Talk:Civilization/Archive 6

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Controversy Over the Use of the World 'Civilization'

I am not a regular Wikipedia contributor, nor am I particularly interested in becoming one. That said, it the criticsm section of this article omits what is typically the most vicious criticsm of the notion of civilization; it implies some cultures are 'civilized', and therefore better, and others are not, and therefore inferior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.30.198 (talk) 10:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Confusion

It may be that I am just stupid - which I tend to doubt - but this article has brought more confusion, and honestly - as a black African - outrage. I recognize that the contributors have tried to address some of the controversies and ambiguities with the term; but as a result we have an article that goes in ten different directions, and is still ethnocentered in the "Western world". The standard used to define civilization seems to always be Europe/the Greeks/the Romans. On what basis have these become the "ideal"?

The "civilized" West has been an initiator and/or a worsening factor in most of the conflicts we have today, through the aftermaths of Colonization. Yet it seems we have to unequivocally accept its supposed standards of civility, and decency, and its measurement tools to evaluate all human societies. In other words, despite the - admirable - efforts of several people, we are still left with an article that defines "Civilization", and recognizes civilizations, on the basis of their relative similarity, or difference from Western Standards. In other words, one's culture and society is more or less a civilization, depending on whether it resembles more or less Western standards and ideals. Not that I have anything against many of the modern-day standards, that are - in their current form - Western inspired, such as the "Universal" Declaration of Human Rights. In the contrary. But that said, I cannot be convinced that the culture and social systems of the Lunda Confederation, the kingdom of Great Zimbabwe, the Zulu kingdoms, the Native tribes of North America, or the Khoi-Khoi, do not constitute CIVILIZATIONS that are inherently equal to those of the Romans, the Greeks, or the Hindus: They all had principles of life, that they eventually happily broke at will, when it fitted the purposes of the time. And I believe that there is no objective argument against that.

Themalau 18:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't argue against that, nor would I wish to. But if you add those civilisations the article ends up huge, and if you remove the ones that are there now, there will be outrage from their authors. Alas, I don't know enough to fix the bits I think are horribly biased either. Tricky isn't it? The Real Walrus 15:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately Wikipedia has no article on the Lunda Confederation. Regarding Khoikhoi, whilst being an example of nomadic pastoralism, they don't meet the criteria established by most historians and anthropologists for being a "civilisation" (i.e. were not townsmen). I have added a link to Great Zimbabwe and the Sudanic civilisations (Ghana, Mali and Songhai). Regarding the North American Indians, while it could be argued that the Anastasi, Pueblo Dwellers and perhaps the Mississipian cultures were civilisations under the general meaning of the term, this was not general. The Iroquois Confederacy could have been said to have been a proto-civilisation, and the same could be said for such people as the Mandan. John D. Croft 13:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You missed the point entirely. by quoting "they don't meet the criteria established by most historians and anthropologists for being a "civilisation". What you mean is "they don't meet the criteria established by most WESTERN ACADEMIC historians and anthropologists"--Richardb43 (talk) 09:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Obscuring the definition of the term will not make the concept of "agricultural people with urban centers and centralized, hierarchical political structures" go away. Wikipedia needs an article on the concept. Civilization is the most-used term to describe such a culture. We could, I suppose, move this page to Agricultural people with urban centers and centralized, hierarchical political structures, but it is much more useful to treat this concept here, in the most commonly-used term for it. Fishal (talk) 13:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Richardb43, can you differentiate between the two or three definitions you perceive for us? Perhaps I'm missing something- I'm not actually aware of any definitions other than the vernacular "civilization" and an anthropological/historical "civilization" with a tendentious definition in the ballpark of the one Fishal has offered. This is making me confused about what you are arguing for. What ARE the alternative views of civilization you are referring to? TriNotch (talk) 17:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe he means that it is insulting to call some cultures "uncivilized". I contend that it is not-- as it is most often used today, civilization is simply a descriptive term. It need not imply that some cultures or races or what have you are inferior or less worthy or less intelligent. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging our differences. Fishal (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If you try to tie this article to the narrower "academic" definition, there are a lot of objections that you are being Euro-centric, and missing out many "civilizations" that are not town or city based. There are plenty of objections throughout the discussion, and even at times in the article. There is often reference to things such as "as it is most often used today", but that in itself is subjective, POV. It is most often used in that way by a certain group. So, somehow, the article needs to accommodate both, even many, Points of View. And especially the Intro needs to be not so agressively asserting one POV, the euro-Centric Academic point of view. RichardB43

As to examples:- Australian Aboriginies certainly contest they had a civilisation before Europeans arrived. They had religion, art, trade, some division of labour, land management, some degree of land "ownership". But they did not have permanent settlements as such, though they did have groups of shelters they returned to frequently, sacred grounds with carvings and art. Who really has the authority to say that this was not "civilization" ? Similary I think the American Indians, Zulus etc strongly claim they had civilization, without having towns. RichardB43

Since this is an Encylopedia, why not try to cover all these types of civilisation, instead of arbitrarily narrowing the content to make it conform to some 19th Century definition. But also recognise and explain the nature of the debate. RichardB43

To this end, I propose that in the intro we use a very simple defintion something like "A civilization is a particular kind of human society or culture, exhibiting division of labour and a social hierarchy, existing in a particular time and locale." This is very all embracing. Then have a paragraph summarising the debate/contention. Then perhaps a paragraph elaborating on the Euro-Centric Academic defintion of Civilisation. Finally, when we get to listing certain civilisations, we could indicate against each as to whether it was town based or nomadic.RichardB43

If we don't do something like this, this article will forever go round in circles (I first contributed 2 years or more ago), and never really get tidied up. As it is, at the moment, it's a pretty scrappy article in need of a fair bit of editing and tightening.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just done two very minor edits (not really rating as changes) to help clarify a tiny bit. Hope they can survive.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

And now I'm going to start another section just to try to explore getting an agreed first intro paragraph.Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we agree a first paragraph of the intro

My first proposal-

A civilization is a particular kind of human society or culture; specifically, a civilization is a type of culture, society, etc., of a specific geography, time-span or group, in which members are organized into a diverse division of labour and an intricate social hierarchy. Most traditional authorities assert that this necessarily implies the development of towns, but others also claim other forms may rightfully be termed a "civilization".

My view is this concise, and covers both POVs.--Richardb43 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the last time we sparred on this page was closer to four years ago.  :-) I remember the ghastly compromise we reached back then. When I went through and got rid of some of those definitions, I was trying to "tighten" the page. I felt all right doing it because I could not find a single source that gives the definition you give. Do you have a source? Fishal (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not big on citing sources. I am all for finding working definitions that avoid constant conflict. Is the first paragraph this "definition" actually so different ? If you are going to be dogmatic in citing sources you are never going to get any agreement, as other people will cite all sorts of sources giving other, conflicting definitions. A working compromise is required. I would contend this proposal is a lot tighter than the slighlty sloppy sentence that is there at present. But, if you want to battle for a dogmatic approach, I'm going to quickly loose interest, so it will be easy for you to "WIN". Do you want to go for a workable, fairly tight compromise, that might help to properly gel this article, or do you want to WIN ?--Richardb43 (talk) 01:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to win, just be accurate. Without sources, we have no accuracy, only our own opinions being thrown around... like we did last time. Fishal (talk) 01:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

So, what sources are cited for the present fairly loose intro paragraph ? What makes it accurate ? The first two sentences strictly read actually contradict each other. The first sentence says ANY type. The second sentence then goes on to say only Complex societies. Which is it ?--Richardb43 (talk) 02:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There are several sources in that paragraph, and in the section "Characterizing Civilization", that define it as urban, agricultural, etc. Your only source has been your own opinion. There is no need to be so confrontational. I don't want to be dogmatic or exclusionist-- I just want to write a helpful encyclopedia article that answers the question, "what is a civilization?" in a direct and unconfusing way. Fishal (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Are towns necessary for "Civilisation" ?

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which went on to be the largest empire the world has ever known. Yet it seems, from a very brief reading, that Genghis Khan came from a nomadic society. Does that disqualify the Mongol Empire as a civilization ?--Richardb43 (talk) 01:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Genghis Khan founded a capital city at Karakorum which was clearly intended to rival the more established civilisations and be a showpiece to them. True, the Mongols were nomadic but as their empire grew they incorporated more and more cities into it, and at least their ruling class, started to to take on more and more the trappings of the civilisations around them. As a cultural definition, civilisation means "the culture of the cities". I think the debates on this page have confused this simple technical use of the word with the rather more emotive use as a statement of superiority. This is a common enough use but has no place in this article, nor I think, does it. Excluding a culture from the technical definition of civilisation should not be seem as an insult. SpinningSpark 16:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The intro

Is it just me or is the intro an extended vioaltion of WP:NOT a dictionary? I don't find it at all satisfying in terms of relating what's coming in the rest of article. Marskell 11:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The intro evolved out of much discussion about whether the article should be spelled Civilisation (as British English) or Civilization (as American English). The intro was a compromise agreed by users that gave relevant space and an appropriate etymology for both terms. It is not intended as a dictionary, but to be "encyclopedic" to cover both usages. John D. Croft 21:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Understood. But an article lead section ought to "briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article." This doesn't do anything like that. I would suggest just starting from nothing and bumping what's there to an etymology section. Marskell 19:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The British English dictionaries and common usage (pace the idiotic MS Spellchecker)is civilization with a zed. The zed-less version is French. Dr Johnson should be cited for the etymology and the basic definition.

The intro definition did NOT arise from American/UK spelling differences, but from widely different understanding and acceptability of what the word Civilisation means. There is no common agreement on that, there can be no NPOV Article. For the sake of clarity some description up front is needed of what the article is and is not about, and subsequent sections can/should describe the dissenting/differening viewpoints.--Richardb43 (talk) 10:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's right. For a long time, a lot of people were really upset that the article's main definition excluded most tribal peoples, which seemed to be a condemnation of much of the world as "uncivilized". That lead section is necessary to explain that defining "civilization" does not mean condemning those who do not fit the definition. Fishal (talk) 12:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You might not MEAN to condemn, but many people do read it as a condemnation. And no matter how often you might want to say you do not mean to condemn, as long as YOU say you have the authority to decide on which "civilizations" qualify for the name, and which don't, then you ARE condemning. It's a bit like my mother calling black people coloured, because "it's not polite to calll them black". Sho totally goes against the wishes of the people whe is supposedly trying to be polite to. You are syaing to Australian Aboriginines (say) - "Your history is not one of civilization. But I am not calling your ancestors uncivilized." Can't accept that argument makes any sense. And what is this dogmatism for. To try to stick to some 19th Century idea of what constitutes Civilisation.

But, I' rapidly losing interest. I never have found a way to come to a reasonable compromise with a dogmatic exclusionist. Unless there is some glimmer of comprehension that other people have a different point of view, why waste my time even discussing it ?--Richardb43 (talk) 02:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

New lead section?

I've written a new lead section and am working on rewriting much of the article. See User:Fishal/Civilization. Fishal 07:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I removed a lot of the world-systems theory stuff. It's not gone for good, but I'll try to put it all in one section. It's currently sitting in a very disorganized state in the draft in my userspace that I'm working on. Fishal 23:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the lead section was pretty poor. I've trimmed it a little. The main thing I've done is up front acknowledge there is not going to be an agreed NPOV of "civilization", but accepted that this article deals with the classical academic view of "Civilisation". I've also made smaller all the explanatory stuff about the different views, so that the basic definition stands out better.

Probably we really need to have two separate pages - Civilisation (The Western Academic view), and Civilisation (Alternative Views)--Richardb43 (talk) 09:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the term is as controversial as you make it out to be. I may be completely wrong here, but I've never seen a definition of civilization subsantially different from the one in this article. Before I made some big changes here (which I sourced, and which I discussed on the Talk page first), the article basically said, "Civilization is whatever you want it to be," which is entirely unhelpful to a reader. NPOV does not mean we don't present concepts as they are generally understood. See the section right above this one on equivocal definitions. Fishal (talk) 12:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of attack on Ward Perkins

I have deleted the attack on Ward Perkins. Not onl;y was it crawling with typographical errors, it was more appropriate on a page devoted to Ward-Perkin's theories or a page on the collapse of Rome, than here. John D. Croft 03:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Civilization

I urge users to not carelessly add any entry to this article without discussing it. Especially anonymous users. The section is called development of "early" civilizations, and please look up in the encyclopedia about what it means. Don't just add any countries/states' name just because you like it so or you found a obscure reference that evidently only described a legendary date.

