In Search of Civilization
Remaking a tarnished idea
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
In Arthur Ransome's charming tale of childhood adventure, Secret Water, four children are pretending to be savages approaching an outpost of the civilized world.
'What is civilization?' asks Bridget, the youngest.
'Ices,' explains her brother, 'and all that sort of thing.'
It is probably the briefest definition of the term on record in English, though it doesn't quite do justice to the grand idea of civilization. But if it isn't ices then what exactly is meant by civilization, and why do we need it?
Today, the debate around civilization and its meaning has almost disappeared. If talked about at all, it will be as part of a different debate: the political tensions between different parts of the world, colonial history, developments in engineering.Yet the promise of civilization is greater: if considered in its full meaning civilization can be a way of reconnecting grand, societal forces - economic liberty, social freedom - with the more intimate and deeper needs of life - wisdom, maturity, a flourishing of culture. In In Search of Civilization John Armstrong argues cogently and passionately that our sources of wisdom, maturity and happiness are rapidly drying up.Only by reviving a conversation about civilization can we put in place the conditions for our renaissance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Civilization is not the elitist project of haughty imperialists and starched academics, but a thoroughly humane effort "to make us wise, kind and tasteful," according to this luminous philosophical meditation. To Armstrong (The Secret Power of Beauty), philosopher in residence at Melbourne Business School, civilization is many things: the culture and mores that give a people their identity; a material prosperity that underwrites the "spiritual prosperity" of creativity put to noble ends; a heroic mission of taming barbarism; "a carrier of epic meaning" that gives transcendent purpose to our all too brief lives. He traces these themes in the writings of thinkers that include Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Virginia Woolf and through charming exegeses of civilizational set pieces like Florentine museums and the Japanese tea ceremony. But Armstrong's treatment is as much visceral and emotional as intellectual; to him, civilization conjures memories of lamp-lit libraries, fine meals with good conversation, city streets lined with comfortable houses, an encounter with a Parisian prostitute that ended with him stumbling shame-faced into a church choir practice. Armstrong's manifesto makes a relaxed but compelling case that dignity, refinement, and standards stand at the center of the good life.
