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Origin and Sociocultural Meaning of the Civilizations.
The civilization is literally the art of living in the big settlements or cívitas. That originally were the first human settlements. Where the man first settled and left roaming about as imperious and vital need. And could manage to generate remaining benefits, in the form of cereals, cattle and all his derivatives and some tools and utensils, as reserves and for the trade with his neighbors. And that were offering to him safety, comfort and survival. This allowed him to start behaving socially as person. And to leave the simple and exhausting wild fruits collection. Establishing firm and extensive tides with his nearby similar ones, the relatives beyond his families, his neighbor or vitally nearly. The result of all this social activity were the first local, narrow, vulnerable and babbling civilizations. That were including: the development of the rights and the duties of the men as individuals and with their collectivities; the arithmetic, to measure and contract the productions and their distributions; the language and his writing, to communicate between them and with the nearby settlements, leaving record, at least, of the important considered things, etc. The civilizers inventions, as the bricks, waterings, organic fertilizers, the plow, the writing, etc., arise in these human locations. And they had not been necessary, not possible, without the stable settlements or cívitas.
The civilizations possess a bivalent, necessary and complementary character in his social global relations. This double quality is centrifugal, expansive and dominating towards her exterior. Inside her borders the civilization is centripetal, enterprising and developing. In both cases, is creative, innovative and forming. Because of it she emphasizes in both activities, that are different and opposite, but not antagonistic. The balance between both trends, which canalize his better efforts and means, is indispensable for her constant, protected and beneficial development and impulse. The civilizations merely overwhelming and plunders, that expire as all them, do not leave permanent and fruitful fingerprints in the conquered countries. As examples of premature extinguishing of his civilization, would be the Mongolians, distinguished, not understood and advanced in the art science of the war and the defenders of the Thousand Years German Reich.
The civilizations that manage to bring together both vital drives, his absorbent diastoles and his efferent and driving systoles, manage to last more along time. And also they impregnate their style, language and culture, to the territories subdued successively. With it they transmit their essence to the posterity, much after their decadence, through the peoples civilized with their culture, laws and language and historical paths. There we have the case of Rome, lad and imperialist as any other power. That only with the colds and the evil time was getting her legions in the winter barracks. Readied during the Republic and the Empire to going out for conquering, repression of the revolts or secure her borders, in her military annual campaigns, as soon as the good time was allowing it. But that was capable also of transmitting her culture, her laws, come up to today as the “Roman law”, her vulgar Latin and her administrative system, to all the regions «extra Italy» that little by little were joining the empire or «res publica». This cultural impregnation, which Lorenz would say, was sanctioned, integrated and dedicated with the generous, opportune and prudent concession of the citizenship to many of those regions. The «Ius civitatis » was granted by conquest, depending on the degree of annexation, loyalty and assimilation of the submitted peoples. When they were turning into Roman provinces, the same rights were granting to them that to the metropolis. It was the case of Roman Spain. But until they were not reaching this honor and quality, the dominated peoples had to pay his “tax of conquest” (according the ius belli) and were lacking many rights. Palestine, for example, never managed to have the condition of Roman province.
The coexistence between bordering civilizations is difficult. His singular, exclusive and expansive character does that the direct contact between them is a source of frictions and shocks and of threats of them. It is not more that to remember the scanty 45 years of coexistence between the Western and Soviet civilizations. They did not come to physical blows, but the enormous expenses in Defense, grasped in weapon successively overcome and obsolete, were the best signs of their extreme rivalry. This way, the armed shocks did not arise over the European countries of both social economic politic Blocks, because the apocalyptic ascent to Armageddon, an Etscheidungschlacht or Clausewitz‘s decisive battle, was in these cases highly probably. The Soviet civilization was based on supposedly scientific reasons of exclusion and fight between antagonistic social classes. Directed indefinitely by a personalized dictatorship of the Party. This organization was the only politically active, the only one to which there was granted, inside fixed parameters, the interpretation of the reality and of the needs of the proletariat. But in those reasons, the peoples did not find sufficient causes and emotions in order that the socialistic «new man» compromises himself «for life» and in altars to a better and more just future, with these civilizers permanents ideals. And, why not to say it, removed from the human real parameters.
All the transcendent or earthly religions (the Marxism Leninism, for example) are exclusive between them. The moral can be an object of controversy and evolution throughout the time. But the dogma, the faith, is the distinctive brand of a religion. And to change it or to deprive of authority supposes losing essence and stopping being she, measured by the importance of what disappears. The culture also supposes difference or exclusion, because it is the brand and the distinctive stamp of a society or nation. Which does not imply shock or aggression between the different cultures, with the current world parameters of mutual respect and coexistence. The culture, into which is usually incorporated a religion, is the ideological social framework of the integrated collectivity. The culture forms the sustenance in origin of the individual identity of the nation. In her there are the immanent virtues of this society. That are defined as the permanent parameters that govern the rights and duties of his members and his general procedure of conduct towards themselves and aliens and with the divinity.
