1. Essential features of civilization

Before elaborating on the essential features of “civilization” as an important content of the core socialist values, there is a premise question to be answered—what's civilization? Civilization can be understood from two aspects, one being the evolution of academic studies; and the other being the habit of use in everyday life.

(1) From the perspective of academic studies

From the perspective of academic studies, to clear up the conception of civilization, we have to mention another conception that's closely related to civilization, that is, culture.

From the Chinese etymology, “文化” (culture) has the meanings of “人文化成” (to make a man in the real sense by acquiring and mastering culture) and “以文化人” (to influence others by reasoning). According to the Book of Changes, That is, there are men and women in this world, and men are tough and women are soft. It is natural for a man and a woman to come together. It is cultural that a man and a woman come together to make a family, and then many families to make a country. Nature and culture are relative. The ruler of the country must observe the rules of the nature to clear up the sequence of farming, fishing and hunting, while controlling the order of human relations in the real society and clear up the hierarchical relationships between the ruler and the courtiers, the father and the son, the husband and the wife and among friends so that people could act in a polite and civilized way. In so doing, the whole country can be civilized. According to this understanding, everything relating to “men” between “nature” and “human” can be called culture.

Due to different understandings of the relationship between men and nature, researchers have different definitions on the scope of culture. That's where we get the so-called “big culture” or “small culture”. The “big culture” views everything relating to men—including spiritual creation and material products—within the scope of culture; while “small culture” only takes spiritual things as culture.

Civilization can be properly expressed in the comparison with culture. In most cases, it is difficult to tell the differences between culture and civilization, because many scholars think they're the same thing when explaining them. So we can only describe the differences between the two through their subtly-different uses. We may put it this simple way: all things of civilization fall into the category of culture, but not all things of culture can be called civilization.

For example, in his famous book Ancient Society, Morgan the famous American anthropologist and ethnologist developed the theory of three stages of human progress, i. e., from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization, which was spoken highly of by Engels.

The savagery era commenced with the infancy period of human beings and ended at the use of pottery. It was divided into three sub periods, namely the Older, the Middle and the Upper statuses of savagery. The Older status of savagery ended with the acquisition of a fish subsistence and of a knowledge of using fire. Humans subsisted upon wild plants. The commencement of articulate speech belonged to this period. The Middle status of savagery ended with the invention of the bow and arrow. The Up p er status of savagery ended with the invention of the art of pottery.

The era of barbarism was basically about the growth, development and the great prosperity of the primitive clan society. It was divided into three statuses, too, namely the Lower, the Middle and the Up p er statuses. The Lower status of barbarism referred to the New Stone Age; the Middle status of barbarism belonged to the Bronze Age, while the Up p er status of barbarism belonged to the Iron Age. The era of barbarism was when men learned how to domesticate animals and farm, and when the production of natural products was increased through human activities as well. Men were able to grind fine stone tools, introduced ceramics, and learned the refining of metals. They began a nomadic life and large-scale field farming. The private ownership got further developed, and it transited to the class society.

While his own comments on the era of civilization were, “Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense; its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations of the state to the property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners. The interests of society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not, the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passed away since civilization began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim; because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes.”

As far as this case is concerned, both the era of savagery and that of barbarism were stages of human culture, which did not reach the stage of “civilization”. That's why they were called “culture” instead of “civilization”.

Culture and civilization were used very differently by later researchers.

In his book Decline of the West, Spengler, the famous history philosopher, brought forth the view that the development of the human society was a culture experiencing its childhood, youth, middle age and senior years, and that the life of a culture would be over when such culture became civilization. He cited some examples where several cultures became civilization to indicate that a culture would lose its innovative vitality till the stage of civilization.

It is interesting that Toynbee, a British history philosopher who viewed Spengler as his idol, mixed culture with civilization, and held that the world progressed and developed only because different civilizations challenged and took challenges. To him, human societies since ancient times were all faced with challenges from outside. If some creative elites from inside could have proper responses to the stimulation and challenges of the external environment, even respond by changing the institutions they lived in; and suppose such challenges were not too heavy or overloaded (because a far too huge challenge may destroy a society) , nor were they too small to be ignored (because minor challenges could not simulate enough impetus inside) , and a few number of creative groups could be stimulated to make a response, the society would reach the civilization status.

From the above views, we can see the complexity of understanding culture and civilization. Seen from the course of history, the benevolent see benevolence and the wise see wisdom.

(2) Civilization from the angle of the habit of use in daily life

In everyday life, civilization has very complicated meanings. Specifically speaking, it may mean:

First, the stage of cultural development based on a certain period or area, like the Western civilization, the Arabic civilization, and the Eastern civilization. In this sense, civilization is a conception with rich contents, and is almost the cultural connotation of culture during the period or in the area concerned. Such expression is very close to the angle of academic studies mentioned above. When using it, we more or less mean some form of cultures having already reached the civilization status.

Second, the status of human culture relative to savagery and barbarism, like what people mean by “bidding farewell to savagery and barbarism, and welcoming the dawn of civilization”, or “working hard to build a civilized city”. Civilization in such sense does not indicate the overall meaning of culture mentioned in the above paragraph, but is to express an advanced property that meets the development requirements of the era. The difference between a civilized city and an uncivilized city is not geographical, but lies in the degree to which civilization is exhibited.

Third, behavioral habits of an individual; when someone is able to handle interpersonal relationships and participates in social interactions in a polite and sensible way in everyday life, then it could be viewed as a good behavioral habit. In such sense, it may be civilized language (like it goes in Chinese, “良言一句三冬暖”, meaning “a kind word is remembered for a long time, but an abusive language hurts the feelings at once”) or a civilized behavior (like obeying the traffic signals to cross the street and queuing up).

In many cases, people do not distinguish between the aforesaid three different meanings of “civilization”, because they are sometimes overlapped or mutually supplementary. That remind people to clear up the main points they are to express when using the word “civilization”.