Here is what Columbia Encyclopedia [1] have to say about civilizations:

“ The specific characteristics of civilization are: food production (plant and animal domestication), metallurgy, a high degree of occupational specialization, writing, and the growth of cities. Such characteristics originally emerged in several different parts of the prehistoric world: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, the central Andes, and Mesoamerica. However, some civilizations did not have all of these characteristics (e.g., the Classic Maya had no metallurgy, and true writing apparently never emerged in central Mexico or the central Andes). ”

Here is what Encarta [2] said about the development of early civilizations:

“ Historians have found difficulties in delimiting a particular society and correctly labeling it a civilization; they use the term civilization to refer to a number of past and present societies that manifest distinctive cultural and historical patterns. Some of these civilizations are the Andeanone, which originated about 800 bc; the Mexican (about the 3rd century BC); the Far Eastern, which originated in China about 2200 bc and spread to Japan about AD 600; the Indian (about 1500 bc); the Egyptian (about 3000 BC); the Sumerian (about 4000 bc); followed by the Babylonian (about 1700 BC); the Minoan (about 2000 bc); the Semitic (about 1500 BC); the Greco-Roman (about 1100 bc); the Byzantine, which originated in the 4th century AD; the Islamic (8th century ad); and the Western, which arose in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages. ”

--TheLeopard (talk) 19:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

anti european bias

if you are going to lump greece in with the minoans the starting date must be from the date the civilization that the minoans started from and the starting date for the minoans is around 2700 bc which pre dates china and pre dates caanites so why is the staring date at 2000 bc and in all fairness the minoans are treated as a seperate civilzation from the greeks also pick up any scholary book and european civilzation pre dates east asian--Wikiscribe (talk) 01:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I have little interest in the "What is a civilization" debate, so I will not weigh in there. However, I do wish to point out a possible problem with the evident pro-Minoan position advocated by Wikiscribe. The Minoan chronology article indicates significant doubts about the absolute accuracy of ANY Minoan chronology (in the sense of absolute dating), and certainly does not comfortably set the beginning date at 2700 BC. 2700 BC is a plausible approximation of the beginning of the Pre-Palatial period of the Minoans, but that may not be sufficient... The pre-Palatial is Bronze Age, but just barely- early Pre-palatial sites are strictly speaking only copper-using. They used the still-untranslated Linear A script- but not until the MMIB period, estimated 2000 BC. Finally, they may or may not have had cities; I've had a hard time locating much information on that. Keith Branigan, who edited Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age, refers to pre-Palatial settlements as cities, but describes them as lacking defensive walls, lacking monumental architecture, lacking organized town-planning, and lacking a dense population. This makes them significantly less "urban" than the larger communities of the Mississippian culture which I study. I leave it in the hands of others to decide if they qualify under those criteria (as cities or as civilizations), as this smacks of original research. But (since Wikiscribe mentioned the east Asian cultures) I would point out that the Longshan culture DOES have cities... possibly by 3000 BC. I don't think I have an anti-European bias; just a pro-archaeological-data bias. TriNotch (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

sounds like anti european bias to me especaliy coming from a native american tell me something has there been any evidence of the wheel being found in the americas pre european colonization i think that should be one of the marks of a civilzation touche my friend--Wikiscribe (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

No personal attacks, please. This article has a strong anti-Native-American bias, IMO. The Mississippians were in here once upon a time (I put them there), but they are here no longer. If you ask me, the whole messy list needs to be moved elsewhere. It is a distant descendant of a table that was practically the only content back in 2002, and now it's more of a distraction than anything else. An article on Ancient civilizations might be called for, but I'd fear it would become just a dumping ground. I say, turn the massive paragraphs into a list of links, remove the start and end dates, and keep it brief. Fishal (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that this article could use some rewriting generally, but I would agree about the list of links idea. We have separate articles on all those civilizations for a reason. Actually, I think I will Be Bold and do that immediately, and hope I'm not deleting important information. Anyone want to bet whether I'll be reverted by a bot for text-blanking? TriNotch (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I know the idea has been floating around for _years_. I need to get back to my own rewrite-- it's fairly a mess. If anyone wants to lend a hand, the draft is currently at User:Fishal/Civilization. Best regards, Fishal (talk) 06:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Possible Vandalism

Who wrote "Civilizations was made up by Abraham Lincoln. He was pretty weird =D =D =D" at the top of the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.103.133 (talk) 02:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Archive

The re-opening of some old discussion sections, I think, showed the necessity of archiving the inactive ones. So I moved all the discussions for 2007 (and 2006!) to Archive 5. Fishal (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitions

I think I'll start one place for discussing this issue at the bottom of the page rather than doing it in three places, all over the page. Richardb, you have contended, both now and 4 years ago, that the standard definition of civilization, as defined in the sources I and other editors have cited, is wrong; essentially you contend that all human groups should be called civilizations. When I asked for a source that used the term in this way, you said that you don't like citing sources and that requiring published sources (i.e., following Wikipedia policy) is "dogmatic". Richardb, the article is a mess right now, with lots of uncertainty over definitions, largely because of a compromise we reached back in '04 (back when _neither_ of us were terribly interested in citing sources). Since then, many people have found good documantation supporting the standard definition, but the messy compromises, such as the "Problems with the term" section, remain. If you can't find any sources to back you up, I think that entire section, and similar equivocations about what a civilization is, need to be removed as unverified after all these years. Fishal (talk) 19:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not say your definition was wrong. I just said it was one viewpoint, which tended to be supported by lots of references precisely because it is an academic viewpoint. I never said I did not like citing sources, just that I'm not good at it. But how about this one. The very first lines in this discussion page-

"It may be that I am just stupid - which I tend to doubt - but this article has brought more confusion, and honestly - as a black African - outrage. I recognize that the contributors have tried to address some of the controversies and ambiguities with the term; but as a result we have an article that goes in ten different directions, and is still ethnocentered in the "Western world". The standard used to define civilization seems to always be Europe/the Greeks/the Romans. On what basis have these become the "ideal"?

Your dogmatic adherence to the academic "pointy-headed" definition alone is insulting to many, many people. The result was that many people attacked the article, changed it, and it did become a mess. All I tried to do was have a small section that acknowledged this contention. And this seemed to slow down the back and forth changes.

But, as you can't accept such a compromise, and you seem to think the article is "yours", then I'll leave you to it. And leave you believing that the academic view point is so much superior than that of the us plebs who actually have doubts and concerns, instead of your absolute certainty.--Richardb43 (talk) 08:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, that's fine; I'm the one who wrote the messy compromise version, which I was unhappy with-- but we need sources. Without sources, the article is just opinion, and you seem to think that that's not a big deal. Fishal (talk) 20:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you not read. It's lots of people over time that think it is a big deal that you insist on maintaining the pure academic version that causes so offense. But obviously pointelss arguing with you. Bye.--Richardb43 (talk) 08:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

No need to get so angry. A user's comment is not a reliable source. If it's too Greco-Roman-centric, then let's work on the examples posed of civilizations, not simply ignore the standard definition. Fishal (talk) 21:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Format

I've changed the pic size to default for better compatability with different resolution monitors. The section Ancient Civilizations of the "New World" still needs work.--Work permit (talk) 04:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Replacing a Copyvio Pic

I attempted to replace a colorful Manhattan pic with another Manhattan pic, but the colors all seemed too sombre, too dark... the next idea turned out to be too gray. I then thought of London (old city, decent, been under multiple civilizations, multicultural), but its pictures didn't quite seem colorful enough. Tokyo (which is mainly Japanese but still one of the exemplary cities of the world) had the same problem. I thought I'd solved the problem with Hong Kong. Unfortunately, it appears to come out at its best at NIGHT, because China's infamous haze muddies the daytime pics. So I tried a different tack - pick something that says "city", that says "typical city", and something that still has color in it. The first thing I could think of was Honolulu, a multicultural city in Hawaii that has a very urbanized flavor in a rather pretty setting that's not as hazy as Hong Kong. So Honolulu it was. 204.52.215.107 (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not something more noble, like Jerusalem? — Rickyrab | Talk 06:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Why replace the picture at all? The Manhattan picture says that there is some doubt about the copyright status, not that it is actually a copyvio. Apparently its copyright status on Flickr has been changed by the uploader. But if it was originally uploaded with a valid free licence then Wikipedia is still entitled to use it, no? Shame, it was a great picture.

I have also edited the legend of the Jerusalem picture back to near the original. I think it is going too far to say that defensive works etc, are hallmarks of civilisation. The recognised defining features are cities and writing. There might well be other stuff but it is not of the essence. SpinningSpark 11:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Ismael book/writer

Please include the instinct film quote 'There is nothing more savage than civilisation' and the book it came from aswell as it views, writer, ... See Ishmael_(novel)

thanks

81.246.161.39 (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I have removed this from the article shortly after it was inserted on the grounds that works of fiction cannot be counted as reliable sources for a non-fiction article. Also, it is unreferenced (the reference provided was to a blog, not to any relevant link about either the book or the film) and as such, must count as original research. SpinningSpark 20:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

This text was deleted:

"There is nothing more savage than civilisation" (expressed in the Instinct-film adapted from the Ishmael novel by Daniel Quinn)"

People as Daniel Quinn state that the current society (seen by him as a group of "takers" and "leavers") is unsustainable. Daniel Quinn mentions in his novels (eg Ishmael that, at present, the human race is using a form of agriculture (noted as Totalitarian_Agriculture) which is ethically incorrect. In his novel "Ishmael", he sais that once once mankind usurps this responsibility--historically decided through natural ecology (i.e. food chains) --, the curtain will fall and mankind will perish. In his novell he explains that he believes life to be nothing more than a puppet show (noted as a "story" in the book) which will end once humans see and correct their mistakes. He cites that as fulfillment of this prophecy (or rather "enactment" of the "story"), contemporary environmental crises such as endangered or extinct species, global warming, and modern mental illnesses would disappear.

I added it on this talk page so we (or someone else) can improve it and possibly reinsert it into the article. I understand your argument to remove it, but rest assured that the info is accurate (saw the movie myself). 81.244.201.245 (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not a question of how well you have reported what Daniel Quinn has written. The fact remains it is a work of fiction, not an academic piece that has been peer reviewed. It has no status as a source in any form. SpinningSpark 22:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be possible and beneficial to maybe cite a book or article about Quinn's work and his comments on civilizaiton. Fishal (talk) 03:31, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Last two paragraphs of the intro

Referring to the following 2 paragraphs, they cover identical ground, redundantly, and can be merged.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The term civilization is often used as a synonym for culture in both popular and academic circles.[1] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life".[2] Civilizations can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities.

The term has been defined and understood in a number of ways different from the standard definition. Sometimes it is used synonymously with the broader term culture. Civilization can also refer to society as a whole. To nineteenth-century English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, for example, civilization was "the total social heredity of mankind;"[3] in other words, civilization was the totality of human knowledge and culture as represented by the most "advanced" society at a given time.[4] Civilization can be used in a normative sense as well: if complex and urban cultures are assumed to be superior to other "savage" or "barbarian" cultures, then "civilization" is used as a synonym for "superiority of certain groups." In a similar sense, civilization can mean "refinement of thought, manners, or taste".[5] However, in its most widely used definition, civilization is a descriptive term for a relatively complex agricultural and urban culture.

I propose:

The term civilization is often used as a synonym for the broader term "culture" in both popular and academic circles.[1] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life".[2] However, in its most widely used definition, civilization is a descriptive term for a relatively complex agricultural and urban culture. Civilizations can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities.

In another less standard usage, the term "civilization" can be used in a normative sense as well: if complex and urban cultures are assumed to be superior to other "savage" or "barbarian" cultures, then "civilization" is used as a synonym for "superiority of certain groups." In a similar sense, civilization can mean "refinement of thought, manners, or taste".[5]

Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yours is better. I'll make the change. Fishal (talk) 21:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The Great Flood

Did it realy happen? (216.163.246.1 (talk) 00:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC))

Are We Smarter than Yeast?

Perhaps you might include a reference to Dan Chay explaining the similarities between our civilisation and yeast, as in both cases we pollute and overcrowd our environment so that it becomes unlivable for us. See this site

Thanks, KVDP (talk) 17:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Another suggestion...

Perhaps a new section can be introduced in the article describing civilisation critics from movoes. This section may include info on the already decribed Instinct (film) and also on the Planet of the Apes (1968 film) film. The planet of the apes films should be included in the article as they are very famous and give specific critics on todays civilisation involving the environment and the "savagenous" of it, being in some respects more cruel than the society existing between apes. Look into it. Thanks,

KVDP (talk) 19:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Civilizations of the XXI Century Map

I would like to hear all your objections concerning this map :-) Emilfaro (talk) 18:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

• What does the map try to explain, or what kind of information does it try to get across that will increase the readers understanding of this article subject of Civilization?
• Who has defined these regions to be "Civilizations of the XXI Century", as you put it in this article (WP:OR)? --Van helsing (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be research at its most original. The description page adds to the opinion-making by such statements as "de facto colonies" for Africa, or calling all of South America "Brasil" or all of Southeast Asia "Nippon", or even its title, "Real Politics". This implies that the creator knows Reality and everyone else is being deceived. Fishal (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Van helsing and Fishal; this map does not maintain NPOV. The naming seems arbitrary and the definition of civilization it presents is highy suspect. Perhaps a similar map could be created which did not purport to define separate civilizations but simply identified groupings of countries by intergovernmental organization. Neelix (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

There's already a similar map, and it cites the Reliable Source that it is based on: Huntington's "clashing civilizations" shown on Image:Clash of Civilizations.png. That used to be in this article: where did it go? Fishal (talk) 21:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

That file cites no such source. It merely gives the source as "taken from Wikipedia map and colored" ie no provenance at all. SpinningSpark 23:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. I assume it's based on Huntington's book, but you are correct that the file doesn't actually say that. Fishal (talk)

Unfortunately I have no time explaining, why this is not an original research. I could do this making a map for each particular civilization, referencing that. And only afterwords putting the information together. Personally, I think you shouldn't a least edit others comments: if I want this map big on the talk page --- let it be. Emilfaro (talk) 21:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You do not need to give detailed explanations to prove this is not OR. What you do need to do if you want this map in the article under "Future of civilisation" is provide a reliable source that actually predicts this is going to be the configuration of civilisation in the future. Anyone can divide up a map however they feel, my map could be very different from yours, but to put one of them in the encyclopedia needs a reference to an academic work that has done some serious study of the issue. SpinningSpark 23:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer not to hear from you, what I need. What I want is for those, who are interested --- to be able to see it at least on this talk page. Emilfaro (talk) 01:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Eventually, it will be archived. If your main goal is that you want others to see it, then please put it on your user page. Fishal (talk) 11:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It is there since the 19th of August. Emilfaro (talk) 21:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

OK then, because there's no guarantee that anything on this talk page will still be here 6-12 months from now. That's about how often it gets archived, and nobody ever reads the archives. Fishal (talk) 00:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This is no short time these days :-) And once again I ask everyone not to edit my first comment on the talk page. Emilfaro (talk) 11:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Jiroft

Should the recently added Jiroft civilization be in the "History" list without comment? Its article says it is an alleged civilization and this claim seems to be controversial. I think the list should use the word "alleged" while the article is describing it thus. Or otherwise removed altogether. SpinningSpark 15:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Some corrections

Markets were not the only way in which non food producers sustained themselves. I have added tribute, taxation, tarrifs and tithing, all of which have been used at various times by different civilisations. I have also corrected the entry on Toynbee, and made a few other minor corrections.John D. Croft (talk) 15:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

About time!  :) I apologize that I haven't been able to dedicate myself to the overhaul I had planned for this article. Thanks, John! Fishal (talk) 16:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Dates of the Axial Age?

