o
Bowden 127
below. Anthr
natural world
referred to a
wider natura
rethink the
beings and th
lization has i
frontier, tam
V. Gordon C
ised a boundl
resources has
instance, in h
is left wholly
indeed it is,
modate a grea
to make appr
As outlined
ving or deve
scientific, te
capacity to c
of Nations, i
"nations of h
tribes of Nor
ety," such as
any significan
in the endles
lowest state,
advanced stag
ter of nature
Similarly, W
world be jus
various sides
the uncivilize
knew nature,
of clock-wor
ident and Ch
society, a mo
ditional socie
Key to these
of thinking i
human masters.
In some ways, the relationship between civilization and nature is not so different to the dialectical
relationship between civilization and war: the higher the level of civilization, the greater the exploi
tation of nature, the greater the exploitation of nature, the more civilization progresses. But as with
civilization and war, this relationship cannot go on like this forever, natural resource extraction and
exploitation is not a bottomless pit, it is finite and can only support so many people for so long. And,
of course, as our planet is telling us, there are severe consequences associated with the processes of
civilization, modernization, urbanization and all the goes with it. The cycle of extract more stuff
from the ground, process more stuff, build more stuff, produce more stuff, own more stuff, throw
away more stuff, buy more new stuff to replace it, is pr

The consequences of such excess in the form of environm
many and varied; they include melting polar ice caps and
temperatures, extended periods of drought in some part
increased rainfall and flooding, and increasing frequency
just a few.
These environmental changes in turn impact on our capacity to continue to inhabit certain parts of
Earth and our capacity to continue to utilize and exploit resources as we have done for centuries. A
knock-on effect is that these diverse changes and threats are often interrelated; one realm of security
or insecurity can have a direct and dramatic impact on another, generating a kind of vicious cycle of
insecurity. For instance, scarcity of and competition for essential resources such as land, food, water,
and energy, are potential catalysts for violent conflict.75 And these are not just imaginary scenarios;
the period 2007-2008 witnessed violent food riots in as many as thirty countries around the globe,
some of them in developed Western nations, including the United States. If the dire predictions are
correct, then this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
In this regard, law enforcement and security agencies increasingly acknowledge that climate
change potentially poses a range of serious challenges, which they have been preparing to meet for
some considerable time.76 In recognition of these emerging complex threats, defense forces have
begun to model various climate change scenarios and the consequences that follow in order to eval
uate the demands on defense services and to prepare coordinated strategic responses.77 As no coun
try or region of the world is immune to the impacts of climate change, it is seen as serious threat to
the way of life of virtually every inhabitant of Earth. And thus, it is deemed as a potentially serious
threat to the economic, physical, and general security and sustainability of civilization, as is evi
denced by Maurice F. Strong's statement to the United States' Senate Committee on the Environ
ment in July 2002: "We must give ... priority to civilizational security and sustainability. This
will take a major shift in the current political mind-set."
Similar to the effects of climate change, in an age of mass high-speed air travel that even in times
of financial and economic crises sees around one billion international tourist arrivals per year, it is
near impossible for any nation or part of the world to shut itself off from biosecurity threats. Some of
these hazards, particularly deadly pandemics associated with highly virulent human and trans
species viruses are seen by some as posing a real menace to the well-being of humankind, perhaps
even a threat to civilization. These are essentially the kind of issues and concerns that we might
increasingly expect to confront in an age of globalization in which the peoples and places of the
world are more closely connected and interdependent than ever before.
Yet such dangers are not altogether new, throughout history the health and general well-being of
significant populations in various parts of the world have been threatened by influenza pandemics
and major outbreaks of disease. The Black Death or the Black Plague of the fourteenth century,
which is estimated to have killed as many as seventy-five million people worldwide (or more accord
ing to some estimates) is a particularly prominent example.78 The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 is
estimated to have infected half of the world's population and was responsible for as many as fifty
million deaths.79 More recently, the emergence of highly pathogenic viral strains, some of which
can potentially cross species—as seen in outbreaks of Bird flu or Avian influenza (H5N1), and most
recently a Swine flu pandemic (H1N1)—have given us a hint of how rapidly biosecurity threats can
spread around the world.80 The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of November
2002-July 2003, for instance, rapidly spread within a matter of weeks from the Guangdong province
of China to infect people in at least thirty-seven countries around the world. According to the World
Health Organization, it resulted in 8,096 known infections and 774 deaths (a case-fatality rate of 9.6
percent).81 These are just a few of the known pathogens that have the potential to spread far and wide
to virtually every corner of the globe. Similar to the effects of climate change, it is near impossible
Bowden 129
for any natio

