What is civilization in history. Civilization - what is it? The meaning of the concept, types of civilizations. The new meaning of the term "civilization"

Cultural and material values, social management organizations. These are certain priority areas, forms of activity and norms presented in various material objects.

  1. Culture is a set of norms, rules and values ​​entrenched in the consciousness and practice of society. For example, these are language, literature, type of thinking, technology, science and traditions.
  2. Ideology is a system of social theories, ideas and views. In particular, this includes political views, religion, aesthetics, morality, philosophy and law.
  3. The economy is a system of economic management. In particular, this is the division of labor, methods of production and forms of ownership.
  4. Politics is a system of government. In particular, these are parties, political system, social institutions and administrative art.

The concept of civilization is also applicable to various societies that have gone beyond the level of the primitive communal system. That is, this is a stage in the development of mankind, following barbarism, primitiveness and savagery.

Consider the main signs of civilization. This is the presence of cities that are centers of cultural and economic life, the separation of physical and mental activity, the emergence of writing. The concept of civilization is not a model. Therefore, here we can talk about different ones that can be classified as civilized. Consider In different time periods in the world there were Catholic, Chinese, ancient, ancient Egyptian, Islamic civilizations. All of them had their own distinctive features, but also had much in common.

Civilizations are divided into two main types. First, these are the primary civilizations. They arise in the ethnic environment and are also divided into two levels. Mother and origin civilizations emerge spontaneously. Subsidiary civilizations are formed from societies of the original type as a result of the interaction of the ethnic periphery and the sociocultural factor.

Secondly, these are secondary civilizations. They arise as a result of a qualitative restructuring and improvement of socio-normative traditions, norms and principles in already fairly developed societies.

And civilization has some signs. For example, this is the spread of their social norms based on a certain way of life. That is, there is a tendency to unite civilizations into one whole. Most often this happens through long wars.

Each civilization creates around itself a socio-cultural field that influences neighboring ethnic groups. In a developed society, there are religious and ethical systems, expressed in rules, traditions, values ​​and norms.

What is the reason for the difference in the main features of civilizations? It is worth remembering that each society is formed in unique conditions. The development of civilization is influenced by economic and cultural potential, historical environment in the form of various ethnic groups, natural landscape and even climatic conditions.

So, we have considered the main features of developed societies. Here it is worth recalling another important definition. to the development of society has several important distinguishing features. First, he makes a man a creator of history and progress. Secondly, the spiritual factor in the development of society plays an important role in the civilizational approach. Thirdly, the uniqueness of the history of individual peoples, societies and countries is also taken into account.

from lat., - civil, state). It is impossible to give an absolute definition of the concept. Civilization determines the level and stage of social development, material and spiritual culture (in Marxist literature). Civilizations control the spiritual progress of mankind, they differ in blood (Slavic, Romano-Germanic) and in spirit (Orthodox Christian and Western Christian). Modern civilization is a combination of technological achievements and the comfort associated with them.

Civilization replaced barbarism or early antiquity, when, according to Aristotle, the human world was divided into “free” and “slave by nature”. In a broad sense, civilization is considered as a stable socio-cultural community (cultural-historical type) of people and countries, as a synonym for culture or the confessional world (Christian, Muslim, etc.). In a narrower sense, civilization as a superethnos (according to Gumilyov) is peoples consolidated by some spiritual kinship, psychological similarity and mutual sympathy (complimentarity). Superethnoi are characterized by socially heterogeneous times, and contacts between them often give a negative result. Contact between civilizations or superethnoi with heterogeneous social time is impossible. The forcible imposition of some "progressive" cultural and historical traditions on others gives rise to a centaur (for example, when modernization is identified with Westernization). Civilization is an integral super-ethnic system with circumboundary energy-saturated zones, a thin social stratum of the intellectual and spiritual elite.

The natural-geographical factor is one of the foundations for the formation of civilizations. This is reflected in natural analogues: civilizations and great historical rivers, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific, Danube, steppe, Eurasian, etc. According to the technology of production and management, relations and the mechanism for regulating human activity, civilizations of the "traditional" and "technogenic" types are distinguished. In the modern world, civilization is also seen as the "comfort" or convenience that technology makes available to us. The creation and use of a comfortable living environment contributes to the fusion of a person with a technical team, which leads to the loss of an internal need to be not only civilized, but also cultural.