Axial age lists that time period as 800 BC to 200 BC, but Civilization#Classical Antiquity calls it 600 BCE to 400 BCE. Where did Karl Jaspers write about it, and how did he originally define it? (cross-posted to all three Talk pages) 75.5.198.37 (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Africa?

Are there no sub-Saharan African civilisations at all? None whatsoever in Western Africa and the ancient states of Nigeria? The Nok culture that started the sub-Saharan Iron Age -- was that not a civilisation? How about ancient Great Zimbabwe or Mapungubwe?

If a civilisation is simply a large, complex, and stratified culture with towns/cities then there are numerous examples of sub-Saharan African civilisations (even before Islam), and it seems like the authors of this page are trying hard to pretend like they never existed. We all know that everyone wants to believe that Egypt and North Africa are part of the middle East, but you cannot ignore the civilisation in the rest of the continent.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 12:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC) what is the meaning???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.220.106 (talk) 10:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Simple Definition of Civilization

Any group of people that have any sort of pact or agreement that dictates reward or punishment based on behavior. Also, this group actively plans for future providence of food, shelter, and water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.158.114 (talk) 03:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

"Whereas the etiology of civilization is Latin or Roman..." I understood that 'etiology' is causation or the study of causation. In medicine the etiology of a disorder is its underlying causation. Taken literally, the statement in the article is saying that the Romans caused Civilization. This is patently false. The Romans certainly caused their OWN civilization, and theirs has affected ours, as we are in some sense their Civilizational heirs, but they surely had no hand in the Chinese Civilization or others. Is 'etiology' here a malapropism for 'etymology' (caused by a 'slip of the brain' of the contributor)? The etymology of the WORD 'civilization' is certainly Latin. As it stands, the sentence makes no sense. Should you not simply delete 'etiology' and replace it with 'etymology', and also put 'civilization' in quotes, to make it clear that it is the WORD that you are referring to, and not the thing? Plitplov (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)plitplov

Vere Gordon Childe is unreliable

In the "characteristics" section Vere Gordon Childe is used. He is a Marxist so its very likely that hes not a reliable source for this kind of article. - Yorkshirian (talk) 23:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep the last ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 21:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 19:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Cringeworthy

Am I the only person to cringe, upon typing in "civilisation" and being bombarded by a picture of a group of brutal metal constructions in New York City? When I think "civilisation" I think Ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia... not the United States. - Yorkshirian (talk) 21:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Only ancients can be civilized?

I have no thoughts on the photo. Maurreen (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No, most people, would objectively call the Taj Mahal, Florence Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral an example of civilisation that is not ancient. But the photo of boxed, metal-glass, high rise brutalist architecture in the United States, is probably not the first thing people think of or expect to see when typing in the word "civilisation". At the very least it is controversial. The Colosseum, the Parthenon or the Giza Necropolis is probably a more common example. - Yorkshirian (talk) 22:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Civilisation itself is a contentious and controversial term, and to identify it with the American idea of what constitutes civilisation serves only to make it even more so. I would not, however, agree with replacing the homage to Americanism with an architectural wonder, as that is not necessarily indicative of what is meant by civilisation in its broadest definition. I believe New York should be replaced with another city, and the advantage of an ancient one is that it reduces objections, prejudices and controvery to a minimum. I suggest a city plan of Mohenjo-daro. It's just about as ancient as they come, and displays urban planning, infrastructure, organisation, etc., all the hallmarks of civilisation, as well as not being quite so well known as the standard examples.

The Taj Mahal, Florence Cathedral and St Pauls Cathedral, etc.. beautiful examples of art and construction not though of civilisation in particular. Civilisation is not nessecarily required or involved in painting a single picture or erecting a single building. Is it not ridiculous to depict a multitude of interaction as a series of stand alone examples of work with the emphasis on purposely avoiding the current state of civilisation? Is it the possesion at the end or the people who have created it and how they have interacted that this article is about? Understandable idea but not the most truly representative, in fact a suggestion that true representation may be inferior. The New York picture is at present the example closest to depicting a whole civilisation. In basic science we were taught about three groups of material, living material, once-living material and material which had never lived. I think that all three classes of material are of equal importance to what civilisation is, not just material which has never lived. What about a stock exchange or a football game? What about a museum of art or an institute of technology? What about an airport? Things like that are much more indisposable as part of civilisation than examples of architecture. I would be very narrow minded if I could not think otherwise. ~ R.T.G 15:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Removed "Georgian and Armenian civilisation" from European category

Georgia and Armenia are neither geographically, culturally nor (crucially) historically European, granted that label itself is often arbitrary. The ancient cultures of the Georgians and Armenians, though inevitably linked, in my opinion are not interchangeable, so further modification will be necessary. An article on such a loaded topic deserves detail, not an overview. Additionally, I am not entirely convinced Persian, Georgian or Armenian fit into the Middle Eastern category at all, as the term Middle East is a modern construct invented by Europeans (with little understanding of what we now refer to as the Middle East). It carries only contemporary connotations that would not accurately portray the ancient cultural and social traits of said civilisations. The Persian language, religion and culture were entirely indigenous Iranian and had very little, if at all, in common with the Semitic and other Fertile Crescent cultures, the exceptions being certain superficial adoptions as court dress and writing system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.52.5 (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Deleted reference to "Red Indians" in the definition

The term is inappropriate here, and is now considered less preferntial than Amerindian. It perpetrates a racist slur, and is considered offensive by many. It also does not apply to the definition of terms. John D. Croft (talk) 08:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

New Beginning

I would like (if no major objections) to replace the beginning of the article with:

"Civilization" (or "civilisation") refers to either: 1) the procession of human societies generally toward more development and use of more complex technology, higher population densities, increasing per capita gross domestic product, and other significant advancements; or 2) any human society (for example, "Ancient Greek Civilization") associated with any particular geographical location at a particular time, historical or current. (When used in this second sense, the word is often restricted to apply only to societies that have attained a particular level of advancement, especially the founding of cities, with the word "city" defined in various ways.) The level of advancement of a civilization is often measured by its progress in agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism.70.179.92.117 (talk) 00:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Done 70.179.92.117 (talk) 03:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Merger with World Civilisations and Ancient Civilizations

World civilisations is an article with nearly the same scope as this one. I propose we merge World Civilisations into Civilization. ~ Draksis314 14:46, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Sound good to me. The tags on both articles indeed show others have already discussed the idea and agreed also. I do not think anyone will go searching for "World Civilizations" and expect to find something different than if they went looking for "Civilizations".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I see you also propose merging in Ancient Civilization? I would say if that is what is agreed we can try it. If this article then becomes too big, we could consider splitting out a better Ancient civilization later?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:11, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems to make sense. I'll add a merger notice to Civilization and Ancient Civilization. ~ Draksis314 23:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll be busy until Saturday, but we can hopefully finish the merge before the weekend is over. ~ Draksis314 03:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be worthy mentioning that Illyrians are not part of Greek civilization. That paragraph is of a great offence to the writer/s, because he/she/they have deficiencies in the education background. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.106.1.52 (talk) 13:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Is the multiple issues tag still needed?

I notice that sourcing has improved over the years on this article. Should we consider deleting that tag which currently applies to the whole article, and which is rather general? Perhaps if necessary we can replace by section tags which are more specific anyway?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Automatic redirect

Why does wikipedia redirect to this page when I search uncivilized? I don't give a flying fuck about Islamic architecture. Please fix this.

Amerocentrism

Check the Wikipedia article for human civilization, and what picture comes up? New York City. Come on, can we be a bit more representative than that? Is New York City really the icon of civilization? 142.157.195.70 (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Industrialisation article is written in limey lingo, which is appropriate, as Brits whomped up the industrial revolution. The latest wrinkle in civilization would be the 2008 inside job, which is configured to reoccur, centered on Manhatten, making a pic of New York City appropriate. A shot of Wall Street would be grossly amerocentric. Did Ur invent civ? Grub up some Chalcolithic pic, perhaps? - 67.224.51.189 (talk) 07:27, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

This article doesn't suffer from "Amerocentrism" so much as from gratuitious cultural relativism and political correctness.

Of course anything that can be labelled a "culture" has also been called a "civilization" in the loosest sense of the word. However, this article is supposed to discuss "civilization" in the narrow sense, or it could just be turned into a redirect to culture or ethnicity.

"Civilization" in the narrow sense refers to a polity which is based on centralized government in urban centers ("complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments"), as opposed to tribal chiefdoms. Hence this cannot just turn into a list of cultures or kingdoms. A civilization sensu stricto needs urban centers, a bureaucracy, and written communication. For this reason, the "cradle of civilization" coincides with the origin of writing.

Today, of course, the vast majority of world population lives in such societies, a single monstrous global civilization, with the exception of just a few remaining tribal chiefdoms in remote areas such as the rain forests or remote mountain valleys. The cultural heritage of the world's historical civilizations (before globalization) are more usefully distinguished as "cultural blocs" than as (countable, discrete) "civilizations", because since the industrialization of China at the latest, it is futile to try and draw clean lines between them. --dab (𒁳) 11:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I do agree the lead has gone too far in the 'politically correct' direction (though not completely - in which "modern contexts" is it okay to go around calling people "primitive"??), but you have to bear in mind that the narrow definition you describe is also a technical one, used in ancient history, archaeology, anthropology, etc., and the article has to reflect other ways the word is and has been used. I think it does do a pretty good job of that, the problem is the way it's structured doesn't make it clear that these are separate usages. The technical arch/anth sense of the word is stuffed into 'Characteristics', which implies that Childe was using the word in the same way as Toynbee and Huntington and the man on the street, just looking at a different aspect of it. Really though they were working with completely different concepts that just happen to share the same etymological root.

Regarding Amerocentrism, I don't see a problem. Cities are a hallmark of civilisation, and New York is a globally iconic modern metropolis. It's as 'representative' as a picture of London, Baghdad or Rome. —Joseph Roe^Tk•Cb, 13:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ooh la, thanks for listening to my complaint and changing the pictures! Much prefer this. --76.65.204.115 (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC) (I originally posted as 142.157.195.70 (talk) on 20:56, 16 December 2010 UTC)

Map

On the map, the western society is really new. In fact there are numerous Inuit and Indian tribes that have just been recently converted to think like a western mindset. So I believe the map would need to be modified, as the arctic region is very slow with the western mindset. It would also be appreciated if one show "Before modernization" and "After Modernization", showing the colors, of residents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.181.32.13 (talk) 22:41, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Maiming

Which civilizations maim civilians in the modern era? Can they be listed please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.88.128.138 (talk) 12:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Very confusing

The article seems to be very confusing. The writers here may be trying to rewrite the meaning rather than explaining it. It goes on from one aspect to other in a rather peculiar way without paying attention to anything. It does not highlight the specifics of anything. It seems that those who wrote this wanted it to be in a particular mannar rather than general and may have led this article to this state. This needs to be written in a much better and comprehensive mannar. It doesnt serve the purpose of explaining the civilization properly at all. 223.177.71.92 (talk) 04:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Dispute regarding lead image(s)

Alright I am prepared to address any issues with any of the content surrounding the lead images disagreement. Post here with specific requests for citations to that content and I will provide it within reason. Most of this stuff is common knowledge to anyone who understands the subject anyway, but this being wikipedia I guess we'll just have to do this regardless. 24.9.30.143 (talk) 12:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I've reported you now for edit warring. I asked for sources for the Parliament of Westmminster caption and I do not believe it belongs in the article. No image should stretch across the whole page dominating it the way it does, but that's a separate issue from sourcing. You appear to be confused about the Chinese Great Walls - but if you can find a source for your claim fine, no one has to find a source disputing it. Having an image of the Ming wall and a caption discussing the 3rd century wall is not helpful. Page numbers are required for books. Dougweller (talk) 13:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