by geopoliti
We need onl
pandemics c
states and re
it was first r
virus.82 In t
centered in
lost econom
greater the
of more th
US$4.4 trilli
As to wheth
lization as we
the general o
and war.If t
as the result
related death
twenty-first
ing from he
droughts, f
there is a pr
in part a resu
Conclusio
Just over a
Roman Emp
world has in
the virtue, o
example, life
Today, the w
higher in m
in the twent
for males an
the course of
key marker
percent of th
century and
continue at p
roughly 60 p
lated that in
fold, global
expanded by
made as a co
factor of fi
development
have grown b
130 Alternatives: GlobalI, Local, Political 36(2)
It might seem then that civilization is chugging along qui

it; we live longer than our predecessors, we are better educ
to far more stuff than most us will ever need. Clearly, the
more comfortable and secure than that of Neanderthals. But at what cost has this civilization and
progress come to us and our planet? Just this morning I read in the newspaper that the distinguished
scientist Frank Fenner, the man who announced to the world in 1980 that smallpox had been eradi
cated, is convinced that "Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years." Like others,
he argues that the Earth has entered the Anthropocene, and while "climate change is just at the very
beginning ... we're seeing remarkable changes in the weather already." It is on this basis that he
argues that humankind will collectively "undergo the same fate as the people of Easter Island." The
only things that will be left of us are our monuments to the excesses of a fallen civilization. Before
then, as Earth's "population keeps growing to seven, eight, or nine billion, there will be a lot more
wars over food." And not only is the fate of humans doomed, so is that of a "lot of other animals ...
too. It's an irreversible situation."88
It is hard to believe that the human condition is really that perilous, that the thin ice of civilization
is melting away so quickly and so dramatically that the future of civilization is at risk. Are we really
lurching toward some sort of post-apocalyptic world like that depicted in Mad Max or The Road?
While climate change skeptics might beg to differ, at the very least, all is not well in the world
of civilization. I would like to suggest that a good part of the problem may well be the very way
in which we conceive of civilization and progress, which for so long now has been predominantly
all about the social, political, and material dimensions of civilization at the expense of its ethical and
other-regarding dimensions.
With respect to the general progress of humankind and our civilization, Ruth Macklin is slightly
at odds with Gibbon in her claim that it "is wholly uncontroversial to hold that technological prog
ress has taken place; largely uncontroversial to claim that intellectual and theoretical progress has
occurred; somewhat controversial to say aesthetic or artistic progress has taken place; and highly
controversial to assert that moral progress has occurred."89
The issue of moral progress appears to lie at the heart of the major challenges to civilization out
lined above. With respect to both the relationship between civilization and war, and civilization and
the environment, we can see two potentially self-destructive processes in which civilization brings
about its own demise as it cannibalizes itself in a kind of suicidal lifecycle. The relationship between
