Journal 1 5/20/12

Who benefits from Civilization?

Civilization is the human development of modern life and conveniences that we all humans desire. From the beginning of time, civilization has been regarded as power. It is also responsible for business, trade, and culture. My question is, is civilization equally good for the entire population?

After reading chapters 1-3, I have come to the conclusion that there will always be changes in society as long as humans exist. From the beginning of human societies, during the Paleolithic era we see how life was so simple and family oriented. They seem to live in harmony with each other in their small groups. There is no sense of “private” property or even a chief or a king to set the rules. There is just mutual understanding that they all work as a group and they all benefit as a group. There was no land or crops to protect; it came down to survival for all members involved. When the Neolithic era came about, small changes began to evolve as well. Their hunting bands became communities, and they began to settle in one area through farming, developed better tools for hunting and farming and began to develop “private” belongings’.

At the end of chapter 3 of our textbook according to Stayer, we see obvious changes. Egypt and Mesopotamia after becoming civilized cities both different in how they governed at the beginning but both achieved the same result at the end. Egypt was a very strong society. They were not so urbanized at the beginning and they were able to spread out along the Nile. For millions of years Egypt stayed strong and at peace. Mesopotamia was on the other hand one of the most urban cities of its time. They had multiple chief or kings to govern these cities and they were at constant war to protect it. Both of these empires had a large network of commerce. Over the years they had become powerful and more skilled. They had developed their writing skills, beautiful monuments, castles, and even a military force. But through all these progress there was also a negative side to civilization. Now these urban cities have social separation causing an erosion of equality among their people. We can vividly see who really benefited from it, and obviously was the rich. These cities had kings, chiefs, pharaohs’ that control their cities.  The social inequalities were obvious. Women also became victims of the social power. In the Paleolithic era men and women worked side-side and women were considered very important in working the land. After the civilization men and women were no longer equal, women became second or less compared to men.  The other part of the population stayed poor, things didn’t get better for them. They continue to struggle; they were mistreated, and had limited goods.  These strong societies failed when a more intelligent and more powerful society overpower them.

These has been going for centuries even to this day, the country that has the most advance technology and the strongest army is the one that survives. My conclusion is that change and progress is always anticipated. Change creates social division and even violence at times, but change is necessary and at the end of all is power.