Chapter 2 : Civilisations

Early / Victorian understanding of civilization

 Culture and civilization used to be closely linked to anthropological
thinking
 When one thinks of civilization we think of great monuments, libraries or
universities or courts of justice hospitals which feeds into the idea that to
be civilized is to be morally upright- to be committed to the values that
underpin these ‘great institutions’
 The Victorians were interested in this because they tied these signs of
civilization to moral progress.
 It is important to recognize that some people had to build those great
monuments and they may not stand to benefit from the results
 When Joseph Conrad published Heart of darkness, the pool of civilization
was extremely powerful, however, a small number of anthropologists of
that time began to question civilization as anthropology’s animating idea.
 They started to recognize that the work of anthropology couldn't be
properly done with it , the indelibly moral connotation of ‘civilization’
has vexed anthropology because it's never really gone away.
 Anthropology is now pretty consistently critical of civilization yet there's
no doubt that it has been central in and for the field and that discussions
surrounding it deserve attention.
 Debates surrounding the idea of ‘civilization’ allow us to explore one of
anthropology's most unsuccessful missions which is to move away from
such language and thinking altogether.
 The word ‘civilization’ has become a dangerous word even more than
‘culture’ to understand why we have to consider the founding days of the
discipline and look at civilization's place within the paradigm of social
evolutionism.
Burnett Tylor’s findings
 Tyler published an account of his travels in the Caribbean and Mexico
which were often laced with ethnographically styled observations and
accounts.
 In his later work ‘primitive culture’ he became a leading figure in the
newly emerging field of anthropology.
 In primitive culture Tylor acknowledges that placing plants and people in
the same field might trouble some of his more pious readers as to many
educated minds the view that the history of mankind is part and parcel of
the history of nature was thought of as presumptuous.
 For Tylor and these others, physics, chemistry, biology, and anthropology
were all of a piece.
 “It was as if he was an eager student in the biology classroom, laying out
a culture on the table, cutting it up, and labeling the parts. But the
transplant of evolution into the social sphere did demand at least one new
set of terms, organized around a concept of civilization.”
 One of the most important things to keep in mind about “civilization” is
that it’s a relational term. It really only makes sense if you have other
conditions of life and outlooks to contrast with it And in the 19th century
the two most important were barbarism and savagery
 “Barbarian” was a derogatory term used to describe the language of other
peoples as a kind of “babble”—not only unintelligible but undeveloped.
“Savage” derives from the Latin sylva, or wood; people, in other words,
who lived more like animals. This trio of terms shaped the early social
evolutionary approach.
 Morgan had an approach to how one can determine where a society fit
into one of the 7 stages. Savagery and barbarism each had lower, middle,
and upper stages; civilization, on the other hand, was uniform.
 Lower and middle statuses of savagery were differentiated by, for
example, the use of fire; upper-status savages had such technologies as
the bow and arrow. Upper-status barbarism was marked by the ability to
smelt iron.
 Civilization began with a phonetic alphabet and the use of writing.
 So nomadic = savage, wattle and daub huts, iron tools= barbaric , pasta
and gunpowder or central political authority organized around written
texts = civilization
 This type of categorization offers an image of the world where Africa is
an ethnical chaos of savagery and barbarism
 Social evolution and civilization were influenced by moral sensibilities,
with early figures like Morgan appreciating Iroquois culture but not fully
embracing the "Noble Savage" idea.
 Tylor and Morgan emphasized the principle of "the psychic unity of
mankind," suggesting that mental capabilities were the same for savages
and civilized individuals.
 This principle provided a constant for social evolutionists and allowed for
a parts-based analysis through "the comparative method."
 The comparative method used to evaluate different cultures by looking at
details like kinship and descent systems
 Assumed that patrilineal descent was more evolved than matrilineal
descent due to moral rectitude, social stability, and complexity
  Justified the beliefs by stating that patrilineal descent signified an
evolved state of sexual and kin relations
 Social evolutionists treated certain cultures as living fossils to observe
and reflect on our own past
Boas’ Criticism on social evolutionists
 This ahistoricism was the root of Boas’s discontent. Boas criticized the
work of the evolutionists for their assertion of laws governing
humankind’s social and cultural development.
 He argued that this ignores the significant extent to which we know in
fact that culture traits and patterns of sociality are just as often borrowed
and adapted, he argued that Tylor and others have produced a deductive
approach that worked from the general to the specific and for Boas this
was bad science, because they were starting with a conclusion and
working backward.
 Anthoropolgy has to be an inductive field of inquiry.
 Boas found the social-evolutionary “dissection” of a culture into its
“details” nonsensical. To dissect a culture is perforce to kill it.
 He believed that anthropology should be an inductive field of inquiry,
building up from specific to general, and emphasized the importance of
history and specificity.
