some distinctions between culture and civilization as displayed in sociological literature

Some Distinctions between Culture and Civilization as Displayed in Sociological LiteratureAuthor(s): Kenneth V. LottickSource: Social Forces, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Mar., 1950), pp. 240-250Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2572007 .

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240 SOCIAL FORCES

possible phenomenon rather than any concrete occurrence. As an abstraction brought into existence for the structuring of discrete data, it accentu- ates to a logical extreme some attribute or group of attributes that are relevant to a system of analysis.

5. As the constructed type is, in a sense a dis- tortion of the concrete, all individual concrete occurrences will deviate from the type. These deviations will be relative-to each other and to the constructed type. Therefore, the type can serve as a basis for the measurement of the degree of deviation. The quantification process then may be carried further within the "if and when" framework, and statements of probability may be made

relative to the recurrence of the typical course of action.

6. In so far as the constructed type is abstracted from a substantive theory existing as a genieralized scheme, it serves the important function of orient- ing empirical research to systematic theory and bridging the gap between the two. On the one hand the constructed type is derived from theory; therefore, it is heuristic. On the other hand it serves as the unit for comparison and probability statement of empirical occurrence. If the theory consists of a structured series of interrelated hypotheses that typology can be used in conjunction with, it can be of assistance in the probability verification of those hypotheses.

SOME DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN CULTURE AND CIVILIZA- TION AS DISPLAYED IN SOCIOLOGICAL LITERATURE

KENNETH V. LOTTICK

JVillamnette University

JOHN DEWEY once characterized Americans as a people thirsty for absolutes. In the areas of culture and civilization, however, it appears

that not too much progress has been made toward a definitive distinction. The Cumulative Book Index lists five cross references for "culture": civilization, value of college education, learning and scholarship, self culture and education. Under special circumstances each of these terms may be logically equated with "culture." "Civilization," moreover, requires nineteen cross references: acculturation, anthropology, archaeology, art, culture, education, ethics, ethnology, history, inventions, learning and scholarship, manners and custom, progress, religions, renaissance, social problems, social sciences, primitive society, and sociology. Obviously, much present usage of the terms is anything but precise.

This paper represents an attempt to clarify the structure of the concepts culture and civilization to the end that a more definitive use of the terms may be proposed. It also will attempt to provide illus- trations of various ways the terms themselves have been and are being used. In order to begin such a review it becomes necessary to propose certain limitations of meaning and usage that will allow the reader to follow the discussion more readily.

Edward Sapir, possibly the most outstanding

student of "culture" in recent times, began the vogue for the use of this word in 1924. He saw culture as having a threefold connotation as follows:1

a. Culture is technically used by the ethnologist and culture-historian to embody any socially inherited element in the life of man, material and spiritual.....

b. It refers (also) to a rather conventional ideal of individual refinement.

c. Culture in this (third) sense shares.. .the emphasis on the spiritual possessions of the group rather than of the individual....

Mr. Sapir goes on to say, "Culture, then, may be briefly defined as civilization in so far as it embodies the national genius. Civilization, as a whole, moves on, culture comes and goes."2 In this paper, while mention will be made of Mr. Sapir's equating culture with civilization (under certain circumstances) the word "culture" will be used in the sense "a" above-the socially inherited element.

"Civilization," likewise, has been defined by Carl Brinkmann as having three meanings. These us-

I Edward Sapir, "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," American Journtal of Sociology, 29 (January 1924), pp. 401-429.

2Ibid.



SOME DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION 241

ages have developed historically and relate to spiritual as well as material values. (Compare with Sapir's "c" definition of culture.) Professor Brink- mann says, "The ancient Greeks and Romans did not draw a general contrast between the condition of the citizen body and the absence of material or mental progress." Thus he sees a progression in the meaning of the term "civilization" over a period of years :'

a. (Originally) civilization derived from the Latin context: civilis, civilitas-qualities to be shown by superiors (Roman Emperors) to inferiors.

b. By the Middle Ages there seems to have been an extension of meaning... .Dante speaks of the htmana civilitas as the largest, most compre- hensive social entity....

c. Civilization in its present form and connotation was created by the rationalists of the 18th century... .The emphasis lay clearly on the antithesis of "civilization" to feudalism and the "dark ages."

Brinkmann admits that "modern writers have frequently insisted upon a concept of "culture" as independent from, or even opposed to, that of civilization."4 Thus, since our purpose at present is to distinguish between the terms, we shall accept his civilization "c" concept as appropriate. It will be noted, however, that there are certain relationships between "b" and "c" of Sapir and "a" and "b" of Brinkmann.

These relationships have to do with the more intangible facets of culture and civilization. This becomes more apparent when it is noted that our definitions to date have been fairly concrete. WVe accepted Sapir's "a," which may be roughly equated with the social inheritance, and Brink- mann's "c," which may be somewhat freely identi- fied with "progress." Thus, two levels of reality have been set up, the first conditioned by the concept of a social heritage and the second limited by the word "progress."