Among modern civilizations (in a broad sense), Western European Christian, Muslim, Indian Hindu, Chinese Buddhist-Confucian, Latin American Catholic, Meso-African (Black Africa) and others stand out. Western European civilization includes the Romano-Germanic world, the Anglo-Saxon and the boundary Anglo-American superethnoi. Muslim - Arabic, Turkic and Malay superethnoi; Chinese - Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese superethnoi. L.N. Gumilyov also singles out the Eurasian (Russian) superethnos. The polycentrism of civilizations is manifested in a variety of types of perception of space-time, as well as in socio-psychological, confessional, geo-economic and other features. Western European civilization is characterized by a culture of reason and human rights. dynamism (revolutions), pragmatism, Protestant ethics of individualism, etc. Muslim integrism, appeal to Confucianism, personal self-restraint and social solidarity, the priority of the state over the individual stand out in Eastern civilization. The most important feature of Japanese culture is the continuity of the established cultural and historical traditions, the inseparability of the past and the present, the absence of sharp transitions between them. The following scheme of Japanese dialogue with other cultures from the Middle Ages to the present has developed: the Japanese soul and Chinese wisdom, the Japanese soul and Western knowledge (rationalism), and in recent decades - American knowledge.

Modern civilizations differ in the degree of structured society - traditional and civil. In Western European civil society, meritocracy (quality elite) dominates over aristocracy (blood elite). Traditional society dominates in China and India.

The term "civilization" appeared relatively recently. In science, the point of view was established that it was first used by the Marquis de Mirabeau in his treatise "The Friend of the Laws" (1757). He wrote: "Civilization is softening of morals, courtesy, politeness and knowledge, spread in order to observe the rules of decency and so that these rules play the role of the laws of the community."

The great enlighteners Voltaire, Rousseau used only the verb "civilize". But the term "civilization" was used more and more confidently by Holbach and other thinkers, although in a somewhat vague sense.

A similar process took place during this period in England. The first use of the term "civilization" in England was recorded in 1767. There is a point of view that this is due to the activities of the English enlighteners.

At that time, the word "civilization" carried a narrow, specific meaning; its meaning was to contrast "civilization" and "unenlightened peoples", as well as "civilization" and the "dark ages" of feudalism and the Middle Ages. A similar tradition comes from the era of antiquity: the opposition of one's culture, spirituality and political organization to all "barbarian customs", the way of life of "savages". In Athens, there was a saying: “It is better to be a slave in Athens than a warrior among the Persians,” that is, under autocratic power.

Only in 1819 the word "civilization" first appeared in the plural, which indicates the beginning of the recognition by researchers of the diversity and differences in the civilizational structure of peoples over the millennia of world history.

The process of development of society means the constant interaction of various civilizational layers (a civilizational layer is a set of relations of a certain type), divided into public and non-public. The main thing is to learn to see in the civilizational process a change in an integral system with the relative autonomy of all its components, all layers of the development of society. It is necessary to reveal the role of non-public sectors, including the biological principle in human behavior, the importance of the environment in the development of the civilizational process.

It is advisable to single out several macro layers of the civilizational process, namely: 1) habitat; 2) biological and ethnic processes; 3) productive forces, the production of material goods; 4) industrial relations; 5) the social structure of society (castes, clans, estates, classes); 6) institutions of power and management; 7) religious values, mentality; 8) interaction of local civilizations . {1}

Science knows many definitions of the concept of "civilization". Civilization is understood as a qualitative specificity (originality of material, spiritual, social life) of a particular group of countries, peoples at a certain stage of development. Here is one of the modern definitions of this concept. " Civilization is a set of spiritual, material and moral means with which a given community equips its member in his opposition to the outside world.

According to a number of researchers, civilizations have decisively differed and differ from each other, as they are based on incompatible systems of social values. Any civilization is characterized not only by a specific social production technology, but also by a culture corresponding to it to no lesser extent. It has a certain philosophy, socially significant values, a generalized image of the world, a specific way of life with its own special life principle, the basis of which is the spirit of the people, its morality, conviction, which determine a certain attitude towards oneself. This main life principle unites people into the people of a given civilization, ensures its unity throughout its own history.

Among the many civilizations, historians distinguish the so-called traditional societies: Ancient India and China, the states of the Muslim East, Babylon and Ancient Egypt. Their original cultures were aimed at maintaining the established way of life. Preference was given to traditional patterns and norms that absorbed the experience of their ancestors. Activities, their means and goals changed slowly.

