Scott Nearing (1883-1983)
Civilization and Beyond:
Learning from History
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Preface
INTRODUCTION:
Thoughts about History and Civilization
PART I
The Pageant of Experiments with Civilization
1.
Experiments in Egypt and Eurasia
2. Rome's Outstanding Experiment
3. The Origins of Western Civilization
4. The Life Cycle of Western Civilization
5. Features Common to Civilizations
PART II
A Social Analysis of Civilization
6. The
Politics of Civilization
7. The Economics of Civilization
8. The Sociology of Civilization
9. Ideologies of Civilization
PART III
Civilization Is Becoming Obsolete
10.
World-wide Revolution Disrupts Civilization
11. Western Civilization Attempts Suicide
12. Talking Peace and Waging War
PART IV
Steps Beyond Civilization
13. Ten
Building Blocks for a New World
14. Moving Toward World Federation
15. Integrating a World Economy
16. Conserving our Natural Environment
17. Re-vamping the Social Life of the Planet
18. Man Could Change Human Nature
19. Man Could Break Out of the Age-Long Prison-House of
Civilization
and Enter a New World
PREFACE
LEARNING FROM
HISTORY
Human history may
be viewed from various angles. The easiest history to write concerns
the doings of a few well known people and their involvement in some
memorable events. History may also concern itself with inventions
and discoveries: the use of fire, of the wheel or smelting metals.
It may center around sources of food, means of shelter, or the
making of records. It may be concerned with the construction and
decoration of cities, kingdoms and empires.
Social history enters the picture with travel,
transportation, communication, trade. Human beings group themselves
in families, clans and tribes, in voluntary associations; they
compete, plunder, conquer, enslave, exploit; they co-operate for
construction and destruction. Political history is but one aspect of
man's group contacts and group projects.
There have been histories of particular civilizations
and of civilization as a field of historical research. With minor
exceptions none of the authors that I have consulted has attempted
an analytical treatment of civilization as a sociological
phenemenon.
Scientists start from hunches, examine available data,
advance tentative conclusions, test them in the light of wider
observations, and round out their research by formulating general
principles or "laws." This scientific approach has been used in many
fields of observation and study. I am applying the formula to one
aspect of social history: theappearance, development, maturity,
decline and disappearance of the vast co-ordinations of collective,
experimental human effort called civilizations.
"Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they?"
asked Byron. He might have added: "What were they? How did they come
into being? What was the nature of their experience? Why did they
rise from small beginnings, develop into wide-spread colossal
complexes of wealth and power, and then, after longer or shorter
periods of existence, break up and disappear from the stage of
social history?"
Such questions are far removed from the lives of people
who are busy with everyday affairs. In one sense they are
remote; in the larger picture, however, they are of vital concern to
anyone and everyone now living in civilized communities. If
Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians built
extensive empires and massive civilizations that flourished for a
time, then broke up and disappeared, are we to follow blindly and
unthinkingly in their footsteps? Or do we study their experiences,
benefit from their successes and learn from their mistakes? Can we
not take lessons out of their voluminous notebooks, avoid their
blunders and direct our own feet along paths that fulfil our lives
at the same time that they meet the widespread demand for survival
and well-being?
Civilization has been extensively experimental. Several
thousand years, during which civilizations have appeared,
disappeared and reappeared, have been too brief to establish and
stabilize a hard and fast social pattern. As the complexity of
civilizations has increased, variations and deviations have grown in
number and intensity. With the advent of western civilization a
culture pattern is being put together which differs widely from its
predecessors.
All civilized peoples seem to have developed from
simple beginnings and experimented with broader and more complicated
life styles. In western civilization the number of experiments has
increased and the span of their deviations seems to have broadened.
Under the circumstances an analysis of civilization must take for
granted not only social change but the development of, human society
along lines which link up the outstanding structural and functional
ideas, institutions and practices of successive civilizations.
I propose in this inquiry to state certain accepted
facts from the history of civilizations and of contemporary
experience. I also propose to analyze the facts and generalize them
in such a way that the results of the study may provide an
understanding of the human social past, together with some
guide-lines that will prove useful in the formulation and
implementation of the present-day policy and procedure of civilized
peoples, nations, empires and of the western civilization.
This book is not a popular treatise, nor is it a
textbook. Rather, it is an attempt to summarize an area of critical
human concern. Academia may not use such material: nevertheless it
should be available to students and administrators who must plan and
direct the social future of humankind.
Civilization and Beyond rounds out a series of
studies that I began in 1928 with Where Is Civilization Going?
The series has extended through The Twilight of Empire
(1930), War (1931) and The Tragedy of Empire (1946).
Up to 1914 my field of study was confined largely to the economics
of distribution. The war of 1914-18 pushed me rudely and decisively
into the broader field. I have described the process in my political
autobiography: Making of a Radical (1971).
I hope that this study will provide a useful link in
the chain of material dealing with the structure and function of
man's social environment, leading directly into an action program
that will conclude the preservation and loving economical use of
nature's rich gifts and the dedication of thousands of young
aspiring men and women to the good life here, now and indefinitely,
into a bright, productive and creative future.
As of this date seven publishers have examined the
manuscript of this work and declined to publish it. All felt that it
would not find any considerable reading public. Nevertheless, I feel
that the work should be printed and distributed because it carries a
message that may be of first rate importance to the future of my
fellow humans.
Scott Nearing.
Harborside,
Maine
May 5, 1975