THE "SUPERORGANIC" PROBLEM

Professor A. L. Kroeber sought to include the intangible component within the framework being erected. In a memorable paper in the American Anthropologist in 1917 he attempted to do this by re-emphasizing the "superorganic."5 This term was

the invention of Herbert Spencer who envisaged three basic levels of life, the inorganic, the organic, and the superorganic. Mr. Kroeber's superorganic, however, transcended that of Mr. Spencer. In fact it rested upon metaphysical and transcendental ideation. He begaan by setting up a series of dichotomies (or seeming dichotomies) such as Body and Soul, the Physical and the Mental, the Vital and the Social, the Organic and the Cultural. This led him to a conception of the Superorganic as an extrinsic factor, over and above the organic and the inorganic, and immensely superior *to both heredity and environment; in fact possessing, for all practical purposes, a life of its own. Indeed, it appears that, considering the magnitude of the thesis he is attempting, the term superorganic is inadequate. It appears to the writer that "exorganic" more nearly applies. For, says Kroeber:6

. . . a new factor had arisen which was to work out its own independent consequences, slowly and of little apparent import at first, but gathering weight and dignity and influence; a factor that had passed beyond natural selection, that was no longer wholly dependent on any agency of organic evolution, and that, however rocked and swayed by the oscillations of the heredity that underlay it, nevertheless floated unimmersibly upon it!

This is, of course, Platonistic, transcendent reality, and is objective idealism. It is also cultural determinism (as a reading of the complete article shows clearly) and for it he was mildly reproved by Edward Sapir and Alexander Goldenweiser, who felt that, at least in his biological analogies, he had gone too far.7 Furthermore, he is not very far from Hegel, Spengler, Toynbee, and Marx in his worship of a "new" force.

Leslie A. White, the latest disciple of cultural determinism, in his recent article "Man's Control over Civilization, An Anthropocentric Illusion," insists on the "extrasomatic" quality of culture (or of "civilization" as he has titled it). Sneering at those who world remake or revise a culture or a social order he contends:8

If we are not able to perform such tiny and in- significant feats as eliminating the "b" from lamb or modifying our calendar, how can we hope to construct a new social order on a world-wide scale?

3 Carl Brinkmann, "Civilization," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. III (1930), pp. 525-529.

4 Ibid. 5 Alfred L. Kroeber, "The Superorganic," American

Anthropologist, 19 (1917), pp. 163-213.

6 Ibid., p. 209. 7 Edward Sapir and Alexander Goldenweiser, "Re-

buttals," American Anthlropologist, 19 (1917), pp. 441- 448.

8 Leslie A. White, "Man's Control over Civilization," Scientific Monthly, 66 (March 1948), p. 236.



242 SOCIAL FORCES

Previewing a new dispensation in which culture, Kroeber's superorganic, shall be enthroned for the determinant that White says that it is, he writes:9

... The feat of Copernicus in dispelling the geocentric illusion more than four hundred years ago is being duplicated in our day by the culturologist who is dissipating the illusion that man controls his culture.

Moreover, V. G. Childe tends to corroborate this judgment of the omnipotence of culture.

...Through prehistory of half a million years history is seen growing out of the natural sciences of biology, paleontology, and geology... .The cultural advances forming the basis of archaeological classification have then had the same sort of biological effect as mutations in organic evolution.10

H. Levy suggests that the "new force" has had diabolical as well as constructive effects. He says that the superorganic has inherited civilization, for

... we are delivered up to it at birth and it moulds us and shapes us. To an extent we fear to realize we are its creatures. We have its taboos, its religions, its politics, its language. It has words we cannot utter, thoughts we cannot think, criticisms we dare not voice and or- gans of the body we examine only in private."

It may not be necessary, however, to attribute a mystical value to the superorganic in order to ap- preciate its existence or, rather, to be in a position to describe its work. As David Bidney says, in speaking of what he calls human culture:

... (It) is, so to speak, an acquired or secondary nature supervening upon the primary, innate, potential human nature.... Culture we maintain is a historical creation of man and depends for its continuity upon free communication, transmission and invention.12

Bidney uses the term culture rather than civilization, it will be noted, and he disclaims any biologic connection in the transmission of the "culture of a people," an expression similar to Sapir's culture "ci" and, in effect, to Kroeber's superorganic. In each case the important point is continuity, which, actually is the operating end of the superorganic.

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown places the matter prosaically enough when he states that the superorganic commences when something more than the combined efforts of the parents arises." He speaks further of "steady material and moral improve- ment of mankind from stone implements and sexual promiscuity to steam engines and the monogamous marriage of Rochester, New York."'4 Here again the superorganic has been invoked but with scarcely a metaphysical value.

Howard W. Odum equates civilization with the state society, which he says transcends the ethnic of folk integration. He sees modern civilization as a superstate, a totalitarian machine transcending the folk culture and enslaving the folk. He thinks that "Culture therefore is the supreme generic value" as opposed to the incomprehensiveness of civilization which makes it sterile as a reproducing agent.15

To drop this controversy and to get along with the discussion, Bidney's summation may be in order:16

Tylor, Boas, Wissler, Sapir, Dixon, Benedict and Mead maintain that culture consists of acquired capabilities, habits or customs, and that culture is a quality or attribute of human behavior that has no independent existence of its own.