The human Links create and strengthen the Nations.
The internal relations of the human groups are characterized by incorporating into them certain rites, rules, attitudes and prohibitions. Their assumption and repetitive expression forms part of the incultivation, social affirmation and cohesion of these «groups». Always will exist a «code of customs and honor», not necessarily written, though it will be clear and defined in his terms. That establishes certain rights to the individual and demands of him certain social duties, towards the family, friends and other human superior groups. In any society exist the «protective values». These might be the hospitality, the loyalty, the friendship, the justice for outrages and hurts, a divine worship, the individual and collective honor. Each of them protects and enlarges in some measure the “human group«. The interpersonal relations, in the areas of the family, the group and the region, are projected by the opportunity, the nearness, the exchange of goods and the relations. And take root and affirm with the loyalty, the respect to the accepted procedure and the time of treatment. Always an excess of regulation, looking for the assurance of the objective responsibilities and the elimination of the «mistakes and uncertainties», ends up being harmful for all the «groups». Because they are the «ideological antonyms» of the social shared responsibilities. The «undue plethora» of super elaborated and ultra rational rules enervates and debilitates the individuals sense of the responsibility and moral courage (necessary to assume and exercise it). And the reflexes and attitudes of collective responsibility are diluted and get lost.
His real «engine and fuel» will be the «reasonable, suitable, opportune and attainable illusion» and the «enthusiasm» of these societies. Without illusion and enthusiasm can not be undertaken, nor realized with consistency, all the beneficially human ventures. The enthusiasm is a force of the spirit, illuminated by the reasonable illusion. That wins to the «moral and ideological entropy» inevitably generated with the time in the societies. This social entropy is the joint of the psychic and spiritual decay and softness. That are generated by the disappointment and the disenchantment personal and collective of the members of the group.
From the social crises only is possible to get out fortifying in the values and virtues. The values and virtues recognized, taken again and reaffirmed are those who can give the force and the illusion to overcome the times of decadence or of danger. Often these names are applied indistinctly. Those are the human «goodness and qualities» of reference, permanently valued by the human societies. The virtues are very stable through time. The values are the human «qualities and goodness» temporary and/or locally estimated by some societies. And, principally, by virtue of their idiosyncrasy, living conditions and pressures received from the exterior. The cultural and social values are in the habit of being evolving with the contingencies, the displacements and the fortunes of the human societies.
The virtues are given principally by the elaborated religions, and by Cicero’s speeches and Plato’s Dialogs, within our extensive Western ideology. We mention only some, that are absorbed and assumed in the human soul: Appreciation of the family, the social group, the friendship and the nice and curious strangers, who come to our environment. It is the vital environment that sustains us, the fertile and indispensable «social humus». Need of punishment of the conducts that are sufficiently separated of the social rules. To avoid the free, excessive or untidy revenge, to dissuade the possible offenders, to satisfy in justice the damages and the hurts, weighting the hurts and his punishments, and to reform the mistaken conducts. When this «virtue» is complaisant or very deficient, the way is opened to the personal or collective offense and to the imperious and vital need to take revenge. Revenge that, for tending to the maximums of von Clausewitz and being fed by the injustice and the rage, will rest and follow the Talion law. Appreciation of the respect and worship to the divinity, as recognition and worship of the “Necessary Being”, who creates us, supports us and, in some cases, directly helps us. And that makes concrete according to the ideology and the social environment lived.
Need of the education, as stamp of the good doing and the social citizenship. And the formation as the knowledge and professional skills group, necessary for the service to the family and to the company, with the exercise of an appropriate and suitable way of life. Valuation of the different duties to fulfil as necessary, vital and social counterpart, of the several right to receive. Valuation of the sobriety, the effort, the saving, the commitment, the study or formation and the work as necessary factors for the progressive and just attainment of the personal and collective goals.
Let’s not forget the essential function of «control, management, impulse and example» of the social leaders of all kinds, present in the homes, schools, churches, political parties, barracks, trade unions, working centers, associations in general, etc. These are the cores of the collective activity of the society, where are created the reciprocal «human links» of the develop society. Where will settle themselves and later bloom the indispensable «illusion and enthusiasm». In the decadence, they must accentuate more the example. Because, the values and the virtues cannot be feel as something artificial and remote, without real connection with a practical and lived code. And they are not acceptable as impositions of «procedure and cold regulations», dictated from a «supposed moral and intellectual apex» of the society. The leaders and commands are the «alive examples of the society» and from their «practical speech» all her members will do their readings.
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