See the post on your talkpage and let me know about anything it doesn't cover, also page numbers are not always required, they are preferred & definitely encouraged, but I have seen many book citations without page numbers pass arbitration. As I said, most of this is common knowledge anyway and the books cited are highly specific to the subject, but if it's really necessary I can be as specific as you like. I really don't think it is contentious to say that the great wall of china is the largest pre-industrial structure in the world when it is at an absolute minimum 3800 miles long averaging at least a 20 foot height & 15 foot width, it would easily fit the material from hundreds of Great Pyramids of Giza with tremendous amounts of space left over. In fact it would even be a safe wager that it is still among the top ten or even top 5 largest structures on the planet. If you require actual written sources for this, I can certainly see about providing them. Also, please post any other citation requests here before tomorrow so I don't have to do this more than necessary. 24.9.30.143 (talk) 14:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The Ming Great Wall probably is the largest pre-Industrial structure, but the caption discussed an entirely different wall built in 220–206 BCE, an entirely different project. It isn't the image that is wrong, it's the caption. When you are asked for page numbers you need to provide them. I still think the photo of the Palace of Westminster is inappropriate as it is far too large and I am not convinced it is appropriate anyway. The caption reads " the first of the modern mega-cities, birthplace of the industrial revolution, capital of the largest empire in history, and center of the first consistently democratically organized Great Power since the collapse of the Ancient World. The city is generally regarded as the prototypical model upon which the Great Cities of the modern world have based their development. Having singlehandedly forged much of what allows a modern city to function at even the most basic levels, it's precedent and influence are immeasurable.". Who calls it the first of the modern mega-cities? Who calls it the prototypical model etc? What does " Having singlehandedly forged much of what allows a modern city to function at even the most basic levels" even mean? If this is true and important, why have none of the editors of our article on London added it? Dougweller (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"London model for modern civic design standards"- I will find the sources for this and post them later. Also, please post any others you require before I go to find them. "If this is true and important why have none of the editors of our london article added it?"- It is hardly fair to ask me to speak for what other individuals choose to do or not to do, but I will muster some courage for you and field an educated guess that the assertion would probably be considered a controversial if accurate one, and the admins over there may want to avoid the time consuming hassle of flame wars on their article even if the cause is legitimate content with genuine accuracy. Wikipedia is not always known for having a backbone, and I mean that in the best possible way. Now I will ask you this question, is that (hypothesized) desire one you (hypothetically) also harbor yourself for this article? Please tell me before I go to this trouble so I don't waste both of our time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.30.143 (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that what you call controversial a lot of us would call 'original research' as defined at WP:NOR. It probably has nothing to do with Admins, just editors trying to keep an article based on what reliable sources (WP:RS if you aren't aware of it) have to say about London. Certainly when I took a course in urban planning at the London School of Economics I don't recall this idea being mentioned. My post above about London mentions the specific claims that need sourcing. Dougweller (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

We've all taken courses in all manner of things, that doesn't make one's knowledge in them comprehensive or even functional; nor does it make one an expert in those fields, or create the impossibility of accruing new & substantial knowledge on those subjects. To suggest otherwise is surely folly, even from the London School of Economics point of view. "Original Research"- Is it still Original Research if I can name five different pieces of relevant literature of some substance, from reputable authors, which support the claim? And if it's not Original Research, then does that mean it's automatically not controversial? I'm going to pay you the courtesy of presuming you're not unreasonable in this regard. "Sourcing"- So were the claims regarding The Ming Wall (once again, as I have said repeatedly here and in the discussions on our talk pages, I was not the source of the assertion that it was built between 220 and 206 bce without an admin or anyone else taking any corrective action such as reverting it or demanding a source for such an interesting claim, yet my content was reverted under partial guise of this ,clear, yet up til now, ignored, aberration. The honor for this contribution which you repeatedly take issue with, again, belongs to another, an honor which was paid no attention by yourself nor by the other individual apparently opposed to my actual contributions, the user Andrew Lancaster, who so studiously objected to the content I really did add, while ignoring something as blaring as this date issue that you have repeatedly mentioned in contexts which supposedly relate to items in my contributions which need fixing. Apparently the content of mine that is in question made such ridiculous claims about the size of the pre-industrial Ming Wall as to warrant the immediate and focused attention of an admin, but a claim that places the completion of a referenced structure in an article 1800 years before it actually happened is found of interest to no one, save for when it can have its author confused. May I ask why? You understand of course.), and the claim about London all you needed improved sourcing on? I'm sure there are others, if there are please name them now as I will need to go soon. (and apologies on not signing my previous comment I was distracted and neglected to check before posting) 24.9.30.143 (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, what I studied is irrelevant and I deserve a trouting for mentioning it. I'm not acting as an Administrator in any of this, just as an ordinary editor with this article on his Watch List. I must be tired, because I don't understand much of your post. I'll comment on the OR question - we of course can use reputable authors as sources, how we use them depends on what we use them for and what they say. And it's no problem if they disagree with each other, although we have to make that clear. I'm off to bed. Dougweller (talk) 21:07, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Sumerian 26th c Adab.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Sumerian 26th c Adab.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations What should I do? Don't panic; deletions can take a little longer at Commons than they do on Wikipedia. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion (although please review Commons guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Commons Undeletion Request This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Connection with faith

Hi there. My post about faith was not to force it down people's throats. It was just to show the connection between advencement in faith and advancement in civilisation. Take ancient Greece, for example. Most of the pictures we have about it are of temples. And why are temples built? Because of people's faith. One of the reasons why Britain was so powerful in the colonial ages was because they believed they had God on their side. And you can't stop someone who believes they're with God. Just accept it for now. Don't be so quick to delete it. Let people read it and judge for themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luckimg2 (talk • contribs) 10:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• If there is a connection, where's the references? Without references and a neutral point of view, how can readers properly judge for themselves? (As a side note, many of the losing sides in battles and colonizations believed they had god or gods on their side as well.) -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Where's the evidence that Britain was powerful not because it had better armies and a capitalist class intent on expanding its power, but because it (like most other countries) believed it had god on its side? Do you know how many wars have been fought between countries/people each of whom thought they had god on their side? In each case, one of them lost. But the main point is your lack of references - you mention research but don't souce it. And please, please read WP:RS and WP:VERIFY before bringing sources here. And you really should discuss it here before you replace it since you've been reverted by more than one editor. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 15:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

confusing image

in the section of history, on the part of the early civilizations there is a confusing image of the world maps and different cradles of civilizations like the fertile crescent... but if people really came through america across the bering strait then why does central mexico and the Andes developed agriculture before eastern USA?--187.161.170.237 (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The development of agriculture in the Americas took place long after the peopling of the Americas had started, in any event, but it is not well understood why agriculture has arisen early on – and independently – in some regions and in others not, even though the climate is suitable. Possibly the climate in the eastern USA is simply too favourable, just as in Europe, in certain ways at least – agriculture has first arisen in warm climates, where there is no frost and especially no winter, and typically in arid ones. Or perhaps the reason that agriculture was not developped independently in Europe was simply a lack of suitable native fauna and flora. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The main problem this article has to struggle with

The problem is that the concept is messy - and made worse because the distinction between concept and definition is ambiguous. I found an interesting source by the way - Civilization: Definitions and Recommendations from the The International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations. The Icelandic scholar Jóhann Páll Árnason writes that "The problems of civilizational theory begin with the ambiguities of its most basic concept. It is a commonplace that there are two obviously different ideas of civilization: the one we use when we speak of die origins, achievements or prospects of civilization in the singular, and the other that is invoked when we discuss the criteria for distinguishing and comparing civilizations, the ways of drawing boundaries between them, or the various inventories and typologies which have been proposed by analysts of the field. WE may refer to these two notions as the unitary and the pluralistic concept of civilization. But to note that they differ—and can be opposed to each other- is not to claim that they are mutually exclusive."Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Dougweller (talk) 09:16, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Main Image

Huntington's image is not general enough to merit being so prominent in the page (his theories are far from mainstream). I've moved it to the subsection where his theories are discussed and proposed an illustrative example from ancient History as the the main image (am I being naïve when hoping that the far past is less prone to wake passions?). EduardoValle (talk) 05:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Neolithic in lede

Our lede now says that "the Neolithic, or Agricultural Revolution, [...] occurred in various locations between 8,000 and 5,000 BCE, specifically in southwestern and southern Asia, northern and central Africa and Central America". As a source it gives http://repository.ias.ac.in/21961/1/333.pdf "Origin of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration", Anil K. Gupta*, Current Science, Vol. 87, No. 1, 10 July 2004.

• The source does not seem like a strong one, and is also not in my mind a useful one for giving a good summary of the field consensus, which is what we need.
• Whether it is because of the source or not, our lede contains an obvious mistake in implying that all Neolithic beginnings happened before 5000 BCE. This lumps together independent events that happened at very different times.
• I think that later Neolithic revolutions such as the Papua-New-guinean, which our lead does not mention, might possibly have been later than 5000 BCE?
• I believe the field consensus is that the earliest clear Neolithic revolutions were in the Fertile Crescent and Yellow River basin and any simple lede is going to mention these two apart, and probably does not need to mention other details?
• Concerning other details, if we include them we need to explain it properly. One complicating detail is that some researchers think various types of crop use started long before the true Neolithic, and this may have been quite widespread in areas which did not experience a true Neolithic revolution. The other complicating issue is about the later Neolithics and whether they were truly independent or not.

Comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Undue discussion of "Axial age"?

User:Bhny has added and then [insisted upon http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Civilization&diff=566461125&oldid=566403706], a special paragraph in the lede of this article concerning the "Axial age". The re-insertion after I deleted it gives, as justification, an edit comment saying that it "is necessary as the lead supposed to summarize the article". This obviously not a convincing necessity given that the lede can never include everything in the body of any article. It is an especially weak argument in an article where everyone seems to agree that the body is not good enough and needs a lot of work.

• Is there any other justification for inserting it?
• One thing is definitely wrong. As I noted in my original removal the current wording implies there is nothing between the Neolithic and this Axial age. How do we remove this implication?
• Is it really significant enough to deserve this special mention in the lede (where many other periods are not mentioned)? In general are we giving it too much WP:UNDUE attention?

Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:27, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand. There is only one sentence in the lead about the Axial age. The rest of the paragraph mentions the middle ages, the early modern period, the age of discovery and modernity. This paragraph is summarizing four sections of the article not one. Bhny (talk) 08:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)i

You kind of answering my first bullet point, though I still do not really see the need for this paragraph in the lede, because as mentioned above we do not need to summarize everything. Going to my other bullet points:

• Second bullet point. Isn't quite wrong to be implying that there is a gap between the Neolithic and the Axial age.
• Third bullet point. It still feels like a lot of emphasis is being given to this concept of an Axial age. It stands out for me, and I would like wider comment on whether this is due weight.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Your points 1 & 3 are wrong. It would be polite for you to admit as much. There is no paragraph about the Axial age. Point 2 could be fixed by another sentence, but this problem is also in the History section below so we should fix both. I ask others to help me here. Bhny (talk) 16:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I would like to hear more opinions about point 3. I do not yet see anything "wrong" (and they are not really the types of comments which can normally be categorized as "wrong").--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess it is beyond you to admit that this paragraph is about many ages, not just the Axial age. I can't understand point 3 as it makes no sense unless you think summarizing the whole large history section in one small paragraph is somehow undue. Bhny (talk) 18:33, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

You are a bit hard on me. I have noted that there is a gap of several millenia and then an overemphasis on a term which is unusual. I see nothing wrong with making those points?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Your whole argument is about how there is a paragraph on the Axial age, which is not true. You won't admit that your points make no sense, so I will re-write them here-

• Is there any other justification for inserting a summary of the history section?
• There is nothing between the Neolithic and this Axial age. Should we include every age of history in the lead given that the lede can never include everything in the body of any article.
• Is history really significant enough to deserve this special mention in the lede?

Bhny (talk) 19:12, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Why would you re-write (indeed butcher) my points when they are only a few lines up and you do not have much sympathy for them? Let me try:

• Is there any other justification for the paragraph mentioned, other than your MOS style argument that the lede needs to summarize the body? Have you answered this? I do not think so. But you have called my question wrong, which is in itself a bit illogical.
• Why are you implying that there were thousands of years with no civilization in between the Neolithic and the so called Axial age? Again, your newest replies just stick to the argument that you are doing what the body does, but as mentioned above already we all agree that the body is very poor. And to me it seems a higher commandment to avoid ever having the article even temporarily implying something fundamentally wrong? Surely?
• I asked for more opinions about whether there is undue weight being given. Once again, calling this question wrong is a bit illogical. The question is valid. I am asking for opinions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:25, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, so I guess you now agree we are talking about a paragraph that summarizes history. We are making progress. Yes the lead should mention history since this is very important part of civilization and the way civilization is often described. It is also about one third of the article (so obviously important) and is a section that actually needs expansion and work (I think we also agree on this). Having a good summary in the lead will be a big help in this expansion. I do not mean to imply anything by omission in the summary. As you say it is impossible to have everything in the lead. The omission is also in the history section so it would be good to fix it in both places. Bhny (talk) 19:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

A question of principle seems to need addressing: whether or not the lede needs to have something about the various types of specific civilization that have existed, should it contain a paragraph which everyone seems to agree is misleading? (I do not see the relevance of whether this bad summary is based on a current article body, given that the current article body is agreed to be not good enough.) My proposal: deletion of anything misleading will improve the article, so we should delete the current paragraph until someone proposes something better (whether that proposal be based on some future improved version of the article body, or not).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The "misleading" info is an omission. I proposed fixing the omission by adding something. You already said above that the article needs expansion not reduction. "Everyone" that finds this misleading seems to be just you. (it is only us two arguing in this section). I find your rhetoric of shifting arguments a little frustrating. Bhny (talk) 22:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Well no, you also seemed to agree? Anyway, instead of saying it can be fixed, please fix it or delete it until we have something better. There is no point claiming that we have to have this paragraph because of MOS, we don't.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:12, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

