Civilization and Beyond: Learning from HistoryNearing, Scott
History
Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History
Nearing, Scott
Civilization -- History
At the same time, the socialist-communist variant of the bourgeois state
pattern is providing the framework within which the institutions and
practices needed for the transition from civilization to a newer and
more universal social order are being matured. At the next stage in the
birth process, the institutions and practices necessary for upbuilding
the social order that will replace civilization are being worked out in
theory and embodied in experimental practice.
In practice, an accurate distinction must be made between the
conservative bourgeois state, the temporary transitional state and the
universal socialist-communist state that will shepherd humanity along
the difficult and dangerous path of the political life pattern beyond
civilization. In theory such distinctions are needed as part of the
scaffolding within which the social pattern of beyond-civilization will
be constructed.
Like most decisive epochs of human history, the revolution through which
we are passing has had both a negative and a positive aspect. In Chapter
11 I wrote about one of its destructive aspects--the extreme
destructivity of two periods of general war. At this point, I would like
to list ten positive contributions made by the same revolution toward
the development of a social life style that is offering itself as an
alternative to civilization.
1. NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY. Up to 1750 human beings had the energy of
the human body plus the energy of domestic animals. They used wind to
turn mills and sail ships and water to turn crude wheels. They also
burned various things, particularly vegetable fibres, to produce heat.
During the revolution they have learned to use steam, electricity and
chemical explosives. Recently they have learned to use the energy in the
atom, to use water power extensively and, to a slight extent, the energy
of the sun and the tides.
2. The revolution has taught people who previously feared CHANGE,
to welcome change and take full advantage of discoveries and inventions
that modified nature and profoundly altered human society.
3. Among the INVENTIONS were the extensive use of the wheel for
movement on land, the use of steam engines and electric motors for
moving, manufacturing and transportation and the use of electricity for
communication.
4. INCREASED HUMAN MOBILITY on land and water, and, more recently,
in the air and, still more recently, in outer space. Easy and rapid
movement, and almost instantaneous communication brought people together
in towns and cities, built up trade in goods and services, increased
speed of communications and enabled people living at a distance from one
another to keep in close touch, bringing human enterprises and human
beings into continuing contact. Human life, thought and action were
coordinated. Increased mobility UNIFIED HUMAN SOCIETY.
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