civilization and war is seemingly one in which war-making gives rise to civilization, the organiza
tional and technological advances of which in turn promote yet more bloody and efficient war
making, which in turn eventually brings about the demise of civilization either through overstretch
or internal collapse. Similarly, up to this point in human history, the march of civilization has largely
been at the expense of the environment and the natural world more generally. And now, in turn, the
environment is threatening the future of civilization through the potentially catastrophic conse
quences of climate change and viral pandemics. In both cases this represents a sort of vicious circle
in which civilization is ultimately its own worst enemy.
With respect to civilization and war, Toynbee, Sorokin, Wright, and Eckhardt more or less all
identify the problem in terms of civilization's inability "to respond to the ethical challenge of altru
ism vs. egoism."90 As Eckhardt summarizes, Toynbee, Sorokin, and Wright came to the similar con
clusion that "war and civilization were motivated by a sense of superiority and self-righteousness,
which rationalized and justified the destructiveness of their behaviour." Moreover, the "self
destructiveness of these behaviours was completely concealed by the self-deception of self
centeredness and self-righteousness so characteristic of civilized peoples, who tend to believe in
their innate superiority to others and especially primitive peoples."91 Eckhardt poses the question:
"Can we have civilization without war?" His answer is an "unequivocal 'Yes,'" so long as we can
overcome the "authoritarian, egoistic, and compulsive nature of civilization as its war-making
Bowden 131
essence. In th
solution to th
civilization so
This call to a
urging in his
following Ja
more equitab
involves a spi
our almost m
of the past 2,
In many way
tative relatio
toward the w
towards all th
tion, and gro
ably healthier
On the whole
humankind m
some other u
thin and con
advanced and
and civilizatio
more than an
heads above w
Declaration
The author(s) d
cation of this ar
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin, 1992).
2. Bernard Schlink, Guilt about the Past (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2009), 29.
3. Schlink, Guilt about the Past, 29-30.
4. Zack Zorich, "Should We Clone Neanderthals?" Archaeology 63, no. 2 (March/April, 2010) h
archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html.
5. See Brett Bowden, "The Ideal of Civilisation: Its Origins and Socio-Political Character," Crit
of International Social and Political Philosophy 7, no. 1 (2004): 25—50; Brett Bowden, The
Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (Chicago and London: University of Chi
2009); Brett Bowden, ed., Civilization: Critical Concepts in Political Science, 4 vols. (Londo
York: Routledge, 2009), vol. 1.
6. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1651] 1985), 1
7. Hobbes, Leviathan, 683.
8. Friedrich von Schiller, "The Nature and Value of Universal History: An Inaugural Lect
History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972): 329.
9. Albert Schweitzer, The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization: The Philosophy of Civiliza
trans. C. T. Campion, 2nd ed. (London: A. & C. Black Ltd, [1923] 1947), viii.
10. Albert Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, trans. C. T. Cam

