Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1800 New Definition

Regarding the definition of civilization, the academic community has always adopted the method of Western archaeology, but this method is not only unscientific, but its users are also very hypocritical.

They have very high requirements for Eastern archaeology. If there is no archaeological evidence, only history handed down in classics, the West will question it as pseudo-history. However, for their own history, they regard oral epics like the ancient songs of the Yi people as authentic history, and this time they don't care whether there is archaeological evidence or not.

Such double standards backfired decades later and became the result of the rampant "Western pseudo-history theory."

To be fair, those who advocate Western pseudo-history theories are themselves idiots. Their usual practice is to use one point to deny a large area, which is actually also a kind of double standard.

If we use the pseudo-history theory to measure Chinese history, then basically every book on Chinese history contains anti-natural phenomena such as "appearing a yellow dragon" and "blood raining from the sky", which also makes it pseudo-history.

In fact, neither of these two options is desirable. What Zhou Zhi wants to do is to redefine the archaeological concept of civilization more clearly and accurately to guide literary and historical work.

The last time Zhou Zhi raised this issue was together with the classification of cultural heritage. However, in order to concentrate its efforts at that time, the country only recommended the cultural heritage classification method to UNESCO, which was eventually adopted, making a programmatic contribution to the protection of the world's material and intangible cultural heritage.

However, Zhou Zhi now believes that the topic of defining civilization is actually more important than the definition of intangible cultural heritage, which is directly related to the issue of discourse power.

"In addition to this ridiculous 'three principles', there are actually two more recognized methods of classification. One is to use the emergence of metal smelting technology, bronze smelting technology, and social classes as signs of civilization." Zhou Zhi expressed his opinion.

"But this classification is also problematic. Let's take South America as an example. For example, the Mayan civilization did not have large-scale metal smelting technology, but it developed obsidian tools to the extreme."

"Similarly, the Liangzhu and Erlitou sites in China did not have metal smelting technology, but the scale of their city-states was already far beyond the standards of ancient Greek city-states, and the scope of their farming, fishing and hunting was also far greater than the standards of ancient Greek city-states."

"A big problem with Westerners taking legends as authentic history is that they cannot explain the size of the Greek city-states in authentic history and how they were able to feed themselves on the barren land. Western archaeological evidence has also not found evidence of large-scale farming around these city-states."

"They interpret this as the development of maritime trade, but this is obviously even more untenable without the archaeological evidence of large ports and shipyards."

"The only possibility is that they took the exaggerated legend as credible history. The real scale of the Greek city-state was much smaller than the legend."

"Another example is the birth of classes. The three-level divisions of 'groups', 'strata', and 'classes' in society are themselves layered and overlapped, and it is difficult to find such clear divisions in the ruins."

"It's not just the Eastern ruins, the same is true in the Western ruins."

"Another way of dividing it is based on the invention of writing, the establishment of the monogamous family and the emergence of classes."

“I think these classifications are particularly biased.”

"For example, in our country, the so-called feudal dynasty actually had both feudalism, the county system, slavery, and even military lord system, nomadic tribal system, urban petty bourgeoisie and proletarian wage production system. In a country with a large unified territory, it is impossible for all regions to develop evenly. It has always been a complex society with various systems coexisting."

"Monogamous families are also not applicable to Chinese history. Although monogamous families are common, the powerful people who can leave their names in history books are often not pure monogamous families." "Even Fu Hao was just one of the queens of the Shang king."

"Elbow, why do you spend so much effort on this problem?" Director Song asked in confusion, "Does this have a direct connection with our work?"

"Of course there is." Zhou Zhi said seriously: "Director Song, have you ever thought about this? In the areas where the Xia people lived in the historical books of our country, there are many ruins, and there is no metal or writing. According to the definition of the West, they can only be called 'culture' at best, not 'civilization'. If we want to use their theory, the Xia Dynasty is still before civilization."

"This is very different from the Chinese civilization, which began with the establishment of a 'family-based' ruling model."

Director Song suddenly realized it and said thoughtfully, "If we follow the Chinese method of classification, the Three Emperors period is the beginning of civilization. During the Suiren period, people began to learn to use fire. During the Fuxi period, people learned to fish and hunt. During the Shennong period, people began to cultivate agriculture."

"Yes." Zhou Zhi said, "After that, we entered the Five Emperors period. We can regard it as the division and merging of tribes into a large tribal alliance, and finally the formation of a large regional tribal alliance with a single leader."

"Later, Yu passed the position of leader to his son Xia Qi, which marked the beginning of the hereditary rule of the country."

"It is actually very appropriate to fit archaeological remains into this system," Zhou Zhi said. "The Three Emperors period is actually the Paleolithic period and the early Neolithic period, while the Five Emperors period is the middle and late Neolithic period."

"Civilization, in fact, should be the effective composition of human society and the establishment of social operation mode. The word 'modeling' is the key to the distinction between culture and civilization," Zhou Zhi continued.

"Just as production relations match productivity, so too do social models match the level of social development."

"Although the Maya had no writing, no metal, and no wheels, as long as there is some evidence that proves that their society must have developed to a considerable level, it can be said to be a civilization, and there is no need to stick to the classification rules that were only developed in the 18th and 19th centuries."

"Western philosophical systems tend to be binary and like to define, simplify, and choose between this and that."

"This kind of thinking makes it easier to quantify and classify, and to solve problems in a simplified way. But one thing to note is that this method is only suitable for solving point-like and line-like problems."

"Eastern culture, on the other hand, holds a theory of pluralistic interaction, prefers chaos and richness, and believes that the generation and transformation of contradictions are the result of the joint action of multiple factors with different proportions, and that they can be transformed into each other."

"This kind of thinking often takes many detours when solving point and line problems, but it often has better results when solving more complex problems, especially problems of neural network structures with multiple elements interacting with each other."

"So going back to the definition of civilization, we can only conclude that civilization is the product of human society reaching a certain stage of development. It is a phenomenon that began to emerge after humans began to live in groups and social division of labor and specialization appeared, and the embryonic form of human society was basically formed. It is a product of a relatively rich material foundation."

"Since the standards for judging civilization in archaeology and history have their own reasons, but they can only comment on one side and there is no standard that is applicable to the whole world, then why don't we come up with our own standards to guide our work?"

(End of this chapter)