 Victorian social evolutionism was seen as a moral philosophy
masquerading as science.
 Boas recognized the progressive nature of Victorian principles in
challenging the logic of racism and racialism that suggested qualitative
differences in mental capacities between white and not-white people.
The Impacts Of The Notion Of Civilization On non-Western People
 European colonial authorities and missionaries explained away statelike
political systems in central Africa, challenging the idea that Africans were
mentally capable of achieving "civilization."
 During the era of European colonialism, there was a widespread belief
that Africans were not capable of achieving significant civilization.
 Colonial authorities and missionaries often denied the existence of
advanced political systems in Africa, attributing them to external
influences or non-African origins.
 This perspective was rooted in a logic of racism, with Victorian social
evolutionism justifying the subjugation of African societies by portraying
them as less developed and in need of guidance.
 The paternalistic attitude of the colonizers was used to validate the spread
of imperialism under the guise of bringing civilization to the "less
civilized" societies.
 The influence of colonization and postcolonial dynamics on social and
cultural norms has been significant and often damaging
 Frantz Fanon, a French-trained psychiatrist from Martinique, criticized
the colonial condition and its impact on colonized people
 Fanon argued that colonized people feel inferior due to the suppression of
their cultural identity and are encouraged to adopt the cultural standards
of the colonizers to elevate their status
 Isabella Lepri's fieldwork with the Ese Ejja people revealed that they felt
marginalized and inferior compared to white and mestizo Bolivians, who
were perceived as "civilized"
 The Ese Ejja people expressed feelings of being "not proper people" and
believed that white people were the only ones considered as "proper
people" in their language
 The research on the Ese Ejja shows how the language of savagery and
civilization remains with us to this day.
 Huntington's 1993 essay "The Clash of Civilizations?" predicted that the
end of the Cold War would lead to a new era characterized by a clash of
civilizations rather than ideological struggles.
 He defined civilization as the highest cultural grouping of people and
emphasized the significance of history, language, culture, tradition, and
religion in distinguishing different civilizations.
 Huntington warned that these differences could lead to dangerous clashes
between civilizations, highlighting the potential for conflict between the
West and Islam.
 The terrorists' acts were seen as a perversion of Islam.
 Huntington criticized the neoconservatives who led the campaigns in
Afghanistan and Iraq, but his ideas influenced the mindset behind the War
on Terror. The War on Terror had a moral aspect, especially in
Afghanistan, where the Taliban's actions were seen as barbaric.
 In Iraq, the aim was to bring democracy, which was considered the most
civilized political system.
 The conflict was often framed as a clash between modern civilization and
the past, with some seeing the "Other" as living in the past, similar to
Victorian anthropologists viewing others as living fossils.
 Huntington argues that the culturally conditioned understanding that
power of a mighty civilisation will always trump what a less developed
society or enemy can do, this the danger of viewing less developed
 societies as inferior due to a belief in technological superiority using the
USA as an example
 This can be termed "the denial of coevalness," a term coined by
anthropologist Johannes Fabian, to describe the denial of occupying the
same time as someone else.
 The denial of coevalness is still an issue in anthropology and is often
expressed as a romantic sensibility
Modernization theory
 The softer sides of the legacies of social evolutionism, such as
"modernization theory" and the efforts to modernize newly independent
nations after World War II
 Many modernization theorists believed that understanding culture was
important for advancement and integration into the Western system.
 They wanted anthropologists to be involved, not to preserve other
cultures, but to maximize potential for development and integration.
 Economists like Walt Rostow and sociologists like Talcott Parsons and
Schmuel Eisenstadt proposed neo-evolutionary ideas in the language of
development, achievement, and gross domestic product.
 International development is now an important field of study with a
growing range of approaches and increased moral significance.
 Many major transnational corporations have a "Corporate Social
Responsibility" division and engage in initiatives like building schools
and supporting local cooperatives.
 Old-school modernization initiatives often failed or made situations
worse due to a lack of consideration for local culture.
 The Guardian newspaper partnered with Barclays Bank and AMREF for a
three-year aid project in a Ugandan village, resulting in both successes
and challenges.
 The project's archive reveals the complexities of development work and
the need for sustainable solutions, showcasing both successes and
failures.
 The Katine project was launched by The Guardian in 2007 to bring aid to
a village in Uganda
 The project's initial approach was criticized for presenting the village as
stuck in the Middle Ages, which failed to recognize the modern-day
challenges and influences in the region
 By portraying the village as stuck in a specific time period, it overlooked
the impact of colonial and postcolonial dynamics, as well as the effects of
international policies and local insurgencies
 This narrow perspective prevented a true understanding of the villagers'
current struggles and their complexities in the 21st century