This is a realistic view as opposed to Kroeber's thesis that culture determines progress-that progress makes itself. While the philosophic point in- volved is not unimportant, we shall here leave it and return to the discussion of an organization of the structure of the concepts, culture and civilization.

A SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM TO CLARIFY "CULTURE"Y AN)

"CIVILIZATION"

Although David Bidney has used culture as equated with civilization, our usage of the terms thus far, we think, has been consistent with the definitions predicated: Sapir's culture "a" and Brinkmann's civilization "c." So it is necessary to consider these uses and these only in the defini- tional framework which we are attempting to build.

9 Ibid., p. 238. '0 V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself (London -

Watts and Company, 1936), pp. 5, 41. 11 H. Levy, The Universe of Science (London: D.

Appleton-Century, 1932), pp. 3-4. 12 David Bidney, "On the Concept of Culture and

Some Cultural Fallacies," American Anthropologist, 46 (1944), pp. 30-44.

13 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "Evolution, Social or Cultural," Anmerican Anthropologist, 49 (January- March 1947), pp. 78-83.

14 Ii. 15 Howard W. Odum, Understanding Society, The

Principles of Dynamic Sociology (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947), pp. 262, 281.

16Bidney, op. cit., p 31.




Following Spencer (and Kroeber) we conceive the three levels of life as superimposed one upon the other. The inorganic suggests, by definition, an absence of either culture or civilization. The transition, or shift, from the inorganic to the organic we have denominated "the Infra-Alpha line," (See adjacent diagram.) although logically this great mutation can hardly be so shown. For it represents a "revolution" so vast and complete that there is nothing in human experience with which to compare it.

The "Organic Area" represents the time of life during which animal drive and/or instinct only determined the actions and sequence of pre-human and other biologic existence. In the minds of some writers there rests a question as to whether the life of the "Organic Area" possessed an "animal culture." This supposition will be dealt with later. By our definition culture has become a human attribute and so we turn to the transition to the "Exo- organic Area" or the Superorganic.

The "Alpha line" represents only a conceptual visualization of this second great transformation. Prosaically put, it may be called a dividing line based on a variety of factors usually reduced to certain socially accepted inventions, material and/ or non-material. Childe calls this shift "The Neo- lithic Revolution,"117 while Kroeber says it oc- curred "when the first animal that carried an accumulated tradition""8 began the long ascent.

At any rate it represents a translation from animal drive to learned response or "problem solution" activities that became a part of the superorganic or accumulated tradition complex. The key here is the word continuity. The term, "Alpha line," as used later, thus will always signify the passing over from a stage of discrete activity to one of continuous accumulation, of either a low or high degree. Thus, it is essential to think of the transition as a mutation and of the third level of life as more than quantitatively different from the second.

The Alpha line, representing continuity, ushers in the phenomena described as "culture" or "Early Civilization." The inceptors of culture have been described as many and various. They will be described under the section entitled "The Bases of Culture."

In order to distinguish between "culture" and "civilization" a demarcation must be passed between culture as "early civilization" and civiliza-

Gamma Line (The Psychological

Front?)

Learned "CIVILIZATION" S Response U or or (Considered by some only P "Problem another aspect of "cul- E 'E Solution" ture" and not distinctive R X in itself) 0 0 Beta Line R R G G A dividing line based on A A some rather arbitrary N N front, but one denoting I I transition into a "higher" C C" degree of culture.

"CULTURE"

(Called "Early Civiliza- tion" by Goldenweiser)

Alpha Line

A dividing line based on a variety of factors usually reduced to certain socially accepted inventions.

0 R ANIMAL DRIVE AND/OR G INSTINCT ONLY A N (Only a very few anthropologists con- I sider this as indicating the existence of C "animal culture.")

Infra-Alpha Line

I N 0 R COMPLETE ABSENCE OF G INSTINCT, CULTURE, OR A CIVILIZATION N I C

tion proper. While, obviously, an artificiality, it attempts to set apart "higher" or "more complex" culture under a separate denominator, civilization. Following Brinkmann it has been shown that the use of the term involves historical reasons but the

71 Childe, op. cit., p. 56. 18 Kroeber, op. cit.



244 SOCIAL FORCES

point here is that civilization presupposes the conmplexity of a "higher" stage platformed upon that of a "lower" culture. Thus, while the Alpha line denotes continuity, the "Beta line" connotes both continuity and complexity. Only by the most metaphysical means can the Beta line be thought of as a mutation.

Therefore, Beta can be defined as a dividing line based on some rather arbitrary point, but one denoting transition into a "higher" degree of culture. Childe calls it "The Second or Urban Revolu- tion."19 Odum, however, defines civilization as a "specialized development of society distinctive from either the earlier folk cultures or the totality of all cultures." He says that "civilization is culture, but not all culture is civilization" which appears to be in harmony with the Beta principle, nevertheless, and lists as the distinguishing char- acteristics of his Frankenstein civilization that it is urban, technological, intellectual, power-possessing, and, as contrasted to folk society, artificial.20 This terminology is not far from that of Childe.

Thus, civilization, while considered by some as only another aspect of "culture" not distinctive or unique in itself, as culture is distinctive and unique, has for Childe, White, and other cultural evolutionists, many historians, such as Toynbee, and psychological interpreters, such as Heard, a real, even absolute, distilnction.

