And what will find the truth? Love, only Love

I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.

Definitions time!

(But before that, the song that I am alluding to in the title must be given due credit, U2 - Electrical Storm - so much awesomeness)

So often statements like the above are made without proper care to the definitions of the key terms. This can be problematic because even if the definitions of the speaker are only slightly different than the definitions of the listener, it can cause grave miscommunication. For example, if a soldier says "I am a man of peace", what he could mean is that I go to war to defend the future peace or a more profound peace than the present. A listener however could think that statement means is that the soldier is claiming to be a person who doesn't fight or who encourages non-violence, and thus the listener could label the soldier a liar or a hypocrite (or if the listener was a very bizarre person he could label the soldier a hippopotamus, but that assumption would probably be unrelated to what the soldier said). The miscommunication here is the definition, both denotative (as in what the literal meaning is) and connotative (as in what ideas and feelings are associated with that meaning), of the word "peace".

In fact, given the uniqueness of everyone's minds, and the immense power of feelings and unspoken ideas to shape our understandings, all meaningful communication contains a degree of miscommunication, especially since even in efforts to clarify the miscommunication we must invoke words/phrases/ideas which are just as likely to be misunderstood.

Yet by expressing ourselves fully (and clearly as well, though with my tendency for rambling that's not going to happen), we can misunderstand less. So before explaining what implications I draw from my sentence "I like to think of myself is a tolerant man.", let me clarify a little my definition of tolerance.

What I believe tolerance means is that you do not consider it a personal flaw to be wrong, and you do not let someone's wrong-ness in one aspect affect all aspects of your relationship. That may sound profoundly intolerant, but let me expand. People hold different views, and even if you can say everyone is entitled to their own opinion, if you are (more or less) certain that point A is right, and point B is opposed to point A, you must (implicitly or explicitly) hold that point B is wrong. Thus even if someone else is entitled to believe point B, if they hold point B, you must consider them wrong on the matter, or reduce the degree of your certainty to just a matter of being certain of point A in the limited ways it applies to you (that is if you think stealing is wrong, but you refuse to admit that this implies that those who feel stealing is okay are wrong, what you really are believing is not that stealing is wrong, but that you stealing is wrong, you just aren't admitting to yourself the real truth of what you believe).

Thus the only way a man of beliefs and ideals can be tolerant is to accept that others can be wrong. And this isn't really so hard, since yes, you too can be wrong. Admitting that you can be wrong isn't a contradiction to believing you are right. After all, if you go outside for a walk, you don't think you'll be mugged, but even in the safest neighborhood, you might get mugged. Moreover, maybe based on limited information, or a flawed thinking process, or maybe bad luck, you can miscalculate the chance of you getting mugged. So you can be wrong, I can be wrong, and that's okay.

But then again, why? Why is it okay? Well, here is something I believe, and as the center of all my beliefs, it is the thing I am most certain I am right on, in fact it is perhaps one thing I don't think I could be convinced that I am wrong on.

That above all else, Love is supreme.

Intertwined with this:

There is a loving God in charge of the universe.

Could I be convinced otherwise? I doubt it. I'm not going to say that I couldn't be wrong on this point, because I admit my mind is not infinite, perhaps there's some way I haven't thought of that I could be convinced otherwise. But this I believe.

Thus above all disagreements, Love must prevail, and thus I strive to be tolerant even when I believe in all earnestness that the other is wrong.

Now let me draw out the implications of "I like to think of myself as a tolerant man."

The implication is tolerance is cool. So don't be an intolerant bum, yeah I'm talking to you Raj Thackeray! (now this may seem like a contradiction, but idiotic bum-iness is the natural outgrowth of a lack of tolerance, as shown by Raj Thackeray, so while I do not hold that this inherently dehumanizes him or that this proves him wrong in other aspects of his person, he is an idiotic bum (actually I'm just kidding, he may very well be a smart man, and may very well be a hard-worker, however the idea of intolerance that he holds is idiotic, wrong and full of bum-iness, and while I believe in tolerance for people, I do not mind saying that some ideas (not people mind you, whether or not they support this idea), ought be given a savage beating for their extreme idiotic-ness (again NOT people, beating people due to politics is also a very idiotic idea)).

A matter of empire

What is an empire? What is an emperor? In the political and historical lexicon this is thrown around a lot, but does the word 'empire' have any real meaning? Well, no, not really, it just seems to mean nowadays very powerful state, or maybe expanding state, or maybe state with extensive influence.

But let's step back a sec and look at the older meanings. Why? Well, this isn't really a historical definition question, but it's still something fun to think about.

Well, the word 'emperor' comes from the name 'imperator' which just meant commander (although the Roman Emperor took it as his title, emphasizing his military role) and 'empire' probably just comes from 'emperor'. But if we look at emperors in other lands, a common title, used in both the ancient Persian Empire and the Ethiopian Empire in its better days is King of Kings (obviously the local language equivalent like šāhān šāh or Nəgusä Nägäst). And then if we look at the case of say the Holy Roman Emperor, he was more really the case of a king above the princes. Furthermore even the Roman Emperor ruled over semi-autonomous provinces and client kingdoms, (although the extent of his power over much of the territory matches nicely with the title of 'king', the Romans hated the idea of a king, associating it with ancient tyranny and they liked to pretend otherwise).

