Chapter II: Is Civilization Just?

In order to open such lines of anthropological investigation and ethical reflection, I have raised the question: "Is Civilization a Disease?"

Had I asked, "Is Civilization Christian?" I should have defeated my own end. You would have answered "No" as soon as you saw the subject of my discourse announced, and would have stayed at home. But you might still have given your ethical sanction to trade. You might have said, "It does not pretend to be Christian; but that is nothing against it, for the vital principle of Christianity is sentimental and impracticable: and what won't work can't be right."

Had I raised the question in the form, "Could trade ever have emanated from an intelligent motive of universal love--of deference for the humanity in every man?" you would have replied, "Never!" But you might have consoled yourself with the thought that it is only a small part of our boasted civilization. We have art and education and family life and monogamy and religion; and these come in as correctives, so that trade, although not conceived of benevolence and not bearing the stamp of humanity in its character, is comparatively harmless under the restraints laid upon it. Then, too, the idea of universal love savors of theology, and would have put my lecture under that general ban which in philosophical circles has been set up against theological ethics.

Indeed, I even shrank from asking, "Is civilization unethical, or wrong, or bad?" For nowadays we find moral judgments more attractive when they are disguised or at least slightly veiled. When we are really curious to know what is good, we become shy; we are not sure that our neighbors may not put a cynical interpretation upon any appearance of enthusiasm in our effort to find out what is right. Anticipating such delicacy in my prospective audience of to-night, I threw a physiological drapery, not to say pathological, over the ethical bareness of my theme, by introducing into it the idea of disease. For while it may no longer be a stigma to be un-Christian, and while some have been trying to break all the traditional tables of moral values and prevent any new ones from being inscribed, nobody, so far as I have been able to learn, has denied that disease, whether physical or only mental, is an evil and a thing which it would be wicked to spread for the mere delight in spreading it. Happily, there is still astir throughout the community an active, virile, and unashamed desire--and not only among women--for health. And in alertness and resourcefulness it is second only to the desire for wealth itself. The result is, that if anything which we have admired and been proud of has been discovered by experts to be of the nature of disease, we want to be notified, so that we may reverse our sentiments towards it, and if possible destroy it. The word "disease" is still plainly one of reproach.

On the other hand, the very term "civilization" sets emotions vibrating of deference and awe towards the institution it signifies. Indeed, pride in being civilized is still so nearly universal--especially among Americans--that many persons upon hearing the point mooted whether civilization be a disease or not, are disposed to resent the bare suggestion as smacking of whimsicality.