Many bases have been advanced for civilization. The Beta line has been placed at various points as a foundational refrerence to whatever criterion for civilization, or "higher" culture, was foremost in the interpreters' milnds. Such bases as writing, ur- banization, "logical presuppositions," steam anid gasoline engines, artificial control of the sex drive, and challenge-response situations have in turn been suggested as providing the lower limit for a developing civilization. One of the most unique bases has been suggested by Gerald Heard. He identifies civilization with individuality and suggests that both before and after such a phase tran- quillity obtains. Heard says :21

... we can see the manner in which the state saves itself from immediate dissolution when individual self-consciousness appears, how in the effort it throws out a wonderful complex to balance the development, and finally how this sudden uprising in man's secular

session, this hour of amazing shifts and unsuspected inventions, comprises all we call civilization, a moment's wild balance achieved between stability and serenity.

Conversely, Opler, Redfield, Kroeber, and Gold- enweiser refuse to accept denmarcation lines as existing within the third level of life. Professor Opler insists upon the idea of continuity within the area of all human activity; he maintains that the designation of any point at which "civilization" could "begin" is as artificial and, from a historical perspective, probably as silly as for one to have hailed the invention of the horse and buggy as the signal step in culture advance.22

Mr. Redfield speaks of "the whole integrated traditional body of ways of doing, thinking, and feeling that give a social group its character."23 Professor Kroeber, likewise, does not distinguish between the two terms but writes:24

...when a human or prehuuman hand has made any article one can judge from that article what its purpose is likely to have beeni and how it was used... a re- flection of the degree of culture or civilization, ele- mentary or advaniced, possessed by those who made them.

Alexander Goldenweiser looks upon civilization as continuous from the earliest to the latest time. Its "differelnt aspects interlock and intertwine, presenting, in a word, a continuum, which must be studied as an organic unit."25 He says that modern society is no different from prilmitive society in this respect and that the way to under- stand early civilizatioll and that of today is to study it in "the wholeness of its local manifesta- tions."26 This, of course, is Opler's contention.

Whether civilization is a separate entity in itself or is only one degree of culture within the superorganic the question arises as to its upper as well as its lower limits. Certain psychologists conceive that as great a shift as that from the inorganic to the organic and that represented by the Alpha line as not only possible but within time. Professor

19 Childe, op. cit., p. 118. 20 Odum, op. cit. 21 Gerald Heard, The Ascent of Humnanity (New

York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), p. 87.

22 Morris Edward Opler, Lecture at Harvard Uni- versity, February 4, 1948.

23 Robert Redfield, "The Study of Culture in General Education," unpublished manuscript, (Educational Research Corporation, Cambridge: 1947.)

24 Alfred Kroeber, Antthropology (New York: Har- court, Brace and Company, 1923), pp. 137-138.

25 Alexander A. Goldenweiser, Early Civilization (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922), p. 31.

26 Ibid.



SOM31E DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION 245

J. B. Rhine, for instance, experiments in extra- sensory preception and psycho-kinesis. He maintains: "It will require the added force of the knowledge of his own personal nature to rescue man from the present predicament in which his bril- liant but uncoordinated inventiveness has trapped him."27 This suggests a superstage or level within or without, depending upon its magnitude, the present superorganic.

Mr. Gerald Heard envisages an enlargement of individuality which he characterizes as psycho- physical and psychic. He surmises that the development of super-normal facilities and powers will usher in an era as different as any which have yet been. He documents his conclusions with the names of Lazarus, Steinthal, Durkheim, Wundt, McDougall and Ginsberg.28 Heard denominates this shift, which we have called "The Psychological Front," as "The Fourth Revolution-The Psy- chological."29 We shall call this the "Gamma line," but, other than to allow it to complete the diagram, shall not press the matter further.

About civilization, itself, and culture, when this is regarded as an entity, several other statements should be made. Some sociologists have made a distinction between culture and civilization; this usage looks upon civilization as comprising the sum total of human "means" and culture as consisting of the "collectivity of human 'ends' "2.30 MacIver has said "Civilization is that which is regarded by man as purely instrumental, as a means; culture comprises every object, activity, and idea which is viewed as an end in itself."3" Weber calls civilization "simply a body of practical and intellectual knowledge and a collection of technical means for controlling nature."32

Many other approximations of civilization exist. Lester Ward calls civilization "heredity by achieve- ment." Gustav Le Bon speaks of civilization as "the mystical soul of a race." Clark Wissler wants steam engines and culture complexes to identify

civilization. Bergson calls civilization "instinct vs. intelligence." Kroeber points out that culture rests on specific human faculty and that "civilization, as such, begins only where the individual ends."33 Many of these observations are inharmonious with our original definitions although they do suggest other and valid ways of looking at culture and civilization.

Goldenweiser puts the accent on man rather than civilization. He holds that, since races do not differ significantly, there are many possible civilizations. It becomes, thus, a relative thing, subject to time, place, and people. The common denominator is man. His thesis, which comprises both culture and civilization as we have spoken of them, holds :34

... our attitudes, beliefs and ideas, our judgments and values; our institutions, political and legal, religious and economic; our ethical code and our code of eti- quette; our books and our machines, our sciences, philosophies and philosophers-all of these had many other things and beings.. .constitute our civilization.