A special type of civilization was European, which began its run in the Renaissance. It was based on other values. Among them is the importance of science, the constant striving for progress, for changes in established forms of activity. Another was the understanding of human nature, his role in public life. It was based on the Christian doctrine of morality and the attitude to the human mind as created in the image and likeness of the divine and therefore capable of comprehending the meaning of being.

Thus, the civilizational approach to the historical process presupposes taking into account and studying, first of all, that peculiar, original thing that exists in the history of a people or an entire region.

There are several options for a civilizational approach to the study of world history:

Thus, the Russian historian I. Ya. Danilevsky (1822-1885) wrote that there is no world history, but only the history of these civilizations, which have an individual closed character. Danilevsky's general scheme for the development of cultural and historical types is cyclic: it includes the stage of origin, which Danilevsky calls the "ethnographic period", followed by the period of "middle history", during which the formation of statehood takes place. The culminating stage in the development of a cultural-historical type is its civilizational stage, that is, the "flourishing" and the realization of all its possibilities. After it, the so-called "decline" inevitably begins, the stagnation of the cultural-historical type, which can be very long (as, for example, in China), or the life of the cultural-historical type ends in a catastrophe, as happened with the Roman Empire. Dying, cultural-historical types turn into "ethnographic material", which mixes with other ethnic groups and, having lost its originality, begins a new round of development as part of another cultural-historical type. Cultural-historical types, which, according to Danilevsky, obey the laws of the biological cycle, at the same time retain their individuality in the process of their historical development and go through the same stages by no means in the same way.

Figure 1.3. AND I. Danilevsky

In Danilevsky's theory, the concepts of "civilization" and "culture" are practically synonymous.

With the development of the theory of values ​​(M. Weber and others), the concepts of "civilization" and "culture" were brought closer. Spiritual culture began to be understood primarily as a system of values ​​and ideas inherent in a given society. {2}

It is known that F. Engels, following L. Morgan, singled out a three-link scheme: barbarism - civilization - communism. This "Marxist" version is supported by those who believe that socialism can become a reality.

A great contribution to the development of the theory of civilization was made by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) - not an academic scientist, but a self-taught person, whom S.S. Averintsev called "a brilliant amateur."

Noting the multiplicity of ways of development of civilizations, like Danilevsky, Spengler believed that each civilization went through stages in its development similar to the stages in the human life cycle: birth, childhood, youth, maturity, old age and death. Having considered the 7 largest civilizations of world history (Egyptian, Chinese, Arabic, Greco-Roman, Mexican, Semitic and Western), he came to the conclusion: the average life cycle of a civilization is about 1000 years. In the same famous work, The Decline of the West, Spengler speaks of the inevitable death of Western European civilization (just as the greatest civilizations of world history died before).

Central to Toynbee's concept is the concept of civilization, a closed society characterized by a set of defining features. Criteria scale,

allowing to classify civilizations, Toynbee is very mobile, but two of these criteria remain stable - this is, firstly, religion and the form of its organization and, secondly, a territorial sign. "... The universal church is the main feature that allows us to classify societies of the same kind.

Another criterion for classifying societies is the degree of remoteness from the place where the society originally arose" .

According to these criteria, Toynbee identifies 21 civilizations. Among them:

Egyptian, Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Mayan, Inca,

Hellenic, Western, Orthodox Christian (in Russia), Far Eastern (in

Korea and Japan), Iranian, Arabic, Hindu, Mexican, Yucatan and

Babylonian. "The number of known civilizations," writes Toynbee, "is small. We were able to identify only 21 civilizations, but it can be assumed that a more detailed analysis will reveal a much smaller number of completely independent civilizations - about ten" .

Of the identified civilizations, seven are living societies, and the remaining fourteen are

dead, while most of the living civilizations are now declining and

decomposition. In addition to civilizations that to some extent advanced along the road of development, Toynbee identifies four unborn civilizations (including -

Scandinavian), as well as a special class of delayed civilizations that were born,

but were stopped in their development after birth (including Polynesians,

Eskimos, nomads, Spartans, etc.). "Actually delayed civilizations in

unlike primitive societies give true examples of "peoples who have no history." They found themselves in this state, wanting to continue moving, but forced to remain in their unenviable position due to the fact that any attempt to change the situation means death. In the end, they die either because they dared to move anyway, or because they were frozen, frozen in

awkward posture" . The genesis of civilization cannot be explained by any racial factor,

no geographic environment. Civilization develops when the external environment is neither too favorable nor too unfavorable and there is a creative minority in society capable of leading others. The growth of civilization consists in its progressive and accumulative internal self-determination or self-expression, in the transition from a coarser to a finer religion and culture.