No I don't agree that it is misleading, I think it can be improved. Your 'argument' as much as I can follow is that if we include different ages of civilization such as Axial, it is undue and if we leave a gap then it is misleading. So basically the paragraph should be deleted because it is too long and undue and also it should be deleted because it is too short and omits certain periods. Anyway I'm happy to make it a little longer and include the missing info, this is what I am agreeing to. Bhny (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I note that a new book by Iain Provan calls the axial age a "convenient myth". I can't see any justification for any mention of this controversial "age" in this article. It's useful to give some easy reference to when civilisation first began and terms such as Neolithic arevwidelynunderstood and accepted. Mention of other ages probably needs justification and of course sourcing.Dougweller (talk) 01:04, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Please feel free to improve things! (just no wholesale deletions please) I was just trying to reflect the body of the article, so it would be good to make any changes to both lead and body. Bhny (talk) 02:04, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Bhny, normally I am also against deletions, and I agree with that type of reasoning as per WP:PRESERVE, but as mentioned above if material gives a very undue impression deletion can be the quickest improvement. Furthermore this is not an essential part of the lede as far as I can see. It might never be possible to write a quick neat chronological summary of all major civilizations in a format fit for a lede. But also please do not miss the point which it seems Doug agrees with that the way this lede is written seems to strongly emphasize use of a term, and a way of breaking up eras, which is not widely used. Also please do not forget my concerns raised about the first part of this chronology, concerning the Neolithic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:02, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I am all for improving my humble efforts. Please go for it. All I ask is that the lead have a proportionate amount dedicated to history, which if you include the "Fall" section is about 2/3 of the article. Bhny (talk) 06:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, just to recap, I posted here after you reverted my edit. This discussion has also now led to you including a comment about the Bronze age which helps reduce my concerns. The question I have about due weight is one where I would like more comments from others. In the meantime, can you perhaps comment also on the Neolithic concern (section above)?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no opinion about your Neolithic concern. Please feel free to fix any errors you see. My text was taken from this article and wiki links, so any errors are repeated elsewhere in wikipedia. Bhny (talk) 20:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

No wikipedia article should be edited using material under portage from other wiki pages. To do so is to wreck the project by multiplying a lot of the primitive dysfunctional and poorly sourced work over numerous pages, instead of containing the damage. This article has an important theme, and thus can draw on numerous high quality works for its drafting. The rule is, wikipedia is not a reliable source. The Axial age theorum developed by Karl Jaspers is a nice college textbook cliché but is problematical, despite occasional attempts at revival. It should be removed, if only because civilization doesn't need prophets, as opposed to profits.Nishidani (talk) 21:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits! Some of the text was taken from this article (and it is still there if you scroll down). I was mostly just trying to summarize what is below and I'm pleased to see any improvements. Unfortunately the body of this article is a sorry mess. Bhny (talk) 22:36, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

But to repeat an important point, I believe that WP:MOS is much lower priority than content policies. The relevance of this is that you seem to want to argue that we are forced to actively and insistently insert something about the Axial age into the lede because it is in the present body of the article which you agree needs improvement. Ledes have a way of naturally getting too big on Wikipedia and I think they should be added to conservatively.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Bhny. Your point is well taken that the Axial Age stuff requires lead summary. The problem is just doing that for each section in a way that it is not WP:Undue. Both Andrew and yourself are correct, and the onvious compromise is to whittle the Axial age remark down to a brief sentence. It deals with a theorized efflorescence of philosophies of statecraft, ethics and (religious) metaphysics some centuries into the Iron Age that was thought to reflect a key moment in a pan-civilisational leap on the level of intellectual culture coinciding with certain seminal material, technical and political changes ( a controversial point - Hammurabi's legislation a thousand years earlier throws a spanner in the works, to cite just one point) - but we have no mention of quite a number of ideas appropriate to civilisation (the development of the phalanx, demographic overspill and the socio-geographical discontinuities of mountainous Greece arguably had more importance for the peculiar innovations in that country's emergent civilization, for example, than any analogy with the rise of Buddhism in Nepal, Confucianism in Shandong, or Zoroastrianism in Persia.Nishidani (talk) 06:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps one of the reasons someone has chosen this concept as one to help give structure is because it is useful for that. If you use this one word, you cover a lot of eras, and you perhaps avoid accusations of bias. I can understand that temptation, but I am still not sure that we need to summarise the content of the article to this level of detail. I can see why we should mention the first Neolithic civilizations. A traditional solution to this problem is to use technologies as critical turning points and Bhny has in fact done that by inserting mention of the Bronze Age. Maybe a simplistic approach but should we replace the Axial age with the Iron Age?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I was going to suggest the same thing. Yes replacing it with the Iron Age seems a good idea. Bhny (talk) 15:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and did it. I know it is very rough. Please just jump in and improve it thanks. Bhny (talk) 15:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Structure of the article

It's a little disheartening, but the basic outline of the article has not changed much from the tangled mess some of us put together as a compromise nearly a decade ago. It seems like those who have tackled this difficult article have done so in a piecemeal approach, touching up sections and, especially, the lead, while leaving alone the overall structure, even though it is lacking.

Since the topic is so difficult, I suggest using "history of the concept," currently a single section, as the guiding principle for organizing the article. The lead section can summarize the basic characteristics, but the other sections can focus on how philosophers, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and other theorists and researchers have addressed the topic through time. A number of disparate pieces of information, currently scattered throughout the article, could be brought into the "history of the concept" scheme. Fried and Service's classification is a perfect example; so is the usable material currently in the "Cultural identity" and "Complex systems" sections. "Fall of civilizations," currently a list, could be converted to prose and if possible worked into the overall historical scheme.

List of civilizations needs to be made into a separate page. That would also improve the organization of the article.

Finally, there is material here that has been unsourced for a long, long time. It's time to purge much of it, in my opinion.

These are just suggestions, but I think most people could agree that the article's basic structure is pretty unhelpful as it is now written.

- Fishal (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I think "history of the concept" is off-topic and not a suitable guide for the article. The article is not "history of the concept of the word civilization" it is "civilization". I think the lead is actually a better guide and the history sections need to be expanded from the awful link list. Bhny (talk) 22:02, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't say off topic - a huge portion of the article is devoted to the work of different theorists - but you have a point about history. The emergence of civilization is a pretty crucial topic that is badly addressed here. But even that is hard to extract from all the research and theoretical work surrounding it. Maybe definitions and broad characteristics in the lead; a section on the emergence of Civilization, what we know from archaeology, and a broad chronology (with links to more detailed history articles); and then a large section on theories and ideas, arranged chronologically. I still think the list ought to be on a separate page. Fishal (talk) 22:17, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I think no one agrees with Bhny's argument that an article about a fuzzy and controversial concept can somehow be written without discussion about the various meanings of the concept and how and why they inter-relate. The "historical" controversies around the term civilization still drive almost all discussion about it today. I have also recently edited the section with Bhny's criticism in mind, and seen no feedback about it. Having said that how to improve the rest of the article remains a question. Whatever the guiding principles should be, someone needs to propose them in a bit more concrete detail before there can be any meaningful discussion about it. In the meantime, while we have no inspired masterplan, possibly the article can be improved by more piecemeal adding in many sections, many of which seem skeletal.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:25, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

For better or worse the topic is "Civilization" not "The "historical" controversies around the term civilization". Yes have a section on "history of the concept" but in no way is "history of the concept" the basis for the article. Sorry to have to repeat myself. Bhny (talk) 14:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

You might be right about the structuring, but I'd prefer to discuss concrete proposals. I see no reason in principle to be against a structuring proposal that reads well just because of the above individual preference. Anyway, with no concrete proposal to discuss this is all just hypothetical.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:38, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I would prefer to talk about it and get ideas before attempting a massive rewrite. But I had something like this in mind:

Lead, definition, crucial characteristics of a civilization, summary of subsequent sections

==Origins of civilization==

===Development of agriculture===(Comparative approach to early agriculture in Fertile Crescent, Asia, Africa, Americas, incorporating much in the current "Characteristics" section)

===Spread=== (Comparative approach to the spreading of ideas from civilizations and to physical expansion)

==Theoretical development/history of the concept==

===Classical ideas=== (Western, nonwestern, including Ibn Khaldun)

===The Enlightenment=== (Most of the current "History of the concept" section, as well as Gibbon)

===Nineteenth century=== (Development of anthropology, contributions from archaeology, new ideas in philosophy, including Mommsen, etc.)

===Twentieth century=== (Possible subheadings for modernist and postmodernist approaches; whatever is salvageable from the unsourced section "Complex Systems"; Toynbee, etc.)

===Contemporary research and theory=== (including Diamond, etc.)

====Globalization==== (incorporating much of "Future of civilizations" section, possibly some material from "Complex systems")

==See also==

*[[List of civilizations]] (Move lists in "History" section to separate page)

- Fishal (talk) 22:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• I guess what bhny will be concerned about is that this does perhaps represent a big expansion of the history of concept aspect?
• I guess a more urgent question is whether it represents a deletion of materials currently in the article or can everything find a new home? (Expanding should never be too controversial as long as we also WP:PRESERVE.)
• Some points of detail about the history of thinking about civilization:

• First the concept and term we have today does not actually exist before the Enlightenment, so anything from earlier times is about similar concepts, related to "civilization" but not civilization as per its specific definition, such as for example economic development? This raises a question of whether we should be handling such "development" (to use a broader word) in this article or others. Argument for using this article to discuss such things is that Civilization is a widely used word still, and I can not think of a better one. Argument against is that amongst academics (and some WP editors I think) the term is sometimes seen as controversial and biased somehow?
• Secondly I think a typical treatment of such materials generally unites the classical and medieval philosophers, which includes the ones who wrote in Arabic and Hebrew. In other words, the divisions between East and West and classical and medieval are not always useful in this subject because in fact there was a "greater west" with remarkable uniformity of thinking during this long period.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

My intent is to better organize material on the different ideas and theories about civilization, focusing on the concept rather than the term. Currently that material is organized both chronologically (in the current section "History of the concept") and topically (in the sections "cultural identity", "complex systems", "fall of civilizations", and "future"). I feel that a chronological scheme would be a more clear way to organize this material, and that it would better help a reader get an understanding about this complex idea and how it has been addressed. And anyway, many details in the article currently do not follow the topical outline well at all. The "Characteristics" section has ideas from a few theorists; the list in "Fall of Civilizations" includes many writers and works about civilizations in general, not just "falls;" et cetera.

The only material I would want deleted is some of the ancient unsourced text in "cultural identity" and "complex systems". Most of this dates to the last time I was regularly editing this article,nine years ago, when standards for citing sources were much lower than today. It has been unsourced for so long, IMO it's time to trim some of it away, keeping what can be verified.

Regarding your specific section: "Classical" was a bad choice on my part, but I was thinking that it could bring together "Classical Eastern" ideas with ideas from the "Classical World", which would include the medieval Christian,Muslim and Jewish heirs to that tradition. But it was a bad word choice nonetheless; probably it should say "Ancient and medieval" instead. It would summarize, to the best extent possible, how ancient people treated the concepts that we now label "civilization." In the article we currently mention Aristotle and Ibn Khaldun, but this section could describe the contrasts that ancient people drew between themselves and "barbarian" outsiders.

Schools of thought that reject the concept entirely could fit in a "Postmodern" subsection, or somewhere else in the "20th/21st century" section; and this should also definitely be mentioned in the lead section.

I also think you raised questions about the term "development of agriculture"? IMO development is a neutral enough term for "accumulated slow changes with an identifiable result." It's certainly better than "rise of agriculture" orsomething like that.

Fishal (talk) 17:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The =Spread= section seems vague. Apart from that this new structure is an improvement. Couldn't we have separate sections there for Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age etc? Bhny (talk) 23:55, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing it. And sure, that outline I posted is very rough, very broad. If we go ahead and try to rewrite it, there will be many more necessary subsections. Fishal (talk) 03:28, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Correcting errors

I have inserted connections to sites associated with the commencement of the Neolithic. Papua New Guinea is one of the first (See Kuk Swamp). We also need to mention a link about the Cradles of Civilisation. The mention of Africa seems to be based on controversial Afro-centric views which I have ammended. I agree with the writer below as regards the overall diminution of the quality of the article. Regards John D. Croft (talk) 05:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Kush, Axum and Nok

They are listed as African civilisations of the Bronze Age. This is in error. They are Iron Age civilisations! John D. Croft (talk) 01:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

lead fails to define a topic

The lead is a bunch of weasely word definitions. It doesn't get around to defining the topic. The whole article then suffers and becomes a large dictionary entry. Bhny (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I moved a portion of the lead, now it's actually less than a screen-height. Tallest Mauve (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I've added a single sentence topic definition. The rest of the lead is still a mess. Bhny (talk) 15:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

No time right now, but that definition is wrong as there have been civilizations without writing. Quick point - civilizations are class-based, have cities (which are in part defined by having public buildings) - usually have writing, a few other characteristics. I need to find the Bruce Trigger quote where he discusses this. Got to go NOW! Dougweller (talk) 17:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Doug, just a quick point, there have also been civilisations in which "city" development is also questionable. Ancient Egypt under the old and middle kingdoms showed pallaces, temple complexes, temporary work camps and rural villages, but with an absence of "cities" as we understand them (large centres, comprising markets and specialised craft production, with centralised government structures). The absence of cities is also a feature of pre-modern civilisations of Angkor Cambodia, Sri Vijaya and the Shailendras of early Java. Personally I think the key feature of the origins of civilisations is the development of the "state" as a political form, and the consequent creation of social hierarchies. I'd be interested in your comments on this. Regards John D. Croft (talk) 05:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Bruce Trigger, in his book Early Civilizations, writes "Early civilization, as anthropologists use the term, denotes the earliest form of class-based society that developed in the course of human history." He goes on to say that they were "characterized by a high degree of social and economic inequality; power was based primarily on the creation and control of agricultural surpluses." He points out that there were early civilizations without writing. Dougweller (talk) 20:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Another quick point. The "creation and control of economic surpluses" is also questionable as a characteristic of civilisations. Robert Redford's work amongst the lowland Maya in the 1950s and 1960s established that a shifting subsistence cultivation system produced a high degree of "economic surplus", but that there were ways of creating and distributing this that resulted in socially binding feasts. Potlatch cultures and Moka cultures show similar characteristics in NW North America and in Highland Papua New Guinea. The creation and control of surpluses here was under participatory and consensual control. The central feature of civilisation seems to be the reduction of participatory and consensual methods, and a greater degree of control and direction (backed up with coercion) by an elite. The absence of a section on the "Origins of Civilisation" could remedy this I feel.John D. Croft (talk) 05:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

