Jan 12, 2025 - Watching Civilisation Episode 1

I'm currently watching the first episode of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation on the Internet Archive. Within the first few minutes, Clark presents with little flourish a framework that I assume will be central to at least the rest of the episode if not reoccuring throughout the series: the old tale of the civilized society and the barbarous invaders. I am immediately reminded of the classical Chinese perspective that took anyone lacking in Chinese language and cultural influence to be barbarous, primitive, and inherently dangerous. It is unlikely and unclear if Han dynasty officials and intellectuals had any access to Greek or Roman civilization, texts, thinkers, etc. Thus, rather than being a unique quality attributable to European culture and society as portrayed by Clark here, this framework could largely be wielded by any culture willing and able to. But what makes one able to, exactly?

Well, it certainly cannot be the existence of a scientific revolution, as neither ancient China nor ancient Greece or Rome experienced one. Does it require the ability to write? The Mongols were at first illiterate, but adopted Uighur script on their own terms, which conflicts with the idea of the barbarian as illiterate and unwilling to become educated without a third party -- an educated and esteemed figure or society who casts the pure and holy pellets of civilization down on the barbarians, placating them into servile and humbled members of righteous civilization. What is it, then, that makes one civilized if not writing? Civilization, as I understood it in the terms of the first civilizations such as Mesopotamia, involves yes, writing, but also social strata, centers of trade and commerce, and a government. The issue with this is that there are few groups of people in history from ancient Greece onwards that are civilized in this manner. Social strata occurs quite naturally among humanity -- all one needs is a leader, people who tend to fields, people to hunt, those who have committed slights against the tribe, and so on. Tribes are also documented as having traded amongst each other. Tribal government itself depends on the region and culture/society it is a part of, but it too exists and existed.

Is it simply in the context then of ancient Greece and Rome that, due to a lack of writing, those considered outsiders were barbarians? It is difficult for me to accept this, considering the rate of literacy was abismal in these ancient times, thus making a commoner in Rome functionally similar to a farming member of a Germanic tribe. I suppose the biggest difference would be environment, cultural mythology, and so on -- these blurry fictions all members of civilized society tell each other and themselves. A Roman commoner may believe their society and culture to be great inherently, an intrinsic value attributable only to them and theirs. One could then assume that the poor farmer, working day and night tending to the fields of a Germanic tribe would feel no association to their tribe -- but this is demonstrably false. In order for a tribe to be able to defend itself against other tribes, the tribesmembers must believe their tribe is worth fighting for. Groupthink forms naturally through this -- it is a very biologically prime tendency as it appears throughout the animal kingdom, not just in the abstract minds of humanity.

If we take the "achievements" of civilization -- the arts, literature, law, et cetera -- to be what makes a civilized society, then I further question that sub-framework. Why are the contributions of the Greeks on philosophy, law, and art more important than those of the Mongols on horsemanship, military tactics, and archery? From an objective point of perspective, I cannot confirm any inherent quality that would place either group of contribution over another. Further, it is frankly difficult for me to assume that the Germanic tribes did not contribute anything to future aspects of civilization. Even without education on the subject, I can proudly defend this position on a logical and philosophical foundation. On the face of it, we as people in "the West" regard much of what is good about culture and society to the arts and literature and the like. But of the things that we are faced with on a daily basis such as language, community in abstract embedded in the conceptualization of law, folklore... these things all have strong connections to the various tribes that once widely populated the planet. For instance, one could easily suppose that religion itself is a very un-civilized quality because it is rooted in a time before Western civilization as we define it to derive from the Greeks and the Romans. And yet it lives on in these same societies who call themselves the most civilized. It is not treated like mythology or folklore. It is respected. I need not ask why, but let the presentation of the contradiction inherent here sit with the reader.

Ultimately, my struggle is with the mere idea of civilized and uncivilized, as any society with agriculture, weapon and tool creation, communication, social strata, etc. represents a "civilization" in the strict dictionary term. But once that noun becomes an adjective, it transforms into a an ugly, amorphous beast. One who brays and beats its chest, claiming its tribe to be the strongest, smartest, and most worthy of prolonging. Perhaps it is the ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese societies ability to lock said beast in its cage, and appoint a more passive representative to transmit its brayings through. Yet, the entity's beast is still let out of the cage enough to rampage through its people, its undesirables -- a rampage of violence and coercion. My point being that Clark's framework is dishonest. It layers a generous amount of romance onto the history of "the West," as it were, ignoring the many, many aspects which hardly make ancient Rome and its future Germanic tribal invaders much different beyond a veil on the Roman end. At least the tribes were honest.