Successfully developing civilizations go through the stages of emergence, growth, breakdown

and decomposition. The first two stages are associated with the energy of the "vital impulse", the last two - with the depletion of "vital forces". The development of civilization is determined

"the law of call and response". The historical situation, which includes

human and natural factors, poses an unexpected problem for society,

challenges him. The further progress of society depends on its ability to give an adequate response to this challenge. All challenges are divided into challenges of the natural environment and

challenges of the human environment.

For example, the Egyptian civilization arose as a reaction to the drying up of lands in the Afroasian territory. The answer of those who started this civilization was twofold: they moved to the Nile Valley and changed their way of life. They moved into the dead swamps and turned them into fertile lands with their dynamic act. In the desert, the cradle of Chinese civilization, the test of swamping and flooding was complemented by a test of cold due to significant seasonal climatic changes. The emergence of the Mayan civilization was a response to the challenge posed by the rainforest, the Minoan -

answer to the call of the sea. "... Favorable conditions are hostile to civilization ... the more favorable the environment, the weaker the incentive for the emergence of civilization" .

In Russia, the challenge took the form of continuous external pressure from nomadic tribes. The answer was the emergence of a new way of life and a new social organization. This made it possible for the first time in the history of civilizations for a sedentary society not only to survive in the struggle against the Eurasian nomads and

beat them, but also achieve a real victory by conquering their lands, changing the face of the landscape and transforming, in the end, nomadic pastures into peasant fields, and

camps - to settled villages .

Summing up, we highlight the following. Despite the diversity of points of view, concepts, the science of civilization - civiliography - came to a common opinion about what civilization is and what its history is. This opinion is based on two postulates:

  • 1. recognition of the plurality of civilizations, different paths of world history;
  • 2. recognition of the interrelationship of many elements, structures, systems and subsystems that form the fabric of social life. (9)

SMOLENSKY MOTOR TRANSPORT COLLEGE

CREDIT WORK

ON THE SUBJECT: “SOCIAL STUDIES”

ON THE TOPIC: " What is civilization?

The history of this concept.

Completed by student 13 gr.

Androsov Sergey Nikolaevich

Checked by teacher

Naumenkova V.N.

SMOLENSK 2004

PLAN

1) Meanings of the word “civilization”………….(9)

2) The history of the emergence of civilization .... (4)

3) The concept of Civilization…………………….(8)

4) Conclusion…………………………………(11)

5) References………………………..(12)

1)Meanings of the word "civilization"

The Enlighteners were the first to introduce the concept of civilization into wide scientific circulation. In their opinion, civilization was, on the one hand, a certain stage in the development of human society, following savagery and barbarism, on the other hand, the totality of the achievements of the human mind and their incarnations in the social life of various peoples.

Using the term Civilization in its first meaning, they emphasized that civilization is distinguished from the early stages of human development: the emergence of arable agriculture, the emergence of the state and written law, cities, and writing.

Speaking of civilization as a set of achievements of the human mind, they had in mind the recognition of the natural rights of man, respect for his rights and freedoms, the awareness of the supreme power of responsibility to society, the discoveries of science and philosophy.

So, Civilization is the outcome and completion of cultural searches, the last stage of development. It is characterized by the weakening of the influence of traditions, the decline of religiosity, the growth of cities, the spread of causal (natural) views of the world.

2) The history of the emergence of civilization.

When we use the concept of "civilization", we are talking about a term that carries an extremely large semantic and etymological load. There is no unequivocal interpretation of it either in domestic or in foreign science.

The word "civilization" appeared in French in the middle of the 18th century; the laurels of its creation are given to Boulanger and Holbach. Initially, this concept arose in line with the theory of progress and was used only in the singular as a stage of the world-historical process opposite to “barbarism” and as its ideal in the Eurocentric interpretation. In particular, the French Enlightenment called civilization a society based on reason and justice.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a transition began from a monistic interpretation of human history to a pluralistic one. This was due to two factors.

