Is civilization a disease?

by Stanton Coit

Before I go to the next step towards citizenship, I would call attention to the fact that thus, near to the beginning of things human, when the use of fire was introduced, we are able to detect the two distinguishing characteristics of all civilization, and of trade in particular, which are the sharing by the tribe of the blessings of man's mastery over Nature, but, as the condition of the sharing, a monopoly of power and initiative by the few who dispense the blessings. So much of good and of goods—but no more—could the mass of men enjoy as was compatible with the continuance of the master's ascendancy over the men and over the public. We shall find no other than these marks in all future civilization, to distinguish it from savagery and barbarism. The only difference will be that in the period of civilization proper—that is, from ten thousand years ago to the end of the fifteenth century after Christ, when the established social order began to break up—the monopoly of initiative and control is practically absolute. As we trace the future steps in human evolution, we shall see how this concentration of power in the hands of rulers occurred. But it must be further observed that it is not only rudimentary civilization which we detect as ensuing upon the introduction of the use of fire: it is trade, socialized wealth, the division of the community into the "haves" and the "have-nots," the introduction of the working of the law, that to him that hath shall be given and that from him that hath nothing but his labor to offer shall be taken with it his liberty also. It should likewise be borne in mind that with the stealing of fire from heaven came also that coalition of government with trade, of politics with commerce, of the monopolists of economic power with the dictators of life and death, of peace and war, which is manifested to the highest conceivable degree to-day in the states most assertive of their leadership in the vanguard of civilization. I said that with the use of fire came the enslavement of men; but government and enslavement were one and the same thing. Neither, however, was as yet dominant over social life.

XV. ARROWS AND EARTHENWARE

The talking, fire-using anthropoid in the course of time invented the bow and arrow. So great and so enduring were the benefits of this new device that it is almost impossible for us, who have profited by them, to imagine the state of human society when men could kill animals or destroy enemies only by throwing stones or clubs, or by striking with the fist. But it is easy to see that the chief of a tribe of men received an incalculable increase of power when, besides the instruments of ignition, bows and arrows were in his possession to deal out at his will. Whatever equality of initiative and diffused sovereignty had existed before the use of fire was known, it now began to vanish, and the men of any tribe saw power concentrated in the will and word of the chief and those nearest him, while submission to his command was the condition of survival. And no doubt, with the loss of that individual liberty and that self-reliance which characterize the lower animals, there also died away a certain joyousness and zest of spontaneous self-fulfilment, such as we observe in wild creatures so long as they are free from hunger and thirst and secure from the pursuit of enemies.

It was perhaps another ten thousand years before one more new link in the chain of man's mastery over Nature and the chief's mastery over his men was forged. This time it was probably a woman who—again by a happy chance or by necessity of maternal solicitude—noticed the effect of heat upon clay and introduced the art of pottery. Until then men had no utensils that could withstand the action of fire; they could not boil water except by dropping hot stones into some receptacle of wood or skin. Now, by the new device of boiling, the food-supply was enormously increased. The blessing of another mastery over matter was henceforth shared by all the members of the tribe. But, at the same time, there was a corresponding force added to the chief's grip upon his men. We see the law illustrated, that every new invention, owned by the few, becomes one more trap for the many. The differentiation between the owner of the tribe's wealth and the propertyless became with the introduction of pottery fixed and hopeless. The master dealt out not only fire and arrows, but cooking-utensils; or he withheld all these if he saw fit; and if you had been there, but not in command, you, too, would have tamely submitted or have died.

