Civilization Its Source and Destiny

Civilization is a fragile thing, easily destroyed despite appearances of it being tough and indestructible. The reason this is so is due to specialization. Knowledge in any sector is vast, requiring specialization even within specific disciplines. Not one of us can build a car alone if for some reason, we were suddenly required to do so. The knowledge of building a motor vehicle encompasses fields as diverse as electronics, metallurgy, glass making, plastics, rubber growing and processing, mechanics, physics and oil finding, extraction, refining and processing. Metallurgy alone requires the knowledge of processing crude ore, refining it to a pure state and then machining and forming it into the components of an automobile. Each of these steps requires specialized knowledge that often requires a large chunk of a human lifetime to learn. One cannot just dig in the dirt anywhere and expect to come up with pure iron, let alone steel. You have to work for it and work hard! Refining ore requires knowledge of blast furnace construction and operation. To make steel requires further steps. Most of these processes today are fully automated. In yesteryear, large teams of manpower in smelting facilities ran them. Here we see the operation of industrial evolution that has by and large removed the human factor, but it took the human input to invent, build and then run these automated smelting facilities. Once the raw iron is made into ingots, bars and rods, these have to be turned into steel, and then machined to exacting measure into the thousands of parts than will work together to turn the energy released in combusting oil derivatives into kinetic energy, or the energy of motion. Then these parts have to be assembled into a working whole; and once working, maintained in a fashion to assure continued performance. This is but one complex path in several that converge to make the average automobile. Virtually all other fields depend on convergent arts. Remove just one piece, like gasoline and the rest is made useless. Now a car is simple compared to a rocket and its successful launch to any preplanned celestial destination. It is also far less expensive in cost and manpower. These processes can and have been equated in a value added labor formulae commented on in detail by the likes of Engels and Marx. Simple products require less labor added than complex ones.

One of the problems arising out of specialization needed for the production of complex goods is alienation. This comes as a result of the separation of disciplines and associated understanding of the processes for each. Knowledge has become so vast in so many areas that no single individual can hope to learn it all. So decisions must be made concerning a particular focus. One person's focus in the automobile manufacturing process can be far different than that of another. When we consider the disciplines of animal husbandry and electronics, virtually no communication is possible. The result is alienation between groups in society though they speak the same language. It is also known that the products that are manufactured are often out of the economic reach of the workers who make them. There results alienation between the worker and the work done. This is further complicated by the abstraction of labor value from the person doing the real work and the fact of the control of knowledge. Labor value is assigned to the commodity and the worker who sells his skills in a volatile market becomes just another commodity, subject to demand. Abstraction of labor value reaches its pinnacle when robots replace the working class in the performance of production skills. This abstraction is a key ingredient for the calculation of profit when the dollars and cents of a floating currency are calculated. When the worker is replaced by automation, that skilled person is factored out of the value production equation altogether in a supreme act of deception and robbery. In fact if one were to ask what is the chief reason for civilization's existence, it is to enrich those few who hold power over the toiling majority, who have no more interest in maintaining it than do plants and animals. There is more likelihood of fulfillment of promises of pie in the sky; just one of the many offerings used to encourage productive behavior. The powerful hold out illusions that each one of us can become president and a billionaire too. This hope keeps most bound to the daily routine of maintaining things just as they are. The other factor is ignorance of everything outsides one's specialization. As for progress, that is the domain of the powerful and wealthy. The rest experience the opposite with cut backs in all areas. Instead of the third world being raised to the modern standard, the worker of the industrialized world is being inexorably inched down to the level of the third world. We are told that the purpose of civilization is to produce, preserve and encourage culture. But the culture, like art, is produced for and enjoyed by only the few. The rest must follow the cult of profit and consumerism as their art and culture.

