Part of the problem with the whole game is that it's never clear what a "civilization" actually is. Is it a country? A race? A region? Or what? A term that apparently can refer to both the Celts (but not the Bantu!) and the United States of America (but not Brazil!) doesn't mean an awful lot to me. So arguments over whether Sumeria and Babylon should both be in the game, and so on, can't really be resolved, because there's such vagueness over what the criteria for inclusion are.
What makes a Civilization?
- Thread starter Plotinus
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Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
Mithadan said:
If we ever actually get off this planet and become a Type I civilization working on becoming a Type II, culturally we'll look a lot more like Lakotah or Tahitians than like Babylonians or Euro-americans. Check out a book called Interstellar Migration & The Human Experience edited by Ben Finney, (he's an anthropologist who sailed in a traditional Polynesian ship from Hawaii to Tahiti with traditional navigators using only stars and wave patterns). To understand what a civilization is, think of culture rather than dirt or dna.Plotinus said:
Sword_Of_Geddon
Arbiter of the Sword
The diffinition of Civilization has always been a large society living in populated areas with a common culture, language and identity, which is sedentary and possesses irrigation, and is skilled in craftsmanship and building.
Yes, but that definition is too vague when you think about how to demarcate one civilisation from another. Are the United States and Canada a single civilisation? By that definition, they are. What happens when one group of people conquers another, such as the Norman Conquest of England? Is there a single civilisation persisting throughout the change? Has China always been a single civilisation, or a succession of different ones in the same place? There's no right answer to any of these questions, I think.
Sword_Of_Geddon
Arbiter of the Sword
I think its hard, but I think its basically a term covering a nation of people with a common identity, who meet the criteria I gave earlier. Canada and the US may be very similiar culture wise, almost the same actually, but since they have their own identity and history they are their own civilization.
Another way of thinking of it is Culture Groups being one civilization, basically, European/Western, East Asian, Hindu etc. Smaller civilizations, basically my above definition, fit into this larger grouping.
Another way of thinking of it is Culture Groups being one civilization, basically, European/Western, East Asian, Hindu etc. Smaller civilizations, basically my above definition, fit into this larger grouping.
Type I, Type II?
From the comparisons (Lakota, not Euro; Tahitian, not Babylonian), sounds like the salvation of the human race lies in our going "primitive" (notice the scare quotes). I'm up for that! Civilization can bite itself!
From the comparisons (Lakota, not Euro; Tahitian, not Babylonian), sounds like the salvation of the human race lies in our going "primitive" (notice the scare quotes). I'm up for that! Civilization can bite itself!
Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
Mithadan said:Type I, Type II?
From the comparisons (Lakota, not Euro; Tahitian, not Babylonian), sounds like the salvation of the human race lies in our going "primitive" (notice the scare quotes). I'm up for that! Civilization can bite itself!
We're Type 0. Type I have harnessed the entire energy infall of their home planet (moving beyond planetary basis to become interplanetary). Type II have harnessed the entire energy output of their home star (moving beyond a single solar system to become interstellar). Type III are galactic level civilizations. Definitions from Michuo Kaku, string-theorist, Nobel nominee.
Where is the authoritative reference that has always existed for one true "diffinition" of civilization? The comparison to Lakotah & Tahitians is to culturally sophisticated, technologically refined societies that are not sedentary. Advanced building techniques do not have to be based in stone. Read a little Buckminster Fuller re design strategies that incorporate mobility. Technology is a lot more than plumbing. The ability to shift the locus of your culture rapidly in response to changing environmental conditions may be a civilization trait we will envy in the very near future.
Sword_Of_Geddon
Arbiter of the Sword
Blue Monkey, I've always been taught that for a people to be considered "Civilized" they have to have cities.
Well, even if that's true, how do you define a "city"? In America, the word can refer to something that no-one else would call a "city".
There is no clear-cut definition for any of these things, partly because calling someone "civilised" is in part a value judgement. Robert Moffat thought that civilisation involved (among other things) dressing like an English gentleman at all times, even if you were a Zulu. I agree that in the context of this game, a "civilization" has to have cities, since the game revolves around them, but it does not necessarily follow that that is part of a general definition.