Firstly, the consequences of the Great French Revolution, which established a new order on the ruins of the old one and thereby revealed the inconsistency of evolutionist views on the progress of society.

Secondly, by the huge ethno-historical material obtained in the "age of travel", which revealed a huge variety of customs and human institutions outside of Europe and the fact that civilizations, it turns out, can die.

In this regard, an "ethnographic" concept of civilization began to take shape, the basis of which was the idea that each people has its own civilization (T. Jouffroy). Romantic historiography of the early 19th century. with its apology for soil and blood, the exaltation of the national spirit, the concept of civilization was given a local historical meaning.

At the beginning of the XIX century. F. Guizot, in an attempt to resolve the contradiction between the idea of ​​the progress of a single human race and the diversity of the discovered historical and ethnographic material, laid the foundations of the ethno-historical concept of civilization, which suggested that, on the one hand, there are local civilizations, and on the other hand, there are still and Civilization as the progress of human society as a whole.

In Marxism, the term "civilization" was used to characterize a certain stage in the development of society, following savagery and barbarism.

Established in the second half of the XVIII - early XIX century. three approaches to understanding the word "civilization" continue to exist at the present time. This:

a) a unitary approach (civilization as an ideal of the progressive development of mankind, which is a single whole);

b) stage approach (civilizations, which are a stage in the progressive development of mankind as a whole);

c) locally historical approach (civilizations as qualitatively different unique ethnic or historical social formations).

Civilization, Guizot believed, consists of two elements: social, external to a person and universal, and intellectual, internal, which determines his personal nature. The mutual influence of these two phenomena. social and intellectual, is the basis of the development of civilization.

A. Toynbee considered civilization as a special socio-cultural phenomenon, limited by certain spatio-temporal limits, which is based on religion and clearly defined parameters of technological development.

M. Weber also considered religion to be the basis of civilization. L. White studies civilization from the point of view of internal organization, the conditioning of society by three main components: technology, social organization and philosophy, and his technology determines the remaining components.

F. Kopechpa also made an attempt to create a special "science of civilization" and develop its general theory. The latter must be distinguished from the history of civilization. because theory is a single doctrine of civilization in general. There are as many stories as there are civilizations, and there is no single civilizational process.

The main problem of the science of civilization is the origin and nature of its diversity. The content of world history is the study of the struggle of civilizations, their development, as well as the history of the emergence of cultures. The main ideas of F. Konechny boil down to the fact that civilization.

firstly, it is a special state of group life, which can be characterized from different angles; “a special form of organization of the collectivity of people”, “a method of arranging collective life”, i.e. civilization is a social entity;

secondly, the inner life of civilization is determined by two fundamental categories - good (morality) and truth; and the external, or bodily, categories of health and well-being. Apart from them, the life of civilization is based on the category of beauty. These five categories or factors establish the structure of life and the uniqueness of civilizations, and the unlimited number of methods as ways of connecting the factors of life corresponds to an unlimited number of civilizations.

In Russian literature there is also a different understanding of what underlies civilization. Thus, representatives of geographical determinism believe that the geographical environment of the existence of a people, which primarily affects the forms of cooperation of people gradually changing nature (L.L. Mechnikov), has a decisive influence on the nature of civilization.

L.N. Gumilyov connects this concept with the peculiarities of ethnic history.

However, in general, a cultural approach to the definition of the concept of "civilization" prevails in our country. In most dictionaries, this word is interpreted as a synonym for culture. In a broad sense, it means the totality of the material and spiritual achievements of society in its historical development, in a narrow sense, only material culture.

Therefore, most scientists tend to define civilization "as a socio-cultural community with qualitative specifics", as "a holistic concrete historical formation, distinguished by the nature of its relationship to the natural world and the internal features of its original culture".

The culturological path to understanding civilization is a form of epistemological reductionism, when the whole world of people is reduced to its cultural characteristics. Thus, the civilizational approach is identified with the culturological one. In this regard, it should be noted that back in the 19th - early 20th centuries, especially in the countries of the Germanic language, culture was opposed to the concept of "civilization".

Thus, Kant already outlines the difference between the concepts of civilization and culture. Spengler, representing civilization as a set of technical and mechanical elements, opposes it to culture as the realm of organic life. Therefore, he argues that civilization is the final stage in the development of any culture or any period of social development, which is characterized by a high level of scientific and technological achievements and the decline of art and literature.