See [3]. I've reverted you. My experience with dictionaries is that they are often not very good with this sort of stuff, eg I've seen archeology defined as the study of the ancient past (you can do archaeology on any time period, even yesterday). I agree it could be better, but as there have been civilizations without writing I didn't think that could be left in. Dougweller (talk) 21:00, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I have taken your reference into account and updated the definition. I would prefer that we improve the topic definition rather than delete it Bhny (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

That isn't really an improvement. The word is used in a variety of ways, and putting one definition as the first sentence probably violates our WP:NPOV policy, especially when it uses the phrase "higher level of cultural...development". The definition does not match what the article says about the term. Dougweller (talk) 11:30, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the demand being made on the opening is not reasonable. If a term we are writing an article about is controversial to define then to open the article with a single definition is not balanced. This might lead to a slightly dithering opening sentence, but we should not be writing wrong things just to get neat sentences. (Please note: this does not mean we can not improve the opening. I just think we have to make sure we do not set ourselves unrealistic goals.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

My basic point is that an article is about a topic, not a word- wp:notdictionary. We don't have to include more than one definition since the article should be about the one basic meaning. We could leave out the "higher level" meaning, or just mention it in passing (assuming we pick the other meaning as the topic). At the moment the article topic seems to be Definitions and etymology of the word civilization. The "Etymology" section could be deleted or reduced to one line in the lead. I came to the article expecting it to be about how civilizations form and decline, what was the first civilization etc. The "Fall of civilizations" section isn't even prose, it's an extended bibliography. The "History" section is a bunch of links. The other sections (2,3,4,5) seem fine, I think. Bhny (talk) 13:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

"The article should be about the one basic meaning"? WP:Verifiability says, "When reliable sources disagree, present what the various sources say, give each side its due weight, and maintain a neutral point of view." There's no realistic doubt that this extends to definitions. WP:NOTADICT says, "Wikipedia articles should begin with a good definition, but they should provide other types of information about that topic as well." WP:Neutrality is about "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So it's not true that this article should be about one definition/meaning. WP:Spinout articles can be for different meanings, if the different meanings can support a need to split the information away from the main article. WP:NOTADICT is about articles not being a dictionary. It's not about not covering different definitions in respect to the topic's concept. As long as the article is not mostly a dictionary, then including different definitions is okay. It's often that the inclusion is necessary to understand the topic or to more fully/accurately understand it. Review this discussion[4] on your talk page again. And there's also WP:WORDISSUBJECT. What I do agree with you on about this article is that it mostly reads like a dictionary. 72.216.1.248 (talk) 22:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so we agree. the article reads mostly like a dictionary entry. I will add a hatnote and we can start working on transforming it into an encyclopedia entry. Bhny (talk) 15:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I do not see the agreement, and I am worried about the reasoning that for example you will delete the etymology section because it is not what you personally are interested in. I do not really see the article as very dictionary entry like, and nor do the changes you are making seem to me to make it less dictionary entry like?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

The previous lead was 3 paragraphs about usage of a word "civilization", and no information about the thing "civilization". Anyway since we have so much about the word, it may be a good idea to make a new article Civilization (word) where we could have the extended etymology and usage. There are other examples of this, such as Mormon (word) and Definitions of mathematics. Bhny (talk) 15:39, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Well just to make it clear I disagree with that proposal. There are a few sentences about the history of the word which are set up to help explain the concept. Proposing to split those words into a new article makes no sense at all. You still have not given any convincing reason that explaining the meaning of a word is a bad thing. Linking to a NOTA... is not a replacement for a proper explanation. Until now the only explanation you have given is a personal preference based on what you were looking for when you found the article, and this is obviously a very bad rationale for any edit. WP articles get used by all sorts of people looking for all sorts of things.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it's a bad idea. And the article needs to explain what is a complex concept and a term that is used in different ways. I don't have time to concentrate on the article but I'm concerned that it may not be going in a good direction. Dougweller (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how to explain it clearer. An article is about a topic, not a word. That is why we have the distinction between dictionaries and encyclopedias. Explaining the meaning of a word for a whole article isn't bad, it's just not encyclopedic. Bhny (talk) 20:57, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Then it's a good thing we don't do that. You're confused about the distinction between a concept and a word. So is the section titled etymology. - see new section below. Dougweller (talk) 09:16, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Some comments:

• I think that to argue that there mere existence of an etymology and word history section makes an article too dictionary-like is untenable and clearly not in line with the hundreds of WP articles which have such sections.
• In fact, some subjects, and this is definitely one, are impossible to explain properly (and according to WP:NPOV) if arguments about the meaning of a term are not discussed. And in many such cases the meanings in dispute include some which are considered "more old fashioned", "more modern" or similarly affected by history. (Note that this is also a case where out of date meanings are still being used and understood, and even defended, even if not everyone agrees with them. So they are not just of archaic linguistic interest.)
• That does not mean this article can not be improved, but the suggestions so far seem ham-fisted to me. Deleting all discussion of disputes and historical permutations of the meaning of Civilisation would clearly conflict with WP core content policies, especially WP:NPOV. Effectively WP would be simplifying its account of the outside world based on editor's personal preferences.
• Creating a POVFORK in order to make material disappear into an article no one will read is also definitely a no no. And that is what the above suggestions seem to me to amount to.
• My impression is that this article needs to be added to in order to give better balance, and not deleted from.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Most articles don't have or need an etymology section. The etymology is often in parentheses in the first sentence. The etymology section for this article is about 2 pages long and is the longest I've seen in any article. Bhny (talk) 22:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we simply need to change the title of the section? Because it is not really about etymology in any simple sense, and it does not read like any dictionary I have ever read, but rather it is about the history of an idea and terminology, and this article happens to be about that idea. (And not "all articles" about a complex idea with historical baggage like this one are they?) But then I think this suggestion of simply changing a section heading surely raises a question about why that would be so important? In general you have not explained this in any way I can follow, and you have also not responded to any of the more detailed remarks about the problems your proposals present. There are certainly things in this article needing work, but I think that saying it is too dictionary like is a diversion from other problems. Perhaps the article "feels" like a dictionary entry to you because it is still a bit skeletal. But this can be improved without deleting everything and violating NPOV.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:18, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not a POV fork to remove excessive dictionary-like, non-encyclopedic stuff from an article. A complex idea like evolution has no etymology, philosophy has a one sentence etymology. History of the concept is a better section heading though I don't see a need for it. And this quote is absurd- I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary.. ! What relevance is that? Bhny (talk) 08:41, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

So your explanation about why you think something is just to repeat it as if it is already obvious to everyone, and to ridicule a snippet out of context from a quotation? (If a quotation is over-done, why not fix it? This obviously has nothing to do with whether the article needs to have large parts deleted because it is too dictionary like.) You appear to be very worked up about this subject and I can not follow why. The terms "evolution" and "philosophy" have nowhere near the same baggage as "civilization" does. The point about the Johnson quote is of course that the word itself has always been controversial. It has never settled down since coming into existence. Your proposal that WP should pretend otherwise would be very much against our core content policies. It would be "wikitruth".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:32, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm arguing against the excessive length of the section. I'm not going to edit it as I can't find much there worth saving and I'm sure to be reverted without getting consensus. Whether you are I are worked up about this is beside the point. (evolution does have baggage btw) Bhny (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes of course evolution has baggage. I am a frequent editor of our articles on that topic (and not this one). But civilization is almost purely baggage, if you can follow. (Your edits do not show much familiarity with the topic, so excuse me if this is obvious to you.) As you know, the history of concept section is not long in my opinion, and it is not dictionary like in my opinion. Your focus is entirely on that section and on the lead. These are not great, but certainly not the worst parts of the article. You've not really presented any argument that convinces otherwise. You are not really engaging in discussion. Also while this article certainly can and should be improved neither your talkpage notes nor your edits are easy for me to perceive as improvements. I am just trying to explain it how I see it in the hope we can stop talking past each other.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The worst part of the article is probably the history section which is just a list of links, as I said above. Obviously I'm more concerned about the history of civilization than the baggage of the word. The lead previously had exactly nothing on history of civilization, and thus failed to summarize the four history sections of the article. Saying Your edits do not show much familiarity with the topic isn't helpful. I think my history summary is ok, and I actually wrote almost none of it. It is mostly taken from this article or the articles that are linked. Bhny (talk) 08:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if that was not helpful, but my only reason for blurting out an attempt to analyze the background to your remarks was to try to get past circular discussion. Perhaps your answer helps me understand: your interest is not in the history of the concept, but in the history sections themselves. Well, I agree that your area of interest is the bit that needs most work, but I do not think we should be deleting other stuff that interests you less. It will not fix the worst parts?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

CivilizationL improvements!

You ask for help on the existing (being-revised) article on "Civilization". Rather than suggest edits, I'd like to COMMENT and make SUGGESTIONS.

Not until late in Section 3 do you mention "levels of C."; up to here, something either is or is not a C. - and you judge the Incas FOR this concept, on the basis of a "functioning society" -- evn though they had no writing; one paragraph down, you relate that the "modern" PC term for "primitive" is "non-literate".

I idn't se you us the term "Western Civ", so common to American high-school curricula. I think it deserves saying that "our" current C., whish started in the Mideat (and was also strongly influnced by the Veda in India) is (clary) the most developed C.. While the current general interest in Chins culture emphasizes that many "civiliztion" markers were "first" invented in China -- but look at th eample of the printing press: it was a usless invenion, becau the Chinese never invented an alphabet - with which you can print many WORDS (itself a concept unknown to the Chinese) could be printed with a small charcer set. There are, of course, other examples: their "paper" was mcuh better than "our" papyrus. Maybe you don't want to get into a spitting contest - but an extensive discussionof a great variety of LEVELS of C. would be approporite: the "primitive" societies still existing are cleaarly "less civilized than "we" are...

U. Fred Koc ks, Ph.D. Dr. Tech. h.c., <www.loanl.gov/kocks>, <kocks@post.harvard.edu? WHERE do you want the the "4 tildes"? 66.27.76.131 (talk) 04:57, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with all of this and more. I disagree with the article's 1st statement that civilization has something to do with "state polities" a nonsense term that means nothing at all. In contrast, the common-sense approach is that civilization is something other than barbarism, and it is the 1st step towards defining the word. I think the fundamental problem with this article and many other wikipedia articles is that there is a politically correct outcome that is required to be achieved, the group comes to consensus on what that is supposed to look like, and the sole purpose for the creation and development of the article is to serve as a means to get there. Face it, some cultures made definable advances, while others remained stagnant for millennia. This article cannot possibly advance not one step forward until those involved are willing to state those concepts, and others, in public.Jonny Quick (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not think "state polities" is always a nonsense term, although perhaps it is so associated with nonsense jargon that it is hard to remember what it originally meant. Anyway, it is easy to criticize this article (we all do it, I think), but if some brave person would take these posts as a lead to change the article they will end up saying that civilization is "advance". That is also not a clear term, and I am not saying that to be politically correct. Generally, is this advance not defined by things like division of labour, living in villages, agriculture, complex rules to keep these things working, etc? Do you agree? I think the two big questions are how to say it all clearly, and who wants to spend time on it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

'State polities' is quite normal. It isn't jargon, either, since there are many forms of polity, from city-states onwards. Rather than 'advance' it is, surely Andrew, complexification. Things get more complex. Every stage towards the intensification of complexity is wrought by huge, sometimes monstrous costs: England's enclosures led to more efficient farming, and to the large-scale loss of commoner rights and perhaps quality of life; the rise of the coal industry meant that huge numbers of children were drafted at 7 to work the coal veins and were left half dead by phthisis etc., by the time they were pensioned off at 18; we gained a vast diversity of leisure practices, but on average leisure is reduced; we have immensely advanced cognitive improvements, and climate change might wipe us out (Lovelock estimated 90% of mankind would be wiped out within a century, perhaps an overoptimistic calculation;) We have more liberty, but 'caging' is how some theorists analyse it, a Kafkian reduction of our autonomous space. It is said often enough that the primitive world was Hobbsian, and civilization brought peace - well, warfare with stones is one thing, with atom bombs or the genocidal ovens or gulags of modernity and laogai, 100,000,000 died as a result of national policies in just 20 years of our recent history. A good place to start for anyone who would like to do the article is Michael Mann's The Sources of Social Power, which is supposed to run to 3 vols., though I only have the first two.Nishidani (talk) 12:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I've just had an edit conflict, so will post a rewritten comment. Nishidani is of course correct, "State polities" is a perfectly respectable term and used in academic sources, eg "The state in India: past and present - Page 66 ... spread of State society implying transformation of pre-State polities into State polities, and integration of local polities into structures that transcended the bounds of local polities'". On the other hand, 'barbarism' is not. Hitler's Germany was not a barbarian society, it was a civilized society. This has nothing to do with political correctness, a phrase which is pretty useless except as a way to bash others who hold ideas the phrase-wielder doesn't like. Although I know it the word 'civilized' is often used to make moral judgements, this article is about civilization, a different topic although both are too often confused. We really need to avoid a subjective/moral approach to this subject. Dougweller (talk) 12:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I guess that while being civilized is sometimes contrasted to something called barbarism, at least in subjective commentary of real events, I agree with Dougweller that barbarism is no help to us if we want clear language.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This kind of confusion is exactly why we need an etymology section. Civilisation in fact has at least two meanings. One is a morally prescriptive and ethnocentric one separating "civilisation" from "savagery" and "barbarian" (which has been around ever since Greeks called barbaroi (stutterers) as those ppeople who could not speak the superior language of Greek. The second meaning is a social-scientific type of culture, without connotations of "superior" and "inferior". The trouble is that these two different meanings gets confused in people's minds, which is why we need a Useage and Etymology, I feel.John D. Croft (talk) 06:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