But in summary, what empire really seems to historically mean is a ruler who ruled over many semi-independent kingdoms and prince-ships. Which actually means that emperors, while traditionally ruling over more extensive territories than kings, were often far less powerful over the full extent of their territories.

Now using this as a political science concept might be useful, but there are so many other examples of historic kingdoms which don't match that concept of empire, so it's kind of iffy to use it for history, but... well...

YOU'RE STINKY!!!

And I've got the history to prove it!

Civilized, Smivilized!

Now, in this modern world, modernity has gotten a bad name.

And the precursor to the term modern (like its successor developed is destined to), civilized, has also been criticized, both its existence as a value and its value as a virtue.

The term civilized once justified horrific, horrific acts and so it's easy to say let's throw it away... and yet civilization as a concept does have a value. There is an essential difference

(not necessarily good or bad, but which might actually be, depending on how you want to debate things, but that's a question of philosophy not necessarily history (although there are plenty of history/philosophy hybrids, and while history is never purely objective, we should recognize the difference between an effort toward an objective history and not attempting the objectivity in a history/philosophy /opinion project)

between the Roman Empire as a society or the ancient Germanic peoples as a society, and while it is different from the difference between the ancient Persians and the ancient Scythians as societies, it is related to that difference and related differences.

That's a very vague way of saying things, but my basic point is that between civilizations you can make out categories based on some quality that divides those societies traditionally called civilized and those traditionally called non-civilized.

So let us now re-take up the topic. We must be careful of the mistakes of the past such as Euro-centrism or Sino-centrism, but we can also learn from the past. The greatest problem with previous attempts was the vagueness of the term and its association with the values and virtues of the areas called civilized. Let us then explicitly say what we mean and not claim to represent the past meanings of the word but try for a new definition which while aiming for the same subject does not necessarily mean the same thing as previous usages of "civilized."

After all this you might say, well get to the heart of the matter already.

Okay, fine then, bully.

Now I am valuing civilization as a matter of society, not necessarily of economy or state-structure, although these might be a consequence.

While as I said I am not trying to define the same intuitive concept that was used before, but as I also said, I am dealing with the same essential subject. So let us examine the commonality of those societies that match fit the intuitive concept.

Rome, Persia, Han China, Maurya India, all fit a certain level in the intuitive concept of soceity, and there greatest commonality is you have there people living together in greater density and with more durable traditions of living together as well as a stronger connection with older previous worlds (this is separate from being old unto itself, after all Roman society is no where nearly as old as Persian, but it connected with Greek). Also, essential to this are traditions of cultural production, and material production, moreover even the exceptions in this regard have refined reasons for this or refined compensation methods.

So then let me try to sketch up some categories.

Most basic civilization level - familial tribes - there is a direct family or personal connection between all members of even the largest social units. There is no great tradition of people dealing with other people and so new contacts must be improvised. Basically isolated hunter-gatherers.

Next - formal tribes - there might still be some uncertain kinship connections, but social ties are more based on common traditions than direct relations. Still such traditions are not widespread. While there are large cultural units based on long-standing traditions, they are mostly only between people who have networks of direct or regional contact. There is little conception of the world outside the region or lifestyle. More developed tribal units, some light farmers or rotating farmers. Early Central Asian nomads.

Next - ritualized tribes - cultural traditions reach indefinitely and widely. People know how to deal with each other and outsiders, and there are set rituals of interactions. Later Central Asian nomads.

Next - basic cities - still without deep interconnection, but there are concentrations of population that act as cultural centers of the surrounding area.

Next - developed cities - cities and small societies know how to deal with each other and have rituals of interaction and both peaceful and war-like relations within their cultural zone.

Next - political regions - societies have regular social organizations, regular distribution of assets, know how to deal with outsiders for a long while, usually some degree of literacy or something similar.

Next - high culture - There are rituals of great production and traditions of reasoning about actions and culture. Thinkers and specialized epics

Next - old culture - long tradition of cultural succession and relation. Centralized culture centers

Next - world culture - interconnected fully with their surroundings, dominating any surrounding lesser cultural areas and ritualized interaction with other equal civilizations. Interacting cultural centers.

Next - world-spanning culture - exporting culture and exchanging culture. Massive cities that act naturally as and also interact with cultural centers.

Next - integrating culture - developing not only from their own development but through the development of others. Metropolitan areas around cities.

Next - semi-globalized culture - a single culturally connected region among all people who have had some contact with others in this region, there are still barriers to full exchange, but these barriers can be transmitted. Metropolitan regions connecting many cities. Current world.

Next- fully globalized culture - all knowledge is accessible, all distance can be traveled, barriers between cultures are no greater than internal barriers, easily connected transport between continental metropolitan areas and some relatively easy transport between all metropolitan areas. Post-industrial world.

So there's some preliminary definitions, do they need adjusting? Yes. But still I think the categories are useful. They measure something very real in a society's changes. And when comparing cultures and mapping out historical changes this can be very valuable indeed.

And if you think differently say so, or be a bum. Bummmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!