There is no clear-cut definition for any of these things, partly because calling someone "civilised" is in part a value judgement. Robert Moffat thought that civilisation involved (among other things) dressing like an English gentleman at all times, even if you were a Zulu. I agree that in the context of this game, a "civilization" has to have cities, since the game revolves around them, but it does not necessarily follow that that is part of a general definition.
Sword_Of_Geddon
Arbiter of the Sword
I guess its one of those things that exists but is just out of reach of being defined absolutely in a dictionary, like Good and Evil. Its not that they no definition, its just to complicated to put into words, like love for example.
On the contrary, I'd say it's just one of those words people use that gets used differently in different contexts. There doesn't have to be anything "real" that is being imperfectly described. There are lots of words like this ("game" is the classic example, since there is no single quality that is common to everything we call "games"), and some might argue that all words are like this to some degree. The mere fact that people use the word "civilisation" meaningfully doesn't entail that there is something called "civilisation" that is being referred to (and the same goes for Good and Evil!).
But I suspect this is something of a threadjack...
But I suspect this is something of a threadjack...
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Hm. Every example of a "game" I can seem to think of involves some sort of arbitrary, to use another hard-to-pin-down word, rules (exempt for game=prey, but that, I believe, is a homophone).
David Webster, in his The Fall of the Ancient Maya, defines a 'civilization' as a society that exhibits all or most of a list of features, which notably includes cities, writing, and monumental architecture. Of course, his concern was differentiating 'civilized' peoples from whatever is the currently acceptable term for barbarians, and so his definition is of little use for telling whether Canadians and USAmericans belong to the same civilization or not.
The traditional definition of a city would be the Temple, the Palace and the Granary - ie. a permanent settlement that is simultaneously a religious, political, and economical centre. Webster, incidentally, would exclude the Maya centres of the Classic (Tikal, Palenque, and the rest) from the category, essentially because he does not think they functioned as economic centres.
David Webster, in his The Fall of the Ancient Maya, defines a 'civilization' as a society that exhibits all or most of a list of features, which notably includes cities, writing, and monumental architecture. Of course, his concern was differentiating 'civilized' peoples from whatever is the currently acceptable term for barbarians, and so his definition is of little use for telling whether Canadians and USAmericans belong to the same civilization or not.
The traditional definition of a city would be the Temple, the Palace and the Granary - ie. a permanent settlement that is simultaneously a religious, political, and economical centre. Webster, incidentally, would exclude the Maya centres of the Classic (Tikal, Palenque, and the rest) from the category, essentially because he does not think they functioned as economic centres.
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
You asked for a quality shared by all games, not one exclusively shared by games.Plotinus said:
Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Plotinus said:
I am really enjoying this discussion, and want to continue it, but I agree that we ought to give the thread back to its original purpose. Can we ask the moderator to help us move this section of posts to a new thread?
Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
The summer encampments of the pre-contact Lakotah fit the traditional definition. They were used for trade of artifacts, resources, intermarriage, education and exchange of specialists; rites of initiation and major ceremonies; strategic planning of wars, elections of officials, and policy debates for matters affecting the whole tribe. Yet they only lasted a few weeks, and followed an agreed upon circuit, being built in a different location each year based on availability of resources.The Last Conformist said:
Blue Monkey
Archon Without Portfolio
The Glossary of Semiotics defines arbitrariness as "the absence of a rational justification or of an intrinsic (or natural) basis". I would argue that any activity indulged in for it's own sake could be looked at as a game. An essential quality that makes it a game as opposed to some other kind of play would be that it has some sort of inherent score-keeping: a way of "winning" the game that need not necessarily be quantified. Two illustrations that might not look like games to the outsiders, yet probably are games to the participants: jazz musicians that are cutting or exchanging fours; and the Steve McQueen character in the original Thomas Crown Affair (where it is made explicit that he only robs banks for the joy of getting away with it).Plotinus said:
The most elegant (and heuristically useful) definition I've found of the measure of a Civilization is the degree of its removal from nature. Note that this "stretches" to include "nomadic Civs" - not that I think Civ3 is in any way designed to address simulating them.
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