If for some other reason, large or crucial sectors of the skill base in the human community were wiped out, the intricate web of civilization would collapse. This fact is verified in African countries where AIDS eliminated the adult productive generation causing the collapse of these economies and regions. Civilization indeed is a fragile thing. It even has internal threats to its well being! One of these is the human condition. Civilization is built with lies and empty promises, leading most to misery and destitution. We see this process in operation in various trade agreements made in secret, popularized by the media and that impact the developing world, such as in the US, Canada and Mexico. Canadians and US citizens have lost jobs to Mexico where sweat shops have replaced the high paid unionized jobs north of Mexico's boarder. We see ties process at work where farming peasants are driven off the land in China to make way for industry and new cities. Now as the world is in economic collapse, only China and India expand. This too, the product of exporting production to these cheaper, less controlled regions.

We look upon layer and layer of shattered and abandoned historical monuments around the world that were raised up in praise of the rulers, often equated with the gods. The praise demanded is a loyalty unto death that merits only contempt in return. This contempt is promulgated through division spread among minorities of all types at the bottom of civilization. "Just us" parades as justice! Perhaps it is the very ultra sensitivity of civilization that leads to the extraordinary savagery used to preserve it.

Civilization is built upon the crushed bones and oceans of shed blood of the masses. It has as its foundation, the greatest of savagery and barbarism. No matter which civilization is examined under the spotlight, whether of history or contemporary times, it is always the same. The streets are paved with the crushed bones of the masses that laid its very foundations. Oceans of spilled blood that bore the endless trade that built the massive wealth lap the shores and harbors of all countries. For all the remarkable achievements and wonders that have been constructed, the people in their numberless and nameless masses have received only contempt as their reward. These same people are accused of drawing heavily on resources like medical care and police resources and contributing nothing in return; addressed as scum and other derogatory titles. They are forgotten as the powerful have kept the extorted wealth from them though the use of unbridled terror. So who benefits from, civilization? A handful of people benefit from civilization while the rest live with the illusion that they somehow benefit from the high price exacted from them to keep a few in the lifestyle of the gods. The exploited majority live lives that is far worse than those of wild animals and even their less civilized counterparts. Their lot is disease and misery, spent in cringing fear, which is kept alive by religious and temporal oppression. Their lot is to be feed continuous propaganda of terrorist enemies seeking to torture and kill. Once it was the Soviet Union, now it is the Muslim world. Too often, when the well-maintained and guarded veneer of religion is scratched away, a monumental hoax is revealed. This is what history is made of; terror, war, torture, slavery and genocide. This is the dark side of humanity proclaimed as enlightenment.

This is not the only expression of this idea. In fact, these ideas are present in the Bible, if one knows where and how to look. At the very beginning, civilization is condemned as the path of corruption and destruction, whereas living in unity with natural laws is seen as the way to God's kingdom. Humanity was created and called to be the husbandman of the garden paradise Earth, instead of its 'developer.' The story is exemplified in that of Cain and Abel, where Cain represents those who are involved in agriculture, and Abel, of the nomadic hunter-gather and herdsman. Agriculture is the key to civilization and all the encroaching horrors that arise there from. Cain slew Abel in the Genesis story and then went to the land of Nod; a place of civilization. Civilization has put to genocide countless more "primitive" peoples to clear land for agriculture and "progress." And so history is written, even with more technologically advanced civilizations crushing and enslaving those that are less so. That God does not favor civilization is also brought out in the saying of Jesus in the parable of the lily and in the saying of taking no thought for clothes or treasure. Then there is catastrophism that ruins civilizations and leaves the more primitive as its survivor. Civilization also has a built in flaw insofar as it ruins the very supportive superstructure of nature upon which we all rely. One of the most profound of recent epochs was the explosion of Krakatau in February of 535 AD, which brought down Rome and Teotihuacan, among others. Indeed, the so-called dark ages that lasted a thousand years were born of this single global catastrophe. But the cycle renewed and civilization arose once more to the current global one. The earth is falling to ruin under the lust for ever more progress, ever greater luxury, ever greater wealth, that only the few can enjoy, while most sink ever deeper into misery and poverty in a sick and polluted environment. Dissent rises and ever more oppressive means to keep things just the way they are progressing are employed. The act of civilization concentrates a lot of people into a confined area and nature is literally strip mined and depleted. This leads to famine and collapse and there are precedents in history for this such as Easter Island during “Rapa Nui”, in Angor Wat and El Mirador. To live in a way that subdues nature as a resource to exploit without putting anything back leads to ruin. There is even a warning in Revelation about ruining the Earth. The Easter Island inhabitants ruined their ecosystem and suffered terribly as a result. In the case of Angor Wat, this temple complex in Cambodia was surrounded by a city that surpassed New York in population. The population drew too heavily on the environment and as a result, famine ensued and then collapse. The marvelous temple and huge city were reclaimed by the jungle. The preclassic Mayan city state of El Mirador destroyed a forest to produce charcoal for the production of whitewash for massive temples. That caused famine with the loss of land fertility. Today our global civilization faces a similar crisis. The Earth will reclaim our civilization too, if we don’t change our ruinous ways. It must be action as opposed to an exercise in public relations and green propaganda.

