Valentina Ruiz Jiménez

National University of Colombia

Foreign Languages Department
English Civilization Class

Wei, Ruan. (2011). Civilization and Culture. Globality Studies Journal.

This article aims to discuss the historical approaches to the concepts of “civilization” and
“culture” by authors such as Oswald Spengler, Fernand Braudel, and Philip Bagby, and to
try to give an overview of how both of these concepts are difficult to deal with as both of
them constitute a case of semantic entanglement in the sense of how they are interchangeable
and their meaning confounded. The main argument of the text, in order to first try to describe
both concepts, is that:

“civilization” is the key term to denote groups and peoples who share a large and
common geographic locus, values and social institutions, and that “culture” refers to
a particular set of values or beliefs within the larger historico-cultural entity that is a
civilization. If we treat “civilization” as the largest and highest socio-historical unit
and “culture” as something smaller, lower, and subsumed under “civilization,” we
will better understand the ubiquitous phenomenon of cultural appropriation and
civilizational hybridization. (p.1)

The first part in which the text is divided into is called A Description Rather Than a Definition
of “Civilization”, there is presented a description as it was mentioned above of both concepts,
and indicates that it is needed to differentiate them in order to understand the cultural
appropriation and the interaction phenomena between the economic powers such as America,
China, Europe, the Arab world, India, Russia, and Japan.

Firstly, to present the description, the author starts by the concept “civilization” from its
traditional sense, that is described as “a way of thinking, a set of beliefs, or a way of life.”, it
implies that even at its initial state it incorporates a great number of population and
geographic extension, it also includes a variety of customs, habits, languages, and a set of
values, that are commonly related to a specific religion. A civilization develops a complex
economical and technological system, as a sophisticated writing system, literatures, arts, and
a coherent legal system.

In this sense, “cultures” are presented as constituents of the “civilization”, these cultures are
intertwined and in constant interaction with other civilizations and their cultures. Based on
that, it grows a sense of identity and belonging in people, this allows them to identify as
equals or differentiate from one another.

A civilization may decline but also last over time, a good example presented for the latter is
China, which “took shape a long time ago and have continued all the way to the present time,
exhibit a profound historico-cultural memory in addition to their vast demographic size and
extensive territory”, in this way it grows and keeps its strong foundation.

As we can see, we can differentiate both concepts as one being the large one (civilization)
and the other (culture) as a derivation of it, the common problem and what many thinkers
must have to deal with, is that, as we mentioned before, it is usually refer to civilization and
culture as the same. To give an explanation and a context to this confusion, the article goes
back to the origins of the modern usages of these concepts, it says that expressions like
“civilized” and “to civilized” are found back in the 16th century, words that came into use in
the Renaissance “probably French and derived from the verb civiliser, meaning to achieve or
impart refined manners, urbanization, and improvement”. According to Immanuel
Wallerstein, these expressions were used then in the 18th century in contrast to “savagary”
and “savage”. At the same time, the Word “culture” was used indistinctly with “civilization”.

Later on, in 1819 the word “civilization” began to be used in its plural form “civilizations”,
it had a strong semantic influence as “civilization in the singular implied propriety and
elegance of manners considered as the result of one’s upbringing and cultivation, whereas
civilization in the plural could mean the specific way of life of a specific nation or nations at
a specific time”. This shift marked and important aspect in this matter, as the usage of these
concepts can be found in theories made by important thinker such as Oswald Spengler,
Arnold Toynbee, Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Philip Bagby, Samuel
Huntington, etc. 


Edward Burnett Tylor, in Primitive Cultures (1874), made no distinction between both
concepts, he stuck to “culture” as he could show by it the progress from simple beginnings
to higher forms of development, so as it is evident, both terminologies are used to refer to
primitive societies and modern societies respectively. Subsequently, it would be
unacceptable to speak of “primitive civilization”.

To understand how civilization and culture overlap, the author mentions four important
thinkers; Huntington, Wallerstein, Braudel and Dawson. Huntington defines one concept
with the other “Civilization is culture writ large”, fact that shows the common struggle
theorists fight; if you use one concept to speak of the other, it is needed to define the first one
too. Similarly, Wallerstein believes that civilization is “a combination of world outlooks,
customs, structures and cultures”. The same problem with Braudel, who says that culture
could be seen as a “semi-civilization”. On the other hand, Dawson wants to clearly
differentiate between concepts and states that “Civilization is the largest and highest socio-
historical reality; culture is relegated below and can lay no claim to such a lofty status.”