11. Schweitzer, The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization,
12. Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, chaps. 21 and 22, "The
"The Civilizing Power of the Ethic of Reverence for Lif
"Reverence for Life: A Moral Value or the Moral Value?,"
13. Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, 215.
14. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, trans. Joan
Institute for Psycho-Analysis, [1930] 1975), 26-33.
15. Jean Starobinski, "The Word Civilization," in Blessings in Di
Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 19
16. Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (London: H
17. Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress, 4.
18. Starobinski, "The Word Civilization," 33-34. Emphasis in o
19. See Brett Bowden, "In the Name of Progress and Peace: The 'S
Project," Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 1 (2004)
20. François Guizot, The History of Civilization in Europe [182
Penguin, 1997), 16. Emphasis in original.
21. Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, 16-7.
22. Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, 18.
23. J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its O
Publications, 1960), 2.
24. Bury, The Idea of Progress, 5.
25. William Eckhardt, "Civilization, Empires, and Wars," Jou
26. Hobbes, Leviathan, 186-8. See also Konrad Lorenz, On Agg
Lawrence Keeley, War before Civilization: The Myth of the
University Press, 1997).
27. Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Discourse on the Origin and the Fo
Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and trans.
University Press, [1755] 1997), 161.
28. Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization (Oxford, Oxford Uni
29. Ira Meistrich, "War's Cradle: The Birthplace of Civilizati
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 17, no. 3 (
30. Meistrich, "War's Cradle," 85.
31. Harry Holbert Turney-High, Primitive War; Its Practice and
of South Carolina Press, 1971), 23.
32. John Stuart Mill, "Civilization," in Collected Works of John
Society, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto, ON: University of Toron
33. Arnold J. Toynbee, War and Civilization, selected by Albert
Oxford University Press, 1951), viii.
34. R. R. Marrett, Psychology and Folklore (London: Methuen
35. Quincy Wright, Λ Study of War, 2nd ed. (Chicago and Londo
36. Wright, A Study of War; Tom Broch and Johan Galtung,
analysis of Quincy Wright's Data," Journal of Peace Research
"Primitive Militarism," Journal of Peace Research 12, no. 1
37. Eckhardt, "Civilization, Empires, and Wars," 9.
38. Eckhardt, "Civilization, Empires, and Wars," 10-11.
39. Quoted in Lucien Febvre, "Civilization: Evolution of a Wor
History: From the Writings of Febvre, ed. P. Burke, trans.
1973), 257, note 118.
Bowden 133
40. Eckhardt,
41. Wright, A
42. Wright, A
43. Eckhardt,
44. Eckhardt,
45. Eckhardt,
46. Wright, A
47. Eckhardt,
48. William E
437.
49. Eckhardt,
found in the
tative History
50. Arthur H.
nal of Peace
51.
Zbigniew
Touchstone,
Publishing, 1
52. Primarily
53. Eckhardt,
54. Eckhardt,
55. James Bos
pseudonym Th
tion and note
56. Eckhardt,
57. Toynbee, W
58. Arnold J.
especially Vo
Vol. VI: The D
59. Arnold To
published in t
60. See Brett
19, no. 1 (200
61. Walter Be
62. This accoun
tions about th
civilized socie
liberal or dem
63. Arnold J.
64. George W.
Daniel Patrick
65. Stephen, F
2007); Marq d
Survival (New
66. See for in
1992); Nafeez
(London: Plut
67. See The E
Congress, 197
68. See Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at http://www.thebullet

