1481 The Evolution of Civilization

Civilization is when people join together to not only protect their own lives but to improve the lives of their offspring and create optimistic plans for their progeny. An interesting and profound thing about civilizations is that they come and go. It seems logical and preferable that civilizations should improve upon themselves indefinitely, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. When people talk about civilizations, they usually do it in terms of things, such as farming, industrialization, and scientific progress. Or they do it in ideological terms such as monarchy to democracy to tyranny. And sometimes they discuss the abuse of the monetary system, all trying to explain why civilizations eventually collapse. Catastrophic events like plagues, floods and famine are commonly mentioned, and foreign invaders get lots of blame. However, civilizational collapse is actually a lot more basic than that. In fact, it’s completely evolutionary: the cycle of strong men creating good times which create weak men which lead to bad times. A simple progression from one psychological state to another. Like the generations in the Bible, each begetting the next, so too with civilization. Succinctly stated, civilization begat inequality; inequality begat inadequacy; inadequacy begat resentment; resentment begat contempt; contempt begat malevolence; and malevolence begets perversity & spite; which ends civilization.