Basic Building Material for Civilization

I’m about to repeat some words from the Spherical Model website. I wrote this around 2008, published the website in 2010, but had covered many of the concepts much earlier. In the decade since I wrote this, the world has gone further in the opposite direction.

The solution to so many of society’s problems is simple: strong families. Religions have known this for millennia. Social science has known it for centuries. New data shows the truth we’ve known but too many refuse to acknowledge or live. It’s a simple solution, but not an easy one. Repairing decay is never as easy as keeping strong and healthy. Rebuilding is hard. But that’s what we need—rebuilding with the very material we started with: virtue.

Family is the Basic Unit of Civilization

Civilized societies value family as the most important and basic unit of governance. Alternatively, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, which are savage, is the replacement of the family with the state. Totalitarianism resents loyalty to any societal unit other than itself. And it is this absolute weakness that will always prevent a totalitarian state from offering true Civilization as you’d find it in a free strong-family society.

A Basic Unit of Civilization,
the Spherical Model Family,
give or take a couple of decades

This is particularly important to know for people living in a sub-civilized society. As long as families are allowed to live among themselves (children are under the care of their own parents), it is possible to have a civilized society that is just one family in size. Then, if that family can find additional similarly civilized families to associate with, their society grows. If it could grow to the size of a village or township, all the better. The goal of the founding fathers was to have that civilization spread through the United States (and if that experiment worked, have other sovereign states adopt the plan). But a family doesn’t have to wait until the world changes; the family can live the laws of civilization and enjoy many of the benefits, at least within the walls of the home.

Families have the responsibility to safeguard women and children for the greatest benefit of both current and future generations. Families provide food, shelter, clothing, education, spiritual guidance, and training in how to live a civilized life in a civilized society. Elderly are honored for their wisdom. Youth are honored for their potential. Women are honored for giving and nurturing life, among their other abilities. Men are honored for providing and protecting, among their other abilities. Families are the main economic force, as well as the very means whereby civilization can perpetuate. Civilized societies therefore protect The Family as sacred.

A hallmark of civilized society is the importance of marriage as the only acceptable place for sexual relations. Every society that decides to try devaluing fidelity in marriage eventually (and often quickly) sinks into decadence. Sex within marriage not only provides offspring, it cements the bond between the two parents, so that the child will grow in a home of love and protection and guidance. No other situation is even remotely as beneficial for a child.

Humans being mortal, there will be incidents where some children will be raised without both parents. Ideally, there should never be divorce (a necessary evil in response to decidedly uncivilized behavior). But there will be death, which is inevitable. Nevertheless, in a healthy, peaceful society the abundance of intact, healthy families can help compensate for the few homes that don’t have the child’s two living parents.

It is probably possible to quantify what percentage constitutes a critical mass of functional families that can compensate for a smaller percentage of problem homes without an undue toll on civilization. But, in general, the more family health, the more civilized the society.

Sex Outside of Marriage Is Always Wrong

This is such a simple concept, and so many problems would be settled if people would believe it. It’s an essential of civilization. Every time a society attempts to “progress” or “evolve” beyond the old-fashioned notion of virtue, it slides into decay. Every time. This decay happens so frequently, and is currently so widespread that the need for virtue must not still be self evident. So we might as well spell out the reasons.

Human Children Take Time and Consistency to Bring to Adulthood

Human children grow slowly. It takes close upon two decades to get them from birth to functioning on their own, capable of supporting themselves, reproducing, and raising a civilized next generation. It requires consistency and care from someone with a stake in the child’s success. It takes a pair of parents, providing both male and female role models and ways of nurturing.

The best (really, the only) way to plan for children to be raised by the same two (one male, one female) parents throughout their growing up life is for those two parents to be permanently bonded to each other. To be married. (See Why Marriage Matters[i]), Marriage isn’t as ephemeral as just a declaration of love between two lovers; it is a commitment to each other and to the entire society that they will stay together for life. This commitment establishes a family, the most basic unit of civilization. There isn’t any way to break up a family that doesn’t harm civilization. Therefore, there isn’t any possible way for sex outside of marriage to be acceptable behavior without harming civilization. Without the attitude of its sacredness, it is impossible to maintain virtue (chastity). And without virtue, families are always harmed.

Look, for instance, at what happens when two young people, believing they are in love, give in to sex. They have just admitted to each other that they value their own desires over the needs of the society they live in. They are both lessened for that selfishness. But what if they recognize that, though what they did was wrong, they could marry and move on? Yes, they could alter their course—what religious societies call repentance, change their thoughts and actions for the future. And if it is true that they love each other, they could go forward making a happy home, with very little harm to society. So, while society wouldn’t condone the mistake, it can easily forgive.

…..

Exceptions Must Be Rare

I’d like to note here that making the exception has to be rare, or else society cannot absorb the harm without decay. Making up a small deficit from ideal can be managed without much notice, just as it can in a family budget. But making up a large deficit, while simultaneously reducing the means for society to compensate for the deficit (raising children in the most likely way to bring them up to be responsible adults) inevitably causes damage to the society as a whole. It’s a fact borne out in inner cities in this country and in every culture in the world today where marriage is devalued. A large percentage of children being raised without both parents in a loving home means a significant decline in adults who know how to raise the next generation to be civilized.

___________________________

[i] Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-one Conclusions from the Social Sciences, © 2002 Institute for American Values, available through their website www.americanvalues.org.

Still the Only Way Up

This past weekend we had rioting in Milwaukee, ostensibly because of racist violence by police. But it was a black criminal, running from, and threatening police, being shot by a black police office. Racism isn’t part of the equation, but rampages happened anyway.

How do we get back to civilization? The same, only way.

Today I’m re-posting a piece from October 2011, on The Way Back Up to Civilization.

The Way Back Up to Civilization

Over the weekend I was reminded of a piece from August in the WSJ concerning recent riots in London. The editorial, by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, addresses what has happened there (and what to expect here for the same reasons), and what is the way back.

Panos Pictures, from original editorial.
A priest and imam joi with community
in prayer for repair of society

What caught my attention was how well he was