The civilized status quo is vindicated and perpetuated in part through a set of false beliefs. I am calling these beliefs orthodoxies because their status as grounding principles renders them immune to normal methods of criticism. Many of these beliefs correspond to what French sociologist Pierre Bourdeau called doxa: the undergirding, unexamined, unspoken, taken-for-granted truths of society. Some of these fall beyond mere orthodoxy and into the realm of the sacrosanct. To challenge these “truths” of civilization is to challenge core notions about what it means to be a human being.
I have listed several of these false orthodoxies below, briefly annotated with summary indications of their speciousness. Note that the ones that I have chosen apply specifically to “Western” civilization; however, the rate and scope of globalization in recent years has made the distinction increasingly irrelevant.
False beliefs about the nature of human nature:
- There is a sharp separation between the human world and the natural world
This is an archaic and logically unsupportable belief associated with dominant monotheistic religious traditions.
- Humans are a superior species
This false belief emerges from lifestyles based on domestication, and receives doctrinal validation through monotheistic religious tradition.
- Nature is something to be subdued and dominated, and humans have a right/responsibility to exercise dominion over the natural world.
This variation on “might makes right” also derives from lifestyles based on domestication and receives validation through monotheistic religious tradition, and more recently through the demonstrated successes of modern science.
- Humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive
Material acquisitiveness and competition are responses to artificial restriction of, and unequal access to, resources.
- Humans are violent by nature
Humans in their natural state (small subsistence foraging groups in direct contact with the natural environment) are remarkably peaceful, and typically employ sophisticated and highly effective methods for settling disputes long before they reach the point of violent confrontation.
- Social stratification is natural for humans
Humans in their natural state are largely egalitarian. The kind of steep social stratification seen with civilization emerged historically from the division of labor necessary for large-scale agriculture, has spread through millennia of military conquest, and is maintained in the present day through institutionalized violence.
False beliefs about the nature of civilization:
- Civilization is an inevitable product of human evolution
Humans alive today are biologically the same as those living 50,000 years ago (and only trivially different than those living 250,000 years ago), but civilization is less than a few thousand years old. Civilization is a historically-traceable cultural innovation, not a biological adaptation.
- Life outside of civilization is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
Each adjective in this Hobbesian claim is easily refuted by ethnographic and archaeological data, and by simple logic.
- We need civilization
A simple tautology: people who live civilized lifestyles need the various things that living a civilized lifestyle require.
- Civilization is the best way for humans to live
This is simple chauvinism.
- Civilization is designed to satisfy human needs
Civilization organizes human behavior in ways designed to serve the needs of the civilized order itself.
- Civilization actually satisfies human needs
Individual human needs almost always take a back seat to the needs of the civilized order. Several authentic human needs are at present either only partially satisfied or neglected entirely.
False beliefs about progress:
- The future existence of the human species is important
This false belief is tied to the need to assign a larger meaning and purpose for our individual lives, and serves as a means of coping with our individual mortality.
- Progress is desirable and inevitable
The idea of progress is a delusion supported by hindsight evaluations of specific technological and cultural innovations. Progress implies a direction and a goal, both of which turn up missing in any attempt at a more objective analysis of history.
- Progress is the solution to our present problems
All solutions to present problems create unanticipated problems of their own.
- Technological innovation is desirable and inevitable
This is largely a corollary to false belief 14.
- Technological innovation is the solution to our present problems
This is largely a corollary to false belief 15. When it comes to solving problems, technological innovation is a zero-sum game: solving a proximal (for one group of people, now) problem always creates distal (for other people or at a future time) problems.
- Science serves human interests
Science serves the interests of people living lifestyles supported by science. Science presently operates according to the cluster of interests established by global consumer-industrial society. Several of the results of science are blatantly opposed to authentic human interests (e.g., biological and thermonuclear weapons, corporate marketing).
False beliefs about the end of the world:
- The end of civilization means the end of the world
From a civilized perspective, only the human-built world is truly important and worthy of consideration.
- The end of civilization means chaos
This traces directly back to false belief 8, that life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short outside of the structure provided by civilization. This also assumes false beliefs 4, 5 and 6.
- It’s too late to change now: you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube
Both the belief in progress and the belief in the inevitability of civilization are behind this orthodoxy. This is perhaps the most disturbing false belief of all because of the ease with which belief in our own helplessness and impotence becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.