This position is also shared by Carl Brinkmann. Although our primary purpose in this paper is to deal with definitions of culture and civilization as separate terms Brinkmann's statement is well worth inclusion as a partial summary to the present stage of our definition. He says:35

. . older ethnologists and sociologists were busy trying to find boundary lines separating the more general concept of civilization (as a system of social custom and organization) from the more special senses of the term (as denoting a higher, more rational, and more commanding position of man in nature and society)....

Continuing, Brinkmann approximates Golden- weiser's thesis that our real study is man :36

Modern anthropology and sociology try to distinguish between animal basis and human superstructure in man and society at any stage, whether early and primitive or late and complex.

THE BASES OF CULTURE (CULTURE "A")

Brinkmann's demand that anthropology and sociology distinguish between animal basis and human superstructure leads us back to Edward Sapir's first definition of culture-"any socially inherited element in the life of man, material and

27 J. B. Rhine, The Reachz of the Mind (New York: William Sloan Associates, 1947), pp. 204-224.

28 Heard, op. cit. 29 Heard, op. cit.; also, Doppelgangers, (New York:

Vanguard Press, 1947), title page. 30 Ralph Linton, The Science of Man in the World

Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), p. 78.

31 Robert K. Merton, "Civilization and Culture," Sociology and Social Research, 21 (November-December 1936), pp. 103-113.

-32 Ibid., p. 110.

33Kroeber, "The Superorganic," op. cit., p. 193. 34 Goldenweiser, op. cit., p. 15. 35 Brinkmann, op. cit., p. 529. 36 Ibid.



246 SOCIAL FORCES

spiritual. " Such a definition, of necessity, presupposes a time when there was not this quality in the activities and development of sub-human and animal life. We are here speaking of the shift from the organic to the superorganic or, to use a term previously suggested, the Alpha line. Certain writers go to great lengths to identify historically the incidence of this transition. Their observations fall under three main categories: (1) the use of social inventions as the demarcation line; (2) the recognition of certain material and/or non-material determinants; and (3) a reliance on biological bases to account for the development of an exorganic.

First, however, there is the question of the existence of "animal cultures." As the name suggests this is an indication that a few writers consider the instincts and drives of the "Organic Area" as a species of culture. Professor Opler and others point out that such a concept violates the chief principle of the culture concept, continuity. Case disposes of this matter by recording such activities as "animal doings"; he says that culture is only equivalent to "the tools, symbols... possessed by human beings."37 We shall leave the issue here.

Within the framework, social inventions, the general agreement may be called configurationist. Ford, Benedict, and MacKeil speak of "designs for living," which include both explicit and implicit duties or restrictions. Ford broadens the base but presupposes the pattern. He says, "Culture is that complex whole which includes artifacts, beliefs, art, all the other habits acquired by man as a member of society . .. a historically derived system of explicit and specially designated members of a group."38 Again he says that culture is equivalent to "learned problem solution" or "traditional ways of solving problems." Spinden's inclination to "patterns of culture" is by now a part of the public domain.

Mr. Herbert J. Spinden develops a thesis of the origins of culture based upon food supplies and the development of what he calls "loyalties and inhibi- tions," certainly non-material, social inventions. He carries the matter much further, moreover, and supposes the existence of "three primary cultures." These, he says, were (1) feminist; (2) masculine;

and (3) pastoral.,, He surmises that the further development of culture and/or civilization came as a result of the warring between these primary cultures.

Clark Wissler's list of the determinants of culture gives an idea of the complexity that exists in attempting to draw the line between the "material" and the "non-material." Wissler lists, as necessary to culture, (1) food habits; (2) shelter; (3) transportation and travel; (4) dress; (5) uten- sils and tools; (6) weapons; and (7) occupations and industries.40 This suggests that Ogburn's attempt to divide the determinants on a strictly material or non-material basis is impractical. Robert Lowie's opinion is that "culture is invariably an artificial unit segregated for purposes of expediency." He thinks that "there is only one natural unit ... the culture of all humanity at all periods and in all places."'41

Another element of Spinden's theory relies upon the material, however. He suggests the development or mutation of certain staple food sources as the "civilizer" of primitive man. He points to four areas in which early cultures developed, two wet, two dry. Specifically he tells of the origins of the "civilizations" of wheat, maize, rice, and manioc.42 Whether right or wrong such a biologic source accounts for one of the "missing links" of Toyn- bee's thesis of the rise and fall of societies. He finds no previous linkage between the Egyptiac and Andean "civilizations" and the remoter past.43 The granting of a mutation which produced a staple and stable food supply could account for their existence.

Gerald Heard, in The Emergence of Man, claims that "it was the loss of sexual periodicity" which made early civilization possible." For better or for worse man is the only animal that ruts the year

37 C. M. Case, "Culture as a Distinctive Human Trait," American Journal of Sociology, 32 (1927), pp. 906-920.

38 Linton, op. cit.

3" G. Elliott Smith, Bronislaw Malinowski, Herbert J. Spinden and Alexander A. Goldenweiser, Culture, The Diffusionist Controversy (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1927), p. 61.

