Such conclusions, based on history, are underlined by current experience
with the over-ballyhooed, over-priced variant of the life pattern which
signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand
years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried
forward by the blood, sweat and tears of credulous, hopeful, eager human
beings. Its promises have been wonderful; its performance, especially
since 1900, has been pitifully inadequate, superficial and unsatisfying.
_Part II_
A Social Analysis of Civilization
CHAPTER SIX
THE POLITICS OF CIVILIZATION
Several thousand years ago humankind began experimenting with the life
style which we are now calling civilization. Presumably it was not
thought out and blueprinted in advance but worked out by trial and
error, episode by episode, step by step--perhaps, also, leap by leap.
Historical and contemporary experiments with this lifestyle supply a
fund of valuable information, some of which has been covered in the
earlier chapters of this book. Our next task is to analyze and classify
this information under four headings: the politics, the economics, the
sociology and the ideology of civilization. (When the information is
properly arranged, we can do something with it and about it.)
Politics is the part of social science and engineering which is
concerned with the organization, direction and administration of human
communities.
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