XVI. ANIMALS TAMED AND IRON SMELTED

The word "tamely" which I have just used, brings me to the next great event which moved mankind perceptibly nearer to civilization proper. It is an event which was not only a literal fact of prime importance, but which is eternally a symbol of man's own fate. It was probably first the dog that lent himself to the imagination of the speaking, fire-making, arrow-shooting, clay-baking, anthropoid ape, as a stimulus to the idea that captive animals might be of service to human beings. Man began to tame not only the dog, but the sheep, the ox, the camel, the goat, the horse, and the elephant. The gain to all the tribe was enormous. The men all shared in the profit, but once more their master appropriated the new increment in power. He became the owner of the domesticated animals as well as of the inanimate pot and arrow and flame. But at this stage it must have seemed to all the other members of the tribe that they also were owned, soul and body, by their chief. They could not help seeing, nor could he, that they were his men. And how natural it was for them to rejoice in the fact that they belonged to some one who was mightier than themselves, and who identified his own prosperity with that of the tribe, and of every individual in it who served it according to his will. Loyalty to the beloved community became loyalty to the chief. But it is evident that what mankind had caused to happen to the dog and the horse, the chief had accomplished in regard to the human beings who had come under his power. He had tamed them; they were no longer wild animals. They had rendered up individual liberty and self-reliant independence such as we see among many species of wild beasts. But instead, as the price of obedience to a will outside their own, they had received a thousand creature-comforts.

Only one more invention was needed to lift them to the highest and latest stage of barbarism. Some one now hit upon the art of smelting iron—the first invention that had not directly to do with the supplying of food. By leaps and bounds the art of smelting iron advanced man in the equipment of war, in the building of houses, roads, and vehicles of transportation. Now what magnificent returns individuals received for having surrendered their original liberty to do as they pleased! After all, what would independent initiative have been worth without fire or arrow or earthern kettle, or cow or horse or wheel, or sword and shield? Who would not have forfeited the bare birthright of empty (although healthy) independence for participation in the ever richer conquest over the physical resources of Nature?

XVII. CIVILIZATION PROPER

But now at last, only ten thousand years ago, the event occurred which put forever out of the question any possibility of prudence in any waywardness of individual whim, or any deviation from the rule dictated by the owner of things. This time the something that happened did not cause an increase of man's mastery over physical Nature. It was, instead, like that initial invention which turned apes into men. And again, like spoken language, it was a device to facilitate communication of mind with mind. In some one of the many groups of beings who had learned the use of fire, arrows, pots, sheep, and swords, some genius hit upon the idea of written signs as a medium of communication with those distant in space, and as a means of perpetuating a knowledge of the will of the dead among his survivors. But be it observed that only the master, never the man, only the owner of things, the controller of circumstances, was in a position to embody and preserve his judgment and desire in written signs. The new art of writing enhanced the power of rulers, of chiefs. The Pharaoh, not the fellah, dictated the inscription that was to be engraved. Thus all the rulers of the past were now able to perpetuate their power by adding their sanction to the word of the living chief, while no voice from the ranks of the governed would be allowed to immortalize itself in written speech. This is the reason that written language introduced civilization proper. There was no longer any chance for the wildness of the beast to crop out. Here began the empire of the dead over the living; but it was the empire of dead rulers over living slaves. The mastery over Nature and the monopoly of social power thereby became practically infinite. The tamers were now omnipotent in comparison with the tamed. It must be noticed that the process of transforming beasts into citizens was one to which only the tamed, but not the tamers, were subjected. The ruler stood outside of and above the rule he made. The law was for his subjects. This was the case with Henry VIII at the acme of civilization as it had been with the first of the Pharaohs.

Not only the blond beast of prey, but the swarthy also dictated an ethic for his subjects in order to keep himself in ascendancy. It was because Nietzsche admired all beasts of prey and felt contempt for their victims that he hated Jesus Christ and proudly assumed the title of Anti-Christ. For Christ had set up an ethic which encouraged the victims to protest and attempt to win back their primeval initiative, to take over the sovereignty which had been concentrated in the hands of the mighty and to diffuse it among the nobodies of the tribe. St. Luke goes so far as to assert that even before Jesus was born his Mother entertained levelling ideas. Into her lips he puts a song in which she magnifies the Lord because she believed her Son would bring down the mighty and exalt them of low degree. But alas! civilization went on for fifteen hundred years and succeeded in tying Christianity to the chariot-wheel of monopolized initiative.