40 Merton, "Civilization and Culture," op. cit., pp. 103-113.

41 Robert Lowie, The History of Ethnological Thieory (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1937), pp. 235-236.

42 Smith and Others, op. cit. 43 Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (abridgment

by D. C. Somervell of volumes 1-6; New York: The Oxford University Press, 1947), facing p. 566.

44 Gerald Heard, The Emergence of Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932), p. 67.




round. Obviously, a great deal of social organization has been necessary to channel this proclivity.

Culture, or early civilization, having been estab- lished through one or more of the bases mentioned the question arises as to its diffusion or independent origins in other parts of the globe. Camps have arisen, one of which, following the conclusions of G. Elliott Smith, maintains that culture was "born at one place at one time, [and] that it was carried throughout the world by one people."45 This diffusionist school contends that man remained largely passive. A culture had to be born and then be carried to him by other people. Furthermore, "he remained essentially peaceful and happy before conscious foresight and invention" destroyed his unindividuality.46 And Smith supposes that because few weapons have been found at Mohenjo- Daro there was "peace before agriculture and irrigation."47 At any rate the diffusionists, dis- counting the idea of parallel invention, look for the origin of a culture trait or an invention in one place, then attempt to trace its dissemination throughout the world.

G. Elliott Smith, in Elephants and Etknologists, and Mr. Gilbert N. Lewis, as recently as January, 1947, so maintain in their thesis of an indigenous American culture which was diffused to Asia and the rest of the world. Mr. Lewis contends that "The Indians of South America were the pioneers of modern civilization. They developed the neo- lithic arts which were carried, either directly or in relays, across the South Pacific."48 His best evi- dence is a curious use of the bottle gourd but he has to suppose a natural closing of the great western water route somewhere around 3000 B. C. because of failure to find the wheel, an Asiatic invention, in North or South America in pre- Columbian times.

The parallelists, or cultural evolutionists, spear- headed by Leslie A. White, insist upon an evolution of culture, through the use of fairly comparable stages, in every section of the world. White roundly derides Tylor for his statement that "civilization is a plant much more often propagated than de-

veloped."49 Thus, the neo-evolutionists believe in the spontaneous origin and development of culture wherever it may be found. This is, of course, in harmony with cultural determinism.

Following Oswald Spengler, Miss Ruth Benedict lists the "destiny ideas" which she thought characterized "civilizations" or cultures. Spengler conceptualized four chief motivations. The Apollonian seemed to him to typify the soul of the classic world-"a cosmos ordered in a group of excellent parts." There was no place for will in such a universe and conflict was an evil which philosophy shunned. The Faustian denominated a force "end- lessly combatting obstacles, inevitable, the cul- mination of past choices and experiences." Its essence was conflict. The Egyptian saw itself "as moving down a narrow and inexorably prescribed life-path to come at last before the judges of the dead." The Magian, as the name implies, prescribed a strict Dualism of body and soul.50 Miss Benedict felt that she had found some of these patterns in the lives of certain North American Indian tribes.

Danger lurks when categories are attempted and it will be suggested that each culture may have something of each type within it even as individuals are not usually completely introvert or extrovert. William Elgin has taken Miss Benedict severely to task for her use of the terms described although it must be admitted that they may have a certain value for identifying roughly the ethos or spirit of a people.51

THE BASES OF CIVILIZATION

(CIVILIZATION "C")

However sweet and reasonable it may seem to discuss culture and civilization in one breath there is a certain amount of disagreement to this prac- tice. As has been indicated previously the criterion, when one is used, for civilization, is complexity. Thus, there are as many bases, or equations to the Beta line, as there were for the Alpha. It depends largely, it appears, on differing individual views of what constitutes "complexity."

45M. E. Opler, lecture at Harvard University, Feb- ruary 4, 1947.

46 Heard, The Ascent of Humanity, p. 43. 47 Ibid. 48 Gilbert N. Lewis, "The Beginning of Civilization

in America," A mnerican Anthropologist, 49 (January- March 1947), pp. 1-24.

49 Leslie A. White, "Diffusion vs. Evolution," Am1zeri- cant Anthropologist, 47 (1945), pp. 339-355.

50 Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (reprint; New York: Penguin Books, 1946), pp. 48-50, 72-73.

51 William Elgin, "Anthropology for the Common Man," A nzerican Anthropologist, 49 (January-March 1947), pp. 84-90.



248 SOCIAL FORCES

The most universally accepted demarcations are the invention of writing, by which man passed from a prehistoric to a historic age, and urbaniza- tion, by which man took upon himself the culture complexes of concentrated populations. Kluckhohn and Kelley call civilization a city culture. "People who have lived in cities have invariably possessed a somewhat complex way of life, and have almost always had a written language."52 Odum calls civilization "technical, scientific or mechanical, and to that extent, artificial."53 In one sense civilization then represents a special type of culture; in the other, the technical, it deserves to be mentioned independently because of its "higher" degree of complexity.