In addition, some scientists, regardless of their ideas about what underlies civilization, consider it as an external world in relation to a person, while they interpret culture as a symbol of his inner heritage, as a spiritual code of life.

In this regard, the term "civilization" is used in a normative-value sense, which allows fixing what is called the matrix or "dominant form of integration" (P. Sorokin).

Such an understanding also differs from the idea of ​​it as a “conglomeration of various phenomena” and does not reduce civilization to the specifics of culture.

Thus, from this point of view, civilizational and cultural approaches are different ways of scientific interpretation of history. The civilizational approach is focused primarily on the search for a "single matrix", the dominant form of social integration. Culturological - to study culture as the dominant of social life. Different bases can act as a matrix of this or that civilization.

3)Concept of Civilization

The crisis of the progressive illusions of the enlighteners, the rich ethnohistorical material obtained in the "epoch of travel" and which revealed a huge variety of customs and cultures outside Europe, led to the fact that at the beginning of the 19th century. an "ethnographic concept of civilizations" arose, which was based on the idea that each nation has its own civilization
(T. Zhuffroy).

The section is very easy to use. In the proposed field, just enter the desired word, and we will give you a list of its meanings. I would like to note that our site provides data from various sources - encyclopedic, explanatory, derivational dictionaries. Here you can also get acquainted with examples of the use of the word you entered.

The meaning of the word civilization

civilization in the crossword dictionary

Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Vladimir Dal

civilization

well. hostel, citizenship, awareness of the rights and duties of man and citizen. To civilize the people, to turn from a wild, rude way of life into a civil one.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

civilization

and (outdated, according to French pronunciation) Civilization, civilizations, f. (from Latin civilis - civil).

    only ed. A high degree of social development that arose on the basis of commodity production, division of labor and exchange (scientific). Savagery, barbarism and civilization.

    In general, a social culture that has reached a high degree of development, as well as a society that is the bearer of such a culture. Civilizations of antiquity.

    only ed. Use as a designation of modern European culture. He was no stranger to European civilization. Chekhov. Civilization is such a thin, tender substance that cannot be arbitrarily thrown into the dirt. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Civilization, freedom and wealth under capitalism evoke the idea of ​​a rich man who has eaten himself, who rots alive and does not allow what is young to live. Lenin.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova.

civilization

    A certain stage in the development of society, its material and spiritual culture. Antique, c. Modern c. Disappeared Civilizations.

    units Modern world culture (in 1 value).

    A totality of living beings conceived as a reality with their own material and spiritual culture. extraterrestrial civilizations.

New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

civilization

    The level of social development, material and spiritual culture.

    Modern world culture, progress, enlightenment.

    The third - following savagery and barbarism - is the stage of social development.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

civilization

CIVILIZATION (from lat. civilis - civil, state)

    synonymous with culture.

    Level, stage of social development, material and spiritual culture (ancient civilization, modern civilization).

    In some idealistic theories, the era of degradation and decline, as opposed to the integrity, organic nature of culture.

Civilization

(from lat. civilis ≈ civil, state),

    synonymous with culture. In Marxist literature, it is also used to refer to material culture.

    Level, stage of social development, material and spiritual culture (ancient culture, modern culture).

    The stage of social development following barbarism (L. Morgan, F. Engels).

    The concept of "C." appeared in the 18th century. in close connection with the concept of "culture". The French Philosophers of the Enlightenment called a civilized society based on the principles of reason and justice. In the 19th century the concept of "C." was used as a characteristic of capitalism as a whole, but such an idea of ​​centralization was not dominant. For example, N. Ya. Danilevsky formulated the theory of a general typology of cultures, or centralization, according to which there is no world history, but only the individual closed character. In the concept of O. Spengler, C. is a certain final stage in the development of any culture. Its main features are the development of industry and technology, the degradation of art and literature, the emergence of huge crowds of people in large cities, the transformation of peoples into faceless "masses". With this understanding, civilization as an era of decline is opposed to the integrity and organic nature of culture. These and other idealistic conceptions do not reveal the nature of centrality, the real essence of its development. The classics of Marxism analyzed the driving forces and contradictions in the development of centralism, substantiating the need for a revolutionary transition to its new stage—communist society.