BTW Nishidani, I like your comments but the problem is that now you give us even a bigger challenge! :) Seriously, yes criticism of civilization (or maybe better to say "concerns about civilization" because I do not know of a concrete anti-civilizational proposal, and indeed the concept of having a concrete rational plan not to do things by concrete rational plans is possibly logically impossible) should be a subject in the article (if it is not already). Rousseau is often mentioned as one of the critical players in the history of such criticism, taking Hobbes' state of nature comments to their logical end as it were.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Rousseau was that absolutely weird kind of bird: a fatuous airhead who managed on occasion to be extremely intelligent. I don't think that one should worry about civilization as anything more than a process of incremental complexity, which means, as Doug says, we drop the easy bits about the moral sense, and simply look at how the process is defined, what its hallmarks are, the nations that achieved that recognition, and, esp. the institutions that define civilizations. Nishidani (talk) 13:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I think I agree on the basic point of increasing complexity (although it is a certain type of complexity, so just that word on its own is not enough). My point about concerns with civilization would in any case be for a sub-section, and mainly I was just responding to your remarks.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I got into the Khazar article, not, as is widely rumoured, because I wanted to 'get at' the Jews or Israel, but because it is a fascinating example of a so-called 'barbarian people', with a semi-nomadic polity who leapt far beyond the 'great civilizations' (Christian Byzantium) and the Islamic Caliphats on their southern flank, in one crucial element of what we now consider the high achievement of Western liberal polities or civilization, i.e., religious tolerance, meaning 'think' whatever you like, no one here will punish you. Unless they had been a complex congeries of barbarian tribes, they mightn't have had that capacity to unshackle themselves from the straightjackets of monotheistic legal tyranny. Probably, in any case, Jewish advisers, as so often in periods of dramatic change, tipped the scales towards an intelligent policy. Traditional civilization is 'sedentary' and that affects thought patterns, makes it rigid, orthodox. Nishidani (talk) 13:13, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, pasturalism, which has long gone hand in hand with sendentary agriculture, is also complex and indeed hard to completely separate from any real historical "complex" community. I personally think division of labour is the common thread to most of the complexity, and surely some sources will agree with me on that, though some sources may focus more on for example the law making. But, IMHO obviously hunter gatherers have very complex nomoi, just a different kind, and the difference seems to be an effect of the new way of living, not a cause. In any case the cat herding challenge here is how to corral all these different ideas which can be found in sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I dislike the following:

1. Civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and much later in Africa. Um, last time I checked, Egypt is in AFRICA. Please re-write to "subsaharan africa"

2. Civilization or civilisation (in British English) generally refers to state polities which combine these basic institutions: a ceremonial centre (a formal gathering place for social and cultural activities), a system of writing, and a city. This would come as a great surprise to the people of Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa who had fascinating complex CIVILISATIONS but had no real writing system. Please remove writing. Also, there is no need for a ceremonial centre. There have been many villages that were part of a civilisation that did not have ceremonial centres. I think the best way to describe civilisation is this: Civilisation is the organisation of human in a way that is characterised by the growth and dominance of cities. And cities can then be defined as areas of human population so dense that they require the importation of resources. 67.70.108.31 (talk)

"subsaharan africa" seems fine by me, though I leave that edit up to others. I think the "generally refers" covers civilizations that only had 2 out of 3 institutions. The ceremonial center doesn't have to be in every village of a civilization. (I hope you don't mind that I reformatted your edit a little) Bhny (talk) 08:23, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa (note spelling) did have writing systems, and that they had syntactic elements seems to be evident from the strata-differentiated development in which early seals are replaced by copper plates. There are numerous definitions of civilisation, and we should not invent our own. Taking Rousseau's good working definition of civilisation as arising when fences were built is a good starting point. For African and other civilisations see Felipe Fernández-Armesto's superb Millenium (1995), which is a splendid corrective to the dismal science's historical paladin, the eurocentric Niall Ferguson's Civilization (2011). Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Nishidani, I guess you mean this, so I might as well paste it in. It is from the opening line of part II of the Discourse on Inequality. It actually says "civil society" but the point being made is clear enough.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain s’avisa de dire, Ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile.[5]
• The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.[6]

Yes, he is pointing to a rupture however, the last stage where nature suddenly transforms itself into a tertium quid, civil society, which in the literature is usually identified as civilisation. The problem was that the word 'civilisation' itself was not introduced into common French usage until some decades after Rousseau's essay, having been introduced by The Marquis de Mirabeau's writings only in 1757, which you can mention by sourcing it to Benveniste's essay below p.338.

To avoid WP:SYNTH we can say that R's civil society is glossed as civilisation, cf., most recently by Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment, Cambridge University Press, 2013 p.60. This is an example of civilisation defined by opposition to 'savage' or 'primitive' society. The editor of that piece, Jean Starobinski, wrote an essay on this: 'Le mot civilisation' (1983) which was apparently reprinted in his Le remède dañs le mal: critique et légitimation de l'artifice à l'âge des Lumières, Gallimard, 1989 pp.11-59, which unfortunately I haven't got. I do have Émile Benveniste 's 'Civilisation, contribution à l'histoire du mot,' originally published in Éventail de l'histoire vivante. Hommage à Lucien Febvre, Paris 1953, and now available in his Problèmes de linguistique générale, Gallimard 1966 vol.1 pp.336-345

the Ceci est à moi = ceci est à moi (downcased and italicized)

For the article, aside from that useful link to an online cite, we should perhaps refer to a standard text. I.e.,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 'Discours sur l'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes' in Jean-Jacques Rouseau, Oeuvres Complètes, ed, Jean Starobinski, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard Paris 1964, vol.3,pp.109-237 p.164.Nishidani (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, just while googling to find those handy online versions I could see that secondary sources consistently understand Rousseau to be making a comment about civilisation. (And indeed forming modern ideas in the process, including the one this article is about, which was developed by Rousseau's followers in France and Germany.) Of course his remark would have in turn been understood as a rather critical adaptation upon Hobbes and Locke, who he was nevertheless to some extent following. (They also did not use the word "civilisation" of course.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to digress, but just to complete my train of thought, Hobbes contrasted the state of nature (which is "civil war"), not with civilization but "COMMONWEALTH in Latin CIVITAS" (which involves "civil laws" and artificial convenants which could direct common power to common benefit). See for example Leviathan XVII. It was Locke of course who specifically emphasized the importance of private property in this process.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:55, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hobbes and Locke are the theoretical underpinners of what folk wisdom, that of the expropriated, saw differently:

The law locks up the man or woman< br />

Who steals the goose from off the common

But lets the greater felon loose

Who steals the common from the goose.

A massive expropriation of the commons took place, and it was shelled out to warlords, slowly transforming small landholding peasants into waged peons supplying of labour to the emergent aristocracy (in medieval times there were 150 odd sacral days where one was not obliged to work, and the destruction of the church's power lead to longer work hours) and the result was theorists who spoke about the necessity or law to stave off insurgency (Hobbes's war of all against all was a nonsensical description of a war of the few against the many - medieval societies were basically unarmed agrarian communities where people survived together), and the need to protect 'privat(ized)e property in order to establish 'civilization'. This is being repeated now. All digressive of course! Boswell's life of Dr Johnson registers the latter's dislike of 'civilization', the neologism seeping into English from Mirabeau's influence. We therefore need a section on the word, and the way its meanings developed.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I think I'd better fuck off. I've been making notes here without looking at the page and now, doing so, see Benveniste was already covered there, and from precisely the edition I have.Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Origins Section

I find it interesting that up until now this article has not spoken (except indirectly) on the origins of civilisations. The Neolithic section does not work on this. There has been much work recently on the origin of civilised polities that needs to be included. I have made an attempt at a start. You are welcome to join in. John D. Croft (talk) 06:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

In reply to the above, I do not think this is a viable course for this article. You are essentially turning this into the spread of agriculture page. The article goes too far already towards equating "civilization" with "Neolithic Revolution" anyway. Sure, it's an important aspect. The "origin of civilization" (as a concept, i.e. the concept contrasting with medieval) dates to the 16th century. Then you can retrospectively compare the developments of that time with aspects of ancient cultures. But the unavoidable wikipedienan "lists of civilisations" and what not could be kept apart from this page. Also, the spread of agriculture and the history of neolithic urban centers is extensively covered elsewhere: these topics have their own articles, so let's link them.

What this page should do is focus on the development of the concept of civilization and its criticism. This essentially covers the development of ideals of modernity between, say, 1500 and 1800, and the critical literature surrounding the topic written since the 20th century. This is a very worthwhile topic in its own right, only it's a difficult one, requiring the study of scholarly literature. But I still find it disappointing if the best Wikipedia can do is "let's slap a picture of the Great Pyramid on the page and then give a 'list of civilizations'".

The tendency of equating "civilization" with "ethnic group" (as in "a civilization" = "a culture", but ironically "culture" has exactly the same countable/uncountable problem) is very real, and may become overwhelming, but then it should be documented and/or disambiguated, and not just assumed as a given. There is room for a "list of civilizations" on Wikipedia, although it will surely and quickly devlove into a "list of ethnic groups" if all that is required finding that some source, somewhere, has mentioned "$ADJECTIVE civilization"), but then at least the problem will be contained to the list article. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Original commenter must be a troll. Words are most definitely present in the Chinese language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.42.66.209 (talk) 11:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Problems with lead

any complex society characterized by urban development, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

As a rule, any opening sentence in the lead that has eight citations after it is generally assumed to be false. It does not require eight citations to define this term. Furthermore, any society that considers themselves "separate" and dominant over the natural environment, is not "civilized", they are considered tremendously ignorant and less advanced. What you are defining is not "civilization", but Western-style patriarchy guided by Abrahamic beliefs. Viriditas (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Note: Carolyn Merchant argues that the notion of "separation and domination over the natural environment" is not a hallmark of civilization, but rather a recent notion from the 17th century that was a tenet of the early enlightenment and subsequent scientific revolution but has now fallen out of favor. It is beyond strange that Wikipedia is promoting an idea that is several centuries old as having currency in the 21st century. I know old ideas die hard but this is crazy. Viriditas (talk) 07:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Over citation in the first sentence often indicates there has been controversy, not that something is simply false. Civilization is obviously a controversial concept, and like the one source you mention, some published authors today do not like, and consider it a superceded concept from the past. Nevertheless, the concept is not dead, and to report the concept we need to explain what people say about it. Maybe the best approach is to propose alternative wording? Is you main concern about the final bit mentioning the cultural elite? I am also wondering if that particular bit really belongs in the opening line. I would have thought that a very deep division of labour is more the point, but I suppose it could be argued that to go from being a farm to be a city, that division of labour starts to include "management functions" and a "non working class" starts to develop. Is that what was intended here? Maybe someone else can comment, or maybe the cited sources or archived discussions can give insight.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The role of human sacrifice

A key characteristic of civilisations is a highly hierarchical social structures. The latest "Nature" scientific journal reported research conducted on 93 Austronesian cultures that suggested that human sacrifice has played an important role in the shift from egalitarian to hierarchical elitist cultures, through social control of subordinate classes by the elite. Given that the decisions about human sacrifice has been instituted always by priestly or secular authorities over the subordinate class of war captives, slaves or peasants, and has been used as a form of social control, preventing the subordinate groups rebelling and bringing about a more egalitarian culture, and that such human sacrifice has been justified by divine sanction (as a means by which the elite avoid responsibility), it is interesting that human sacrifice has been found mentioned in most religions, and has been found in the origins of almost every class stratified culture on the planet (Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Mycenaean Greece, Rome, the Levant, also Mesoamerica and Incas, together with Celtic, German, Scythian, and numerous African kingdoms and chieftaincies. John D. Croft (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Severe problems in the Origins of Civilization section

Seriously, what the heck? How has this stood for so long? There are distressingly few citations, to start, and this should probably be deleted in its entirety. Some specific criticisms:

"Historically civilizations were assumed by writers such as Aristotle to be the natural state of humanity, so no origin for the Greek polis was considered to be needed. The Sumerian King List for instance, sees the origin of their civilization as descending from heaven. However the great age of maritime discovery exposed the states of Western Europe to hunter-gatherer and simple horticultural cultures that were not civilized." During the Greek and Roman ages, most of Western Europe were hunter-gatherers without written language or urban development until they were forced to adopt Roman civilization. This bit of the paragraph is a fairy tale, and while Greek philosophers might have had erroneous views on their history (without a citation I have no reason to actually think that's true), European discoverers were fully aware of their uncivilized pasts. In fact, before the ideological development of racism, European explorers often compared African and American hunter-gatherers to Europe's then-fairly-recent past.

"To explain the differences observed, early theorists turned to racist theories of cultural superiority, theories of geographic determinism, or accidents of culture. After the second world war these theories were rejected on various grounds, and other explanations sought" Um, besides the bad grammar, 'geographic determinism' is still a major explanation for the development of cultures. And the paragraph continues to conflate "early classical Greek theorists" with "early postclassical European theorists," which is both weird and confusing.

Somebody who isn't an idiot needs to fix this. Delete the whole dang paragraph and start over. 2601:197:200:45CC:D94C:DF79:8CF:874E (talk) 12:43, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to contribute if you think you can make it better. --BurritoBazooka (talk) 12:34, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Western Europe ceased being hunter gatherers thousands of years before the Greco-Roman period. Celtic Oppida were large urban settlements. Your work here is decidedly wrong.

The neolithic revolution is not the origin of civilisation. The neolithic revolution did not immediately lead into the kinds of social stratification associated with civilised cultures. It was much much later, with the development of "states", that we see the kinds of social structures associated with civilisations. I have tried to edit the beginning to take this into account. John D. Croft (talk) 21:13, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

BC map?