Professor F. S. C. Northrop suggests the origins of civilization as the product of "logical presuppositions" on the part of the culture group which raised itself to the "higher" status.54 By an analysis of the necessities for a more concentrated pattern of living, certain rules, rituals, and customs were instituted which, when stabilized and time hal- lowed, served not only to raise the original level but to solidify the civilization itself. Chou, Han, and T'ang China present examples of such a process at work in certain areas of their societies.

Childe, Radcliffe-Brown, and White make a great deal of the inventions of engines, steam and gasoline, with their attendant culture complexes. In these cases it clearly depends on the framework which an interpreter has in mind for his choice of the determination line.

Heard, as suggested, makes the most novel de- parture in his thesis of societal balancing complexes which oppose newly developed individuality. His argument subtitled "An Essay on the Evolution of Civilization from Group Consciousness through Individuality to Super-Consciousness"55 makes use of phrases such as Proto-Individualism, Pioneer Individuals, The Arrest of Individuality, and the like.56 While concerned at the moment with civilization, his complete purpose is to set the stage for Post-Individuality, which we have agreed not to discuss, as this development carries us across the Gamma line.

Arnold J. Toynbee, in his monumental work, A Study of History, coined the expression "Challenge-

response" to account for the origins of twenty-five civilizations, which he describes at length.57 For him, however, "civilization" has both a broad and a narrow connotation. In one direction he speaks of the Hellenic civilization and Western civilization. These are non-nationalistic terms although the areas they serve have been drawn together through historical means. In another sense his "civilizations" are narrow. They are invariably based upon a generalization which is in turn related to adher- ence to some certain religious philosophy. Professor Opler has pointed out that these civilizations are hardly those of the anthropologist or the so- ciologist.

A seventh determinant for the localization of the Beta line and the fixing of the fountainhead of civilization is artificial control of the sex drive. Aldous Huxley, in a foreword to Hopousia, or the Sexual and Economic Foundation of a New Society, says:58

... Some years ago, as a result of their researches into the nature of causes of mental disturbances, (certain) psychologists suggested that what we call civilization has been built up by sacrifices in the gratification of sexual desires. An inquiry into the facts reveals that in making this suggestion the psychologists were right.

Thus, he contends that the social control which has resulted in the "civilized" monogamous marriage "of Rochester, New York," although completely artificial, has made civilization possible. This, at least, is a consistent argument. If man's loss of sexual periodicity made culture possible it is not too much to suggest that his certain abstinence made civilization flower!

Civilizations also possess other qualities once they are called into being. Thus, the most famous of the cyclical theories is that of Oswald Spengler.59 He envisaged civilization as endowed with a biologic quality and wrote of youth, maturity, and death as applied to societies. By analogy and parallel he predicted the decline of Western civilization.

Toynbee, Marx, and others have professed to see dichotomizing tendencies at work in civilizations which result, they say, in Hegelian syntheses,

52 Linton, op. cit., p. 78. 53 Odum, op. cit., p. 283. 5 F. S. C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946), pdssim. 5"Heard, The Ascent of Humanity, title page. 56 Ibid., Table of Contents.

57Toynbee, op. cit., pp. 60-80. 58 J. D. Unwin, JHopousia, or the Sexual and Economic

Foundations of a Nezw Society (New York: Oscar Priest, 1940), Introduction.

59 Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1937). Also. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy.




albeit of the type most pleasing to each writer. Toynbee deals in terms such as the internal and external proletariats, the dominant minority, and the like;60 Marx' divisors are predicated upon the class struggle, master and slave, serf and freeman, lord and vassal, and bourgeoisie and proletariat.61 The most common criticism, and possibly, the most sound, is that such divisions may easily repre- sent over-simplifications of the problem and thus lead to either a false synthesis or a mistaking of the result so patently desired for the one and only synthesis allowable.

Also in the world are to be found "civilizations" which have, according to Toynbee, been immo- bilized or arrested. He mentions the Polynesians, the Eskimos, the Nomads, the 'Osmanlis, and the Spartans.62 The common characteristic of all these is their audacity in facing almost insurmountable obstacles and conditions. Their common descrip- tive is their failure. A review of their culture complexes would add but little to our attempt to see the definition of civilization more clearly.

In a world in which, in the words of Carl Brink- mann, "Man is many and civilizations are also many," there has been, since the beginning of the Christian era at least, the hope and demand for the ecumenical state or civilization. Mo-Ti, the Chinese sage, early voiced the expectation as well as the difficulty:63

Where standards differ, there will be opposition; But how can standards in the world be unified?

A solution to this problem has been advanced by Professor F. S. C. Northrop. He thinks that the chief differences which he detects can be resolved basically into one. Then, world civilization can be advanced in the resolution of this disagreement by the reconciliation of the opposing preoccupations, which he identifies as follows:64

...it has been stated that the East concerned itself with the immediately apprehended factor in the nature of things, whereas the West has concentrated for the most part on the doctrinally designated factor.

Northrop hopes, therefore, to adjust this difference between "concepts by intuition" and "concepts by postulation" by securing a harmony of viewpoint, in which both East and West recognize the point of emphasis of the other without, he thinks, accepting the necessity of sacrificing either's peculiar cultural predilections. As the problem may appear too abstract and metaphysical to many readers we shall not pursue it further here.