The Egyptian civilization was built upon the backs of slaves, some of which escaped and recorded the atrocities later when Egypt experienced a natural catastrophe. The story is recorded in the Old Testament in the stories of Moses and Joseph. Even the hieroglyphs of Egypt record a great natural catastrophe; somewhat vindicating the history contained in the Moses and Joseph narratives. The Egyptian story of this centers around the Hyksos expulsion, the shepherd kings that earlier descended on Egypt. The Egyptians built some of the most magnificent monuments in all of history through the aegis of oppression. Hieroglyphs abound with the curses of the wealthy dead to anyone poor and desperate enough to rob their graves. Desperation and poverty was the lash that Egypt exploited through Joseph in enslaving the Jews and others during a drought and ensuing famine that affected all but the fertile Nile. In time, the tables turned. Moses exploited a series of natural catastrophes to gain liberty for the Jews when Egypt was at its weakest. The story grew into a mythic tale. Myth aside, It is now known that when Egypt fell due to a series of natural disasters, many made their escape from under the yoke of tyranny and oppression; not just the Jews. Archeology now acknowledges a catastrophe that ended the magnificent Egyptian dynasty 1646 BC. The catastrophe was a 200 year drought for the Nile region. Massive temple and pyramid construction abruptly halted and people were driven to cannibalism and eating of filth. In India, the same world wide dry spell produced the lack of Monsoon rains for 600 years resulting in massive death. This natural catastrophe brought down mighty civilizations. It is thought that the explosion of Santorini in the Aegean triggered the event; but there are other factors involved that are unknown.

The Roman civilization existed by "virtue" of tribute, taxation, slavery and total tyranny. The powerful lived lives attributed to the gods and were self declared gods, demanding unflinching worship on pain of death by torture, while the rest were little better than domesticated animals or the wild ones which hapless people had to fight in the arena in Circus Maximus. When slaves rebelled in the tens of thousands under Spartacus, they were betrayed, defeated and then crucified for 200 miles along the Apian way as an example to the rest of the world under Roman dominion. The crucifixion of Jesus is a footnote in the brutal history of the Roman Empire when one understands that crucifixion was the most common means to terrorize the masses into subservience. It was the death sentence of the era, exacted by the cruelest and most public means. Other means existed to be sure, such as blood sport entertainment in the arena, and being enslaved in the triremes that plied the Mediterranean in Rome's navy. The empire only completely collapsed due to a natural disaster in 535 AD. Numerous assaults internally and externally prior to that, failed to collapse the empire. Had that disaster in the form of the exploding Krakatau in a super eruption not occurred, one wonders if Rome would still rule in all its brutality in contemporary times. As it is, only the religious part survived, and its history is one whose path is slippery with the entrails and blood of countless millions it savaged and tortured to death around the world under the likes of the Inquisition. The form of Christianity now practiced in the world, was the invention of a Roman propaganda professional, now known as St. Paul, who inverted an anti-Roman radical Jewish expression against the very originators of the sect. Accounts of Roman savagery abound, including from the inside such as the writings of Claudius. Rome was a terror state almost without equal. Little wonder that the Nazis incorporated much from the Roman era such as the parades, standards and even part of the salute. They even borrowed the ancient anti-Semetism originated by Saul later turned Paul in a propaganda coup. As a footnote, the real inspiration of the Pauline Jesus has been largely obscured and perverted by the long-standing propaganda of Rome.