    Lit .: Marx K., Synopsis of Morgan's book "Ancient Society", Archive of K. Marx and F. Engels, vol. IX, M., 1941; F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 21; Morgan L., Ancient Society, trans. from English, 2nd ed., M., 1935; Markarian E. S., On the concept of local civilizations, Yer., 1962; Artanovsky S. N., The historical unity of mankind and the mutual influence of cultures, philosophical and methodological analysis of modern foreign concepts, L., 1967; Einge K. A., Die Frage nach einern neuen Kulturbegriff, Meinz, 1963.

Wikipedia

Civilization (disambiguation)

Civilization:

  • Civilization is a society localized in time and space.
  • Civilization is a leading Russian television company specializing in the production of scientific and educational programs and films.
  • Civilization Mare Nostrum is a turn-based strategy board game.

Civilization

  1. general philosophical meaning - the social form of the movement of matter, ensuring its stability and ability for self-development through self-regulation of exchange with the environment;
  2. historical and philosophical meaning - the unity of the historical process and the totality of the material, technical and spiritual achievements of mankind in the course of this process;
  3. the stage of the world historical process associated with the achievement of a certain level of sociality (the stage of self-regulation and self-production with relative independence from nature, differentiation of social consciousness);
  4. a society localized in time and space. Local civilizations are integral systems, which are a complex of economic, political, social and spiritual subsystems and develop according to the laws of vital cycles.

One of the first to introduce the term "civilization" into scientific circulation was the philosopher Adam Ferguson, who meant by the term a stage in the development of human society, characterized by the existence of social strata, as well as cities, writing and other similar phenomena. The staged periodization of world history proposed by the Scottish scientist (savagery - barbarism - civilization) enjoyed support in scientific circles in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, but with the growing popularity in the late 19th - early 20th centuries of the plural-cyclic approach to history, under the general concept of "civilization ” increasingly began to mean “local civilizations”.

Examples of the use of the word civilization in the literature.

Although the Autarcius Corporate Sector included tens of thousands of star systems, it was little more than a small cluster of stars among the innumerable suns known civilization.

The railway from Bombay to Allahabad passes through this country from the southwest to the northeast, there is even a branch to the center of the Nangapur province, but the tribes remained wild, do not give in civilization, indignantly carry the European yoke.

The very idea that the Techno-Center, this congregation of AIs that advises the Senate and the Althing, keeps our economy running, the null-grid - in fact, our entire technical civilization.

Books were smoldering there, the works of Synessius and Chrysostom, Psellos and Amartol, the Areopagite and Basil the Great, Christian theologians and Greek philosophers, the works of learned rhetoricians, thinkers and poets, accumulated over one and a half thousand years of ancient and Christian civilizations.

Allegedly, anarchism preaches the unbridled passions of the people, directed against public peace, culture and civilization.

Because it is post-European civilization Anat replied with a knowing smile of a kitchen gossip and took a sip.

However, despite all its advantages and successes in conquering the Phoenician part of the coast, where the Lebanese mountains drop steeply to the sea, Egyptian culture did not become widespread in Syria, while the much more distant Sumerian civilization succeeded in its annexationist aspirations and significantly expanded the swap of possessions at the expense of Syria.

The Arecibo telescope, operating in radar mode, is capable of sending one megawatt of power in a given direction, she thought, then civilization, even slightly ahead of us, can transmit hundreds of megawatts or more!

If such civilization If a radio telescope the size of Arecibo is brought to Earth, an Earth observatory will detect a similar source anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy.

But Art was a child civilization, the only thing she gave him was the ability to control his impulses.

But if on the territory of Egypt there was one of the most ancient civilizations planets, the Atacama was inhabited at all times by primitive hunters and fishermen who could by no means master such a subtle art of embalming.

In our civilization not always the same texts required attribution to some author.

Finally, there were communities that responded to the challenge of drought by changing their homeland and way of life, and this rare double reaction meant a dynamic act that, from the disappearing primitive societies of the Afroasian steppe, gave rise to the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilization.

A sufficiently powerful radio receiver in the Achernar region can currently receive radio signals that propagated across the Earth in 1938 - irrefutable proof of the existence of technological civilization.

His leading thesis is about the soullessness of the bourgeois civilization, about the fact that material wealth does not guarantee spiritual wealth, that achievements and progress, on the other hand, turn out to be savagery.