SUMMARY AND COMMENTS

An attempt was made to clarify the structure of the concepts culture and civilization by the use of a schematic design within which were placed arbitrary thresholds designating different stages in the development of man's non-biologic life. Thus, the "Alpha line" indicated a transition from an "organic" period, in which "animal drive" furnished the only "cultural" basis for living matter, to a "hhigher" stage denominated here as the "superorganic." The "Beta line" indicated passage from the lower level of the superorganic, designated here as "culture" only, to a higher degree of culture called civilization.

The Alpha line was one based on a variety of factors, as conceptualized by numerous anthropologists and sociologists, but, usually, was subject to a reduction to certain socially accepted inventions. The Beta line represented a threshold based upon some rather arbitrary front, as selected by differing writers, but one denoting transition into a "higher" or more complex degree of "culture." This higher stage, civilization, was considered, however, by some, including Opler, Redfield, Kroe- ber, and Goldenweiser, as only another aspect of "culture."

As indicated in the opening statement, the matter of a definition of culture and civilization offers a problem that is not fully resolved at present. Those who view "culture" as continuous are un- willing to admit the existence of a special stage called civilization. Moreover, Goldenweiser, for example, uses the term "Early Civilization" to denote what is called "culture" by many others. To make matters worse, culture is almost universally used in its general sense as well as in its technical limited sense as utilized here.

Nevertheless, it is maintained that, regardless of varying usage of the terms, the structures of the concepts have been clearly defined. Thus, according to the author, (1) the use of social inventions; (2) the recognition of certain material and/or

60 Toynbee, op. cit., pp. 12-13. Also Pitirim Sorokin, The Reconstruction of Humanity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), p. 235.

61 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Modern Library, 1932), p. 1.

02 Toynbee, op. cit., pp. 164-165. 63 Northrop, op. cit., p. 1. 64Ibid., p. 448.



250 SOCIAL FORCES

non-material determinants; or (3) a reliance on biological bases accounts for the Alpha demarcation line. The term "culture," moreover, always signifies the passing over from a stage of discrete activity to one of continuous accumulation, of either a high or low degree.

The basis for "civilization" is complexity. De- terminers for the Beta line, as variously suggested, range from (1) the invention of writing; (2) urbani- zation; (3) the development of "logical presuppositions;" (4) the invention of engines, steam and gasoline; (5) "newly developed individuality;" to (6) "challenge-response" situations; and (7) artificial control of the sex drive. Even a third front, the Gamma line, or the "psychological" is suggested, and some sociologists and social scientists including Sorokin, Heard, Toynbee, and Northrop admit such a mutation to crown the present "civilization."

Thus, while there is anything but uniformity in the use of the terms culture and civilization, there is a general agreement as to the structure of the

concepts, and this has been illustrated by the schematic diagram. And, while there is disagreement as to the placing of the "levels" or degrees of culture or civilization, if such demarcations are to be used at all, there now is arising a universal accord as to what the objectives of sociology and anthropology shall be.

Although this paper has labored to show the relationship between civilization and culture, as the terms may properly be used, it does appear that a present tendency is developing which, when full grown, will replace the specialized term civilization with the more inclusive "culture." Thus, we end this paper without further attempt at analysis of the use of the terms. The modern objective of social scientists is man, wherever and however he is found; culture begets civilization and civilization is "culture." There is still a quarrel as to "end" and "means," but the real inquiry concerns man's abilities, material and spiritual, rather than his disabilities, high or low.

A FORM OF CLASS EPIGRAPHY ARTHUR MINTON

Greenlawn, New York

I. A CENTER OF WEALTH

ON FIFTH Avenue, New York City, mainly from 60th Street to 94th, there still stand many of the mansions erected by the for-

tune makers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Side streets in these latitudes contain many smaller private houses that were built-and in many cases are still enjoyed-by sub-tycoons. In many places on Fifth Avenue up to 102nd Street, and on the adjoining side streets, high-rent apartment houses have taken the place of private dwellings, and such apartment houses line Park Avenue from 47th Street to 96th.

On Madison Avenue between 48th Street and 96th; on Fifth Avenue from 34th Street to 60th; here and there on Park Avenue; to some extent on Lexington Avenue between 54th Street and 96th; and on some streets running east and west from those avenues (some given limits are necessarily approximate) are establishments that purvey goods and services to the residents of the wealth-marked residential area delimited above. (This is not to

say that all residents of the area are wealthy or that all the shops are for the wealthy only or that the shops in point-some of them widely famed- do not have customers from elsewhere.) The delimited residential area, together with the adjoining shop area, will hereinafter be called the District.

Commercial establishments of the District have signs-on windows or above them, on awnings, or elsewhere-designed, naturally, to attract customers of high economic calibre. The language of these signs, then, constitutes a sector of language that has a relation to the sphere of wealth. This language is by no means of less interest thereby; little formal notice, if any, has been taken of the peculiarities of the English used within their own circles by the wealthy and well to do. It is intended here to describe the distinguishing features of commercial epigraphy of the District.

II. UNCOMMON SUBJECTS

In the business signs of the District we may first notice mention of goods and services that are not



some distinctions between culture and civilization as displayed in sociological literature

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