69. Brian Fagan, The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civiliz
Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civili
70. V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself (London: Watts & C
71. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (New York, NY
Book II, Sect. 42. Emphasis in original.
72. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the W
[1776] 1869), 289-296, and Book V in general.
73. Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics (London: Kegan Paul,
17, 19.
74. Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Towards a New Paradigm for Development: Strategies, Policies, and Processes," given
as the 1998 Prebisch Lecture at UNCTAD, Geneva, October 19, 1998. Emphasis in original.
75. See for instance, Jeffrey Mazo, Climate Conflict: How Global Warming Threatens Security and What to do
about it (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2010); Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity,
and Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Robin McKie, "Climate Wars Threaten
billions," The Observer, November 4, 2007; Carolyn Pumphrey, ed., Global Climate Change: National
Security Implications (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2008); National
Security and the Threat of Climate Change (Alexandria, VA: The CAN Corporation, 2007).
76. See for instance, A. J. Fairclough, "Global Environmental and Natural Resource Problems—Their Eco
nomic, Political and Security Implications," The Washington Quarterly 14, no. 1 (1991): 81-98; Gregory
D. Foster, "Environmental Security: The Search for Strategic Legitimacy," Armed Forces and Society 27,
no. 3 (2001): 373-95; Simon Dalby, Environmental Security (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2002); Alan Dupont and Graeme Pearman, Heating up the Planet: Climate Change and Security (Sydney:
Lowy Institute, Paper 12, June 2006, Longueville Media); Jürgen Scheffran, "Climate Change and
Security," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 64, no. 2 (2008): 19-25, 59-60.
77. Gwynne Dyer, Climate Wars (Toronto, ON: Random House, 2008).
78. Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge, VA: The Boydell
Press, 2004).
79. C. W. Potter, "A History of Influenza," Journal of Applied Microbiology 91, no. 4 (2001): 572-9.
80. See Nathan D. Wolfe, Claire Panosian Dunavan, and Jared Diamond, "Origins of Major Human Infectious
Diseases," Nature, 447 (May 17, 2007): 279-83; Marc Siegel, Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know
About the Next Pandemic (Hoboken, Ν J: John Wiley, 2006).
81. Richard D. Smith, "Responding to Global Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Lessons from SARS on the Role
of Risk Perception, Communication and Management," Social Science and Medicine 63, no. 12 (2006):
3113-23. See also Karl Taro Greenfeld, China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21 st Century's First Great
Pandemic (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006); Thomas Abraham, Twenty-First Century Plague: The
Story of SARS (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
82. UNAIDS, 2009 AIDS Epidemic Update (Geneva: UNAIDS and World Health Organization, 2009); Susan
S. Hunter, Black Death: AIDS in Africa (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Clive Bell, Shantayanan
Devarajan, and Hans Gersbach, The Long-run Economic Costs of AIDS: Theory and an Application to
South Africa (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003).
83. Warwick MicKibbin and Alexandra A. Sidorenko, Global Macroeconomic Consequences of Pandemic
Influenza (Sydney: Lowy Institute for International Policy, February 2006).
84. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, abridged by D. M. Low (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books with Chatto and Windus, 1963), 530.
85. Kevin G. Kinsell, "Changes in Life Expectancy 1900-1990," The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
55 (1992): 1196S-1202S. See also Oded Galor and Omer Moav, "Natural Selection and the Evolution of
Life Expectancy" (October 12,2005). Minerva Center for Economic Growth Paper No. 02-05. Available at
SSRN : http://ssrn.com/abstract=563 741
Bowden 135
86. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision (New York, NY: United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2005).
87. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Vol. 1A Millennial Perspective, Vol. 2 Historical Statistics (Paris:
OECD Publishing, 2006).
88. Frank Fenner, quoted in Cheryl Jones, "Fenner sees no hope for humans," The Australian [Higher Educa
tion section], June 16,2010,25. See also, Michael Boulter, Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man (New
York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2002).
89. Ruth Macklin, "Moral Progress," Ethics 87, no. 4 (1977): 370. Emphasis in original.
90. Eckhardt, "Civilizations, Empires, and Wars," 12. See Arnold Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda, Choose Life: A
Dialogue (New York, NY : I. B. Tauris, [1976] 2007); and Pitrim A. Sorokin, The Ways and Power of Love:
Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Founda
tion Press, [1954] 2002).
91. Eckhardt, "Civilizations, Empires, and Wars," 22.
92. Eckhardt, "Civilizations, Empires, and Wars," 22-3.
93. Schweitzer, The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization, viii.
94. Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, 215.
Bio
Brett Bowden is an associate professor of History and Political Thought. He holds appointments at
the University of Western Sydney, The Australian National University, and the University of New
South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. His recent publications include The Empire
of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea (University of Chicago Press, 2009), and the four
volume edited major work Civilization: Critical Concepts (Routledge, 2009). He is an Associate
Editor of the second edition of the six-volume Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (2010), edi
ted by William H. McNeill.

Civilization and War PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Civilization and War PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Thin Ice of Civilization

Author(s): Brett Bowden

As a tertiary educated, car-driving, Internet-surfing, frequent-flying, connected-yet-wire

thin the ice of civilization that so many of us are skating on i

Civilization and Progress

"instinct" tells us "that the word, civilization, comprehe

Civilization and War

Or as Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet put it in Vie de V

Civilization under Threat

years. While particular civilizations might rise and fall; civil

away more stuff, buy more new stuff to replace it, is pr

for any natio

It might seem then that civilization is chugging along qui

10. Albert Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, trans. C. T. Cam

68. See Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at http://www.thebullet

You might also like