I don't see any explanation of why the map in the Cultural section is labeled "B.C" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.119.204.117 (talk) 16:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The English word "civilization" comes from the 16th-century French civilisé ("civilized"), from Latin civilis ("civil"), related to civis ("citizen") and civitas ("city").[17] The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process (1939), which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period.[18] In The Philosophy of Civilization (1923), Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions: one purely material and the other material and ethical. He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress".[page needed] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.40.44.96 (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Civilization. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090426042806/http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15618.html to http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15618.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080515112558/http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/oo/sidebars/America/Rockefeller.html to http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/oo/sidebars/America/Rockefeller.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060712162009/http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo/backissue/s2006/laszlo-1.shtml to http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo/backissue/s2006/laszlo-1.shtml
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110814021505/http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/Great_Transitions.pdf to http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/Great_Transitions.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060830212141/http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/faculty/turchin/HistDyn.htm to http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/faculty/turchin/HistDyn.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:43, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Civilization. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140530140606/http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/Carneiro.htm to http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/Carneiro.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:40, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Civilizations for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Civilizations is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Civilizations until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Considering removing image of Temple of Bacchus from "Examples of civilization"

The Temple of Bacchus in Lebanon I don't believe is a good example to include in the "Examples of civilization" gallery, because it is a temple built in a Greek/Roman style after the city's capture by Alexander the Great. The gallery already includes two examples of Roman and Greek architecture, and a third paints a skewed picture of what "civilization" looks like. It could be replaced with something else, such as the Ziggurat of Ur as an example of Sumerian civilization. HyenaButter (talk) 06:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

This article is terrible

Civilization is not properly defined, the characteristic markers seem to be put in negative tint. There is no stratification necessary to model a civilization. Perharps, rewording would be beneficial 103.210.42.141 (talk) 12:26, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I removed "imposed by a cultural elite" which just seems weird and obviously not a necessary part of the definition. Feel free to edit it further. If you want to see how really terrible and useless this article used to be, look back in the history- [[7]]. Volunteer1234 (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

"Dawn of civilization" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Dawn of civilization. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 15#Dawn of civilization until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TheAwesomeHwyh 20:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Iran the first....

The only one of these refs I can access in full says " further exploration of two nearby mounds found evidence of a large city, one that may have rivaled contemporary Ur in Mesopotamia." so this hardly supports the claim in the text, nor the dates. Nor does Jiroft culture; this seems to be agreed as an early Bronze Age culture, much later than 7,000 BC. I wonder if the ip's very first edit, back in April, is relevant? Johnbod (talk) 15:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@Johnbod: as the IP stated they would sock - and clearly have been using at least two addresses to edit and has been making personal attacks, I've protected the page, as I felt that any other Admin would have done the same. Doug Weller talk 09:24, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller and Johnbod: this is not my IP address: 2601:940:C000:46A0:C68:D0D6:A543:4F4D.

2607:9880:4030:A8:8C3:AB40:33BC:29B5 (talk) 15:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Absence of the Americas

Short shrift is given to the Americas in this article. I see a misleading comment about the Incas and Aztecs and one photo -- and that's about all. A couple of photos and some text would balance the article. When I get around to it, I may do it. Somebody should. Smallchief (talk) 09:28, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

eurocentric views???

The "Eurocentric" POV section is completely racist, false, and dependent on certain authors. For example, Herodotus, called the father of history by many, wrote his books on the Greco/Persian conflict from a completely neutral POV, relying on evidence and facts, even putting disclaimers in his books about some of the stories he was told, and how he didn't believe them, but was merely recording them for posterity so the future reader could make up THEIR OWN MINDS, thus garnering the title, "Father of history!" yet, reading that section, one might be led to believe since he was European, he must've been writing from a jaded "Eurocentric" POV. It also makes no mention how MOST ancient writings are tilted in favor of the "victors", instead making an argument it is somehow only "White/European" history that suffers from this problem, and/or how ALL European authors throughout time are guilty of it! Why don't we have a disclaimer on the "Egypt" portal letting everyone know they claimed victory on virtually every inscription they ever made, despite archaeology definitively proving many of these inscriptions are nothing more than propaganda, often taking credit for victories never won!!!??? How come the "China" portal doesn't have a warning that Chinese history is tilted towards the viewpoint of Chinese authors, who vilify everyone from the Mongols to the English, whether they deserve to be demonized or not? Why is it only a "Eurocentric" POV disclaimer added? perhaps because the author is a non-white who was raised in the western world dominated by whites and has a bone to pick because he/she doesn't feel "empowered" enough? this is OPINION, not fact!!! and it should be removed entirely!!! the reader doesn't need a disclaimer like that! And if we are going to have that sort of disclaimer, than it should be on EVERY page that has to do with ANY culture from the past guilty of leaving behind writings that have proven to be false or tilted in the favor of one side unfairly, should it not? is this site not dedicated to providing facts? why is this being allowed to stay on the page? let alone being protected? more anti US/America/white people are bad propaganda? on a research site that's supposed to deal with FACTS???? WTH Wikipedia???? Grim7839 (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this whole section was copied from a student's sandbox] some 5 weeks ago. It is poorly written, often unintelligible, and relies too much on a single article from the 1980s, about designing school curriculums. I'm inclined to remove the lot, unless someone wants to improve it quickly. Johnbod (talk) 17:37, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, now done. A little might be salvaged, but not much. Johnbod (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

There's a grain of truth in the Eurocentric argument. The Americas get short shrift in this article -- and the sentence about urbanism in the Americas is downright insulting and misleading. Smallchief (talk) 17:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I understand the concerns with the specific manner in which the section about Eurocentrism was written, and why it was problematic enough to be removed. However, the point of it seemed to be a historiographical exploration of the historical and to some extent ongoing Eurocentrism of civilization scholarship--which no doubt could be explored in a way that would better satisfy Wikipedia's needs for tone and ample documentation than the section, as written, did. This important and relevant historiographical topic is not merely the equivalent of noting that ancient Egyptian chroniclers, for instance, were biased. The Eurocentric element in modern historical scholarship is a much bigger issue than that, and one which theoretically might merit exploration in an article such as this one. Also, the use of scare quotes around "empowered" above strikes me as a disrespectful and inappropriate way for a Wikipedia editor to speculate about another editor's personal feelings. Jcejhay (talk) 17:02, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

"The Eurocentric element in modern historical scholarship" would rate its own article - I think that is actually less evident relating to "Civilization" than to most topics - the existence and importance of at least some non-Euro civilizations, notably ancient Egypt, was recognised from the start of studying the subject. Johnbod (talk) 18:20, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Reading this article and changing a couple of biased statements, I came to the conclusion that the article needs a whole section on the civilization in the Americas. They are not compatible in many respects with Eurasian civilizations. I can do the addition (eventually) if nobody else comes forward. Smallchief (talk) 19:12, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know so much - at present the article has very little on specific examples/actual history, & I think we want to keep it that way, or before we know it will turn into another long and incompetent potted world history. Looking at your changes, Bryan Ward-Perkins is surely given too much prominence. The opposite view, that the collapse of Roman Europe did not have "deleterious impacts" (sic) on living standards, is surely all but WP:FRINGE? Johnbod (talk) 20:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's fringe at all. Not if we look at history as being about everybody and not just elite males. 80 percent of the people in the Roman Empire were farmers, mostly poor, and they may have been better off after the fall of Rome than before. Or at least not any worse. The 6th century sounds pretty awful, I agree, but in most of the former Roman Empire it was more from disease and a cooler climate impacting agriculture than the fall of the Empire. The article Agriculture in the Middle Ages (largely written by yours truly) details some of the impact the fall of the empire had on the average farmer. Smallchief (talk) 21:51, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Eventually - as with the Black death, the descendants of those who managed to survive probably had an easier life. How much an article on "civilization" should be about subsistence farmers is a question - which no doubt also arises discussing Pre-Columbian cultures. Johnbod (talk) 15:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Neutral POV problem

This article, in its current form, is excessively negative in its treatment of the subject matter. There's a lot of loaded language here. Take the lead section: "Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings." Technically this could be viewed as true, but it's worded to make civilization sound scary and oppressive. Lots of ink goes into topics like supremacism, war, and social inequality, but the advances of civilizations in areas such as science, technology, and medicine, as well as considerable advantages in prosperity and widespread knowledge, are either ignored or downplayed compared to the negatives.

I also question the use of Derrick Jensen as a source. He gets a long paragraph under the "Future" heading---his own views represent a full quarter of the entire section---but he is a fringe figure, not really known or respected anywhere outside of anarchist and radical environmentalist circles. He is literally an advocate for terrorism, calling people to destroy dams and other vital infrastructure.

The article gives a mouthpiece to radical ideological partisans instead of conveying a balanced picture. There should be more sources advancing the positive benefits of civilized, technological, and literate societies---I would suggest Lawrence H. Keeley's "War Before Civilization" as one, presenting compelling evidence that larger, more organized societies quite possibly decrease violence.

ConstantineTheTwelfth (talk) 05:21, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Criticism section

We need a criticism section. Anarcho-primitivists should add some information. 2601:940:C000:4CD0:A57B:2938:818D:A891 (talk) 01:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

No we don't. See the second paragraph of Wikipedia:Criticism. HiLo48 (talk) 03:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Try reading the article you gave me. It says criticism sections are necessary if there is opposition.

This article needs sections from both proponents and opponents to achieve true NPOV.

Plus, you can't dismiss that criticisms of civilization do exist and leave those out of the article.

2601:940:C000:4CD0:1139:5ECD:2F60:AF1 (talk) 05:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

We typically only add "Criticism" sections to articles on viewpoints, broadly construed. Articles like United States, China or Ancient Greece do not have such sections, although they include information that most readers would agree is negative. Furthermore, anarcho-primitivists are a minority. There is a WEIGHT problem with mentioning that they exist at all, just as modern Flat Earthers are not notable enough to be worth mentioning on the article Earth. wikinights _talk 06:06, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 July 2020 and 31 August 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Litzi813, Siraidanwilliams, Byte-the-dust.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Weird definition

Social stratification = condition for civilisation? That sounds risible.

--78.193.35.108 (talk) 15:44, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Who is referring to Athens as the birthplace of democracy?

An image caption has this claim:

Athens is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy

However, I didn't see anything in the source cited about Athens being widely referred to as the birthplace of democracy, and recent archeological work has disputed this reputation, like doi:10.1017/aaq.2022.31. Freoh (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

No it hasn't. Even if the conclusions of this paper become widely accepted, this is still 1,000 years after Athens. Johnbod (talk) 01:38, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

The point is that it doesn't make sense to describe Athens definitively as the "birthplace" of democracy when democratic processes clearly developed independently around the world and there's a lot of the history we don't know. The statement that Athens is widely referred to as the birthplace of democracy is not backed up by a source. Freoh (talk) 09:55, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

See the other place you've started this hare - Talk:Democracy. Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Dubious concept and reference

The article says:

"The notion of world history as a succession of "civilizations" is an entirely modern one. In the European Age of Discovery, emerging Modernity was put into stark contrast with the Neolithic and Mesolithic stage of the cultures of many of the peoples they encountered."

There were 2 popular notions of history:

1. As a succession of stages of development (progress);

2. As rise and fall of civilizations.

There was not a popular notion about succession of ever-progressive "civilizations." In the cited sentence "modern" are "theories on the origin of states," not the concept of "succession of civilizations," and the article deals with the origin of states, not civilizations and not the concept of progress.--Maxaxa (talk) 04:18, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

References

Widely referred to by many?

A recent edit by Doug Weller changed an image caption so that it now reads: Greece is widely referred to by many as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy. Isn't this redundant wording? Shouldn't this opinion be attributed? And isn't it better worded in the active voice? I don't understand this change at all.      — Freoh 23:00, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

It's sort of WP:SKYISBLUE. I expect it's referenced somewhere in the text - have you looked? We often don't reference caption statements covered in the article. Johnbod (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

This claim isn't as obvious and uncontroversial as "the sky is blue". It's an opinion that needs to be attributed. And no, Greece isn't discussed in the article.      — Freoh 01:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

You didn't say there were 2 refs! No it doesn't need attributing, especially in a caption. You must know it is a tremendous cliche which it would be silly to attribute to any one source (or two). I see you have had a go at rewording it anyway. Probably more could be done. Johnbod (talk) 01:19, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia guidelines, in-text attribution should always be used for biased statements of opinion. Why are you opposed to my proposed changes?      — Freoh 01:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Since this has been the settled opinion of most historians for some 300 years, I don't accept that it is "biased statements of opinion". Who would one attribute it to - some random modern academic? That would be misleading. Johnbod (talk) 01:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

What makes you say that this is the settled opinion of most historians?      — Freoh 02:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

It's called knowledge! Try reading some. What makes you think it is "biased"? [8] Johnbod (talk) 04:20, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

We do not need sourcing for the settled opinion of most historians because that is only on a talk page. This discussion should be about whether we need sourcing for widely referred to. Note that this statement is not in Wikipedia voice. It is just stating that this is a common opinion. With that in mind, I do think this is verging on a "sky is blue" statement. I just did a google book search of Greece and Western civilization and I find pages and pages of results where this assertion is literally made in the titles of the books. But do we need to cite those books to justify a statement like this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

BTW, "attribution" is also not really the right term for what could be requested here. When we have to source that an idea is common then we do not need a single person to attribute the opinion to, but rather a "tertiary source" which surveys popular ideas. If we Wikipedians go around counting how many people have said something, in order to see if it is common, then we are arguably doing original research. Another approach to the "legal question" here is that if we look at a few examples in the academic literature we might agree that the idea is obviously being treated by experts as a commonly held opinion. I tend to think that this is the case here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)