# GEP1005 Week 2 part 1

**Channel:** BAUGO
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgmF82Vvxro
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/dgmF82Vvxro

## Chapters

- 0:16 — Course Purpose and Historical Awareness
- 1:37 — Defining Civilization Across Cultures
- 4:13 — Western Bias and Civilizational Hierarchies
- 6:30 — A Fair Definition of Civilization

## Transcript

**[0:16]:** hello everyone welcome to the history of civilization one course why history of civilization course is offered in the universities this course concerns history of humanity exploring political social cultural religious and economic development of various civilizations of the east and west it aims to provide students a general notion of cultural history having cultural knowledge will provide individuals to have enlightened minds an ability for developing critical thinking in order to expand our worldview and perspectives in our lives we need to know about history of humanity that is the evolution developments regression transition and transformation of various societies in different parts of the world educated people regardless of their professions should know about these for their individual blooming which in turn will make them open-minded and productive individuals to be able to this we need to have knowledge about history of humanity this course is designed to give students some basic knowledge about the worldwide developments through which

**[1:37]:** they can enlarge their world views therefore the course welcomes students from various disciplines let's think about this question now what is civilization the term civilization is originated from civilis in latin which means of the citizens it was used by romans in order to differentiate citizens and non-citizens being a citizen was a privileged position in the roman empire and there were certain rules to be citizen similarly centuries earlier than romans greeks differentiated themselves from non-greek or foreign people by calling them barbars they heard the languages of non-greek people as senseless bubble therefore they called those who did not speak greek as barbar for greeks all foreigners were barbarians denoting uncivilized people who cannot speak greek it is a difficult task to determine the demarcation between civilized and uncivilized or inferior or savage which society is civilized and which one is not civilized all peoples of the world farmers artisans clergy merchants lived in society but each

**[3:11]:** society did not produce the same thing for example egyptians wrote on papyrus since around the nine nile river there was abundant of papirus plant from which they make the puppers writeable on it mesopotamians for example wrote on the clay tablets since they learned to benefit from clay peoples of both civilizations wrote and recorded their social and economic matters in different ways therefore it is impossible to argue egyptian writing is superior than mesopotamian one or vice versa neither it is possible to argue the mesopotamian religion is superior than greek religion or vice versa all societies produce cultures depending on the geographical topographical and climatological conditions moles of production and economic relations peoples are capable of forming

**[4:13]:** civilizations if they have the necessary resources due to the developments in the western world between 16th and 19th centuries western world produced modern state and modern society with a relatively democratic political system european writers in order to justify european imperialist expansion and the idea of the superiority of west defined differences between civilized and not civilized considering their own society they argue that some races are more inventive talented smart and artistic than others in other words superior to others the west is the example for a superior one therefore west experienced political religious socio-cultural and economic developments that brought about civilization other not civilized races according to them which were the equivalent of other civilizations were not capable of producing civilization european writers through such a discourse made the west a norm to be reached by not civilized societies they constructed division and differentiation between civilized and not civilized or uncivilized or inferior or savage was invalidated

**[5:47]:** by some european scholars of the 20th century in other words racist discourses of the earlier century were rejected by the 20th century intellectuals the miserable lives of the colonized people who were colonized by the west to civilize them and the humanity crimes of nazis during the second world war played role in the development of critical intellectual thinking by the 21st century in scholarly circles it was understood that western writers made their biased definition of civilization how

**[6:30]:** would it be possible to make a fair definition of civilization first of all we need to avoid being ethnocentric in defining the concept of civilization this means one should not define evaluate and judge peoples of civilization with reference to one's own civilization doing so will yield production of bias knowledge which curtails accurate characteristics and capabilities of the given society therefore in order to make a more reliable definition of civilization each society's geographical topographical social cultural and economic conditions should be considered one careful definition of civilization may be as following civilization is a form of human social organization which came into being by the development of agriculture through discovery of agriculture people had a sedentary way of life that is to say they did not have to continuously move to find food to survive they could control and shape their environments in their favor human social organizations which could shape their land for their benefits which

**[7:54]:** produce political economic and social systems express their artistic senses through architecture literary products or paintings can be called civilization in this course you are going to explore why first civilizations of the world emerge in the middle east and asia you are going to have an idea about major cultural social economic and political trends within each civilization this course examines how civilization came into being and then proceeds to analyze major world civilizations like the mesopotamian egyptian indian chinese anatolian greek roman and byzantium civilizations in this semester you are going to read about the emergence and diffusion of world civilizations from the paleolithic age to about the beginning of european overseas expansion in the 16th

**[9:06]:** century you