Though is important to bear in mind the latter definition the text gives us, we have to mention
that Willerstein explains a complete opposite point of view and says that “in certain non-
English usages, “civilization” refers to quotidian affairs, whereas “culture” indicates
whatever is refined and elegant”, this dichotomy dates back to the 18th and 19th century
Europe with the difference between the French term civilization and the German word
Kultur, severe social conflict or class struggle between the bourgeoisie (French) and
aristocracy (German) was the circumstance that produced the matter.

This dichotomy prevailed and in 20th century Spengler explains the relationship between
culture and civilization in a complete different way as the previous authors, it is explained
as: “Though Spengler’s “civilization” is higher than “culture” in the sense of a progressive
historical narrative, it is so only when “culture” or the so-called “great culture” has evolved
to a point of apex and starts to “decline and fall.”. It seems like a negative perspective of the
matter, but he actually explains as a culture realizing the potential inherent to its inner logic.

Another important definition is the one given by Philip Bagby, which approach is
etymological, he believes that “civilization is the kind of culture found in cities, or that
“culture” is rooted in places where cities arise”. The questions that arise with this definition
would be: what is a city? how large a population could meet the criterion for a city? Which
number of population indicates the existence of an urban environment? to which Bagby
proposes that “if the majority of the inhabitants of an area are not directly engaged in the
production of food, the essential criterion of a city is met”
as the process of becoming a
civilization implies to pass from the pre-historical ways of producing food to the modern
ones, that allows people to think about other kinds of knowledge such as technology and
science. Even though this theory has great arguments, it is still left aside the demographic
size and density matter without answer.

There is also the Global Hypothesis, it is related to globalization and technoscience. Wolf
Schäfer explains, “it might be useful to distinguish between one civilization and many
cultures and categorize all civilizations that we traditionally describe as “pre-global” and
subsume them under one singular “global civilization” ruled by technoscience”, the problem
with this pint od view is that natural science cannot fully approach this matter is not strictly
scientific.

Lastly in the article, it is presented the cultural appropriation and the civilizational
hybridization, which presents a vital aspect for defining civilization. Starts from taking
Dawson’s definition as reference, that is the important interaction between civilizations and
the appropriation by one civilization of the cultures of another without losing its own identity.
To give an example for this, the author mentions China’s Buddhism, which is not only the
appropriation of a religion but Indian cultures also. The interaction between civilizations is
what makes them more rich and stronger, hybridization is what makes civilizations last
throughout time. Now, in the 21st century, this process is going the other way around, as now
what previously was the great civilizations that passed their culture to other, is now receiving
it from them, as it is now Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Islamic civilizations made vigorous
attempts to incorporate Western technology, institutional practices, and ideologies.

This article, in my personal opinion, gives if not a complete, an adequate overview of this
specific subject, it provides a good summarize of years of theories and thinking. It is easy to
conceptualize and understand the progress of how the concepts were treated as time went by,
and gives strong points of view that nicely supports what is said by the author.

It is true that it is too difficult to come into agreement in the civilization and culture matter,
as the semantic problem with it has been fossilized by the writers and received by us, the
readers. But for me, as I see things, I would say that to speak about civilization and culture
is necessary to engage one another, we cannot speak of one without the other, and I
completely agree with the author, it is better to see culture as a derivation of civilization, as
I see the latter as the one that gather the rest. That is why I would not use the concepts to
differentiate something higher than other, as it was said before, opposing the concept
“civilized” with “savage”.

We can speak of culture without civilization when is just a matter of common beliefs,
manners, values, etc., to share this kind of aspects with a group of people does not mean that
the group has to have a ruling and economical system as it has a civilization.

Finally, the only question that the article has left is, how do we know to differentiate the limit
of what is civilization and what is not, if a small country has every characteristic that was
mentioned to define civilization, but is not consider a global power, is that a civilization or
not?