The savagery of the Aztecs and Maya are almost without parallel. Little wonder when their pantheon contained such deities as the decapitator, the perforator and the blood gatherer who demanded appeasement. Slaves, captives and undesirables were routinely and publicly hacked to pieces as sacrifices to keep the population under cringing control. The gods demanded it in exchange for a successful maize crop, the staple of the empire. The sacrifices consisted of hearts ceremoniously being cut out, limbs hacked off and people being disemboweled and left on the streets to rot as an example. Even their sport was blood curdling. The losers of the ball games forfeited their lives at the end of the game in the manners described above. So fiercely was the ruling class detested that when Cortez arrived, he gathered, after a battle arising out of a misunderstanding, an instant army of several thousand dissidents to add to the remains of his small contingent of 600 men. It helped that he was seen as the returning Quetzalcoatl seeking to take back his kingdom by Montezuma. Only too late did the rulers realize that Cortez and his men were not gods. The kingdom disappeared within two years of November 1591. It is interesting to note that both the Aztec and Maya culture grew out of a similar type that fell as a result of the same Krakatau explosion in 535 AD that killed the Roman civilization and spawned a 20-year drought and famine. The best thing that the Aztec and Maya left the world is their most accurate calendar and insight into cosmic cycles.

India, the so-called spiritual leader of the world, has had a several thousand yearlong civilization divided into four distinct castes and this is enforced by brutality. The ones on the bottom have one of the most miserable lots in the world through the extent of this history. Not even Gandhi was successful in eliminating the caste system. It still stands today, enforcing child slavery that benefits the Indian rulers and the western world. Those on the bottom are among the most miserable of humanity, devoid of hope, doing civilizations most miserable jobs. These are the untouchables. Western culture appears to be moving inexorably toward the same structure as evidenced by the mushrooming poverty in the midst of plenty. The demands of the poor are answered by unbridled state terror and oppression. As the World Trade Organization (WTO) gains momentum, anyone protesting is met with stiff resistance and even shot in the back or face-to-face by police bullets. Though apologies are made after the fact, each new round of meetings sees stiffer measures and more of the same.

Japan for most of its history, has had incessant Samurai clan warfare. Wealth was measured by extent of empire and brutality of rule. Japan remained a closed feudal empire for much of its history, succumbing only to greater might from the outside. The wars of the samurai are legendary as was the brutality of their rule. The art of warfare was perfected and honed to a keen edge. Much in the way of martial arts evolved in Japan in these struggles.

The Greeks record that the Persians were virtually without equal in their savagery upon those they conquered. The Jewish record is in agreement. The Persians/Assyrians were adept at genocide and oppression. Anyone spared was turned into slavery. Babylon with its famed walls and gardens was built and maintained by slavery. Though the Babylonians developed much of astrology and were obsessive sky watchers, the few who had such privilege, were supported by wars of conquest and slavery.

Then there are the exploits of Attila the Hun who conquered most of the known world from Asia. They crushed the Assyrians and nearly toppled the Roman Empire. Attila was near death when a Chinese region was willing to cut a deal after along siege. Before he died, he ordered that everyone to be killed and his followers carried out his last wish to the last individual. After this, they took all they wanted. The Romans barely survived, only to succumb to Krakatau later on.

Modern times are not exempt. We have the savagery that was the rein of terror in the French and Russian revolutions. Then there was the Nazi attempt to gain hegemony over the world. China was not spared under Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution. The 20th century has seen more genocide than most previous centuries put together, though genocides like against the first nations was more severe in previous centuries. In the 20th and continuing into the present, more peoples have faced annihilation at the hands of enemies than ever before. Sometimes those enemies are of their own culture such as in the case of Pol Pot in Cambodia and the Hutu and Tutsis of Rwanda.

Religion has been used to civilize through barbarity. Much of the art of torture has as its source, religious order, such as that of the Spanish Inquisition and the Jesuits. The terrible pictures and descriptions of hell ended up becoming reality for hapless victims in their earthly existence. Anyone even perceived to be against the Orthodox Church, was put to torture and death, often being burned at the stake. Being burnt alive, receiving second and third degree burns is one of the most painful experiences that one can ever endure. Little wonder that depictions of hell are of an eternal fire that burns, but does not consume. One wonders what the Christian church would have done to Jesus if he called the pope a hypocrite. He would have been no safer than under the imperial domination of Rome. The main object of religion is to maintain ignorance, cringing terror and groveling to non-existent deities whom the priest craft use to control and extort from the masses. It is still the same today as Christianity terrorizes their favored targets. The hoax perpetrated by Paul against the Jews, is now used to crush all opposition to the established order, perceived and actual. It may be in the form of organized state attacks on cults like the Branch Dividians at Waco Texas, or as simple as the pistol whipping to death of a gay youth in an abandoned field in rural Montana. The common thread is that these folks died on account of a 2,000 year old hoax perpetrated by a Roman policeman. It is not unlike the Czarist Russian policeman's creation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" used by Hitler's propaganda ministry to fuel genocide against the same Jews that Paul fought. Paul indeed preached "Another Christ", a Jesus that was as brutal and savage as the Roman imperialists. That Pauline Christ demanded that slaves be obedient to ruthless masters as if they were the godhead themselves. He might as well have stated, "Slaves be obedient unto your master Satan, even as unto Christ himself"; a clear contradiction, for no man can serve two masters as Jesus stated. Indeed, Roman leaders were self-proclaimed gods! They decided the fate of anyone under them. How does this differ from the idolatry that Christians were prohibited to engage in?

It is described in the Bible that the sin of Satan was his pride and desire to be equal to or to usurp God. Although this may be a myth with a deeper meaning, the fact that rulers past and contemporary elevate themselves to a type of godhood, is the same idea after the archetype. It is also recorded that this is blasphemy. In essence, those who then separate themselves from the rest of humanity and nature are guilty of this transgression, one of the greatest transgressions that can be done. These rulers then insist on tribute/worship. Today, we are in the thrall of money in contravention to the very first commandment i.e., not to have any gods before God. Almost without exception, whether willing or unwilling, we are caught in the money chase, just to attempt to feed ourselves; divorced from nature and against God's natural laws.

The world police states keep a tight rein on the masses. Poverty and economic terror are the chief weapons used to control the masses under the tyranny of world capital. We make our own examples in this age of nuclear power and space travel. These are tossed into the streets or infected with pathogens and put to public persecution. The mass media keeps all this ever before our eyes, even though we wish it would just go away. When it does, it is usually to a prison house, where many poor are housed and tortured. The greatest technological empire in the world also boasts the highest rate of internment. Talent is not respected or used to the best advantage. Only one thing seems to matter, and that is the "god" of wealth. Every back must bow and all signatures confess that money is god! All other priorities have been abandoned. Such is contemporary civilization that rules by its means. It has perfected the art of enslaving through the use of biological necessity.

Not even the space age has been spared such savagery. The foundation of rocketry under Werner Von Braun was built upon the brutal savagery of slave labor in Peenemunde under Nazi rule. Slaves were personally picked by Heir Braun to be used in the rocket assembly program. Most were simply worked to death with no more reward than to not be murdered outright in a concentration camp. They were allowed to live as long as possible building rockets and their supportive infrastructure before simply starving to death. Thus, our conquest of near space such as the moon and the space station owes its existence on the oppressed and crushed bodies of super exploited slaves by Nazi Germany and Heir Braun. Some way to spare the species! It reeks of the idea that to save someone, you must destroy them, such as held by some fundamentalist religionists who proclaim to save a soul from eternal damnation, it may be necessary to murder the individual engaged is some perceived sin. Here is a prime example of the savagery and barbarism of civilization. The race to the stars was founded on torture, murder and super exploitation without regard to anything except one's own desires, such as in the case of the obsessive Heir Braun. The rockets developed in the V2 program were eventually used as boosters for nuclear warheads, used to keep the whole world in nuclear check all in the name of peace and prosperity! Peace and prosperity is mediated by total terror. Contemporary civilization is more brutal than the history cited above, because the machine has honed the art of barbarity to a degree inconceivable even in the near past. This need not be, but history so far has given its witness to our acts. The questions at this point are; do we really want to see the current civilized order spread out among the planets and stars? Do we even want to see its continuance on this planet?

If one is to expect civility from civilized man, they are bound for complete disappointment, for civilization is predicated on the most brutal of savagery. Slowly and inexorably, a noose is furtively being slipped around our collective necks as one after another, the masses find themselves obsolete by the new world order, pitted one against another in a savage contest unprecedented in recorded history. As the rulers of this world order keep the civilized order together by such means it begs the question; "Is civilization worth sparing?" Since they ignore all interests other than their own whim and profit, a cosmic event will drive civilization into oblivion at some unspecified time to come. As it was in Plato's time, so it is in ours that only the rude and unlettered among humanity will survive the next cosmic event. The best option for the survival of the human species lies with aborigines and marginal dwellers in African deserts such as the Dogon and Kalahari bush people. These folks are already hardened against nature's extremes and harshness. Civilization run by humanity divided against one another will perish by its own brutality and the decisive event of the next celestial encounter. When that event is near at hand, don't expect any warning except for seconds prior to impact. There have been events in the past that were cause for concern. No one was warned until the danger had literally passed Earth by, weeks later. Some are proclaimed though, but these often lay well outside of everyone's life expectancy. There are many potential Armageddons that are proclaimed, but the real Armageddon will not be announced to avoid mass panic and the destruction of the existing order.

When we look around to the stars for others like ourselves, we have thus far have come up empty. This has more to do with the evolution of planetary systems through dynamic accretion and occurrences at the galactic core than anything else. Contrary to what Drake found, the galaxy is not overflowing with advanced civilizations! We must wonder here, what is meant by civilization? Is it as described above? If so, than an internal threat exists in addition to any and all external ones. If not, then we could learn much from such a species. We ourselves must change radically if we are to be a space faring species. Civilization as we know it must be completely redefined and revolutionized. We must use all the available skills at our disposal instead of trampling them underfoot in total contempt for perceived gain. How many Einsteins have been forced to live like mules or die needlessly in abject poverty? How many Teslas live as untouchables? How much in the way of useful arts and technology has been suppressed for the sake of existing interests? There is far more at stake and in life than mere dollar value to enhance the lives of a few. When seen in its true perspective, life, as we know it is a rare jewel without equal. We may be all there is as far as complex life goes. Therefore, the proper attitude is one of awe and respect, and not just to the orbiting dumb stones that threaten to exterminate us at any moment. God will not drive us into oblivion as much as we will do it to ourselves by doing nothing more than what we have thus far.

The reordering of civilization must include complete tolerance for one another and a total cooperation hitherto unseen in the sum of history. The challenge ahead is formidable. We will need every scrap of talent and ability just survive and overcome the tremendous odds. We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. One must ask; when will our number come up? It has happened before, wiping out 99 percent of all species that every existed. We have had some close scrapes, even within the context of recorded history. We stand at the threshold of a new day, but we must act, and in ways that have so far eluded us. We can be a galactic species if we take up the challenges. Tentative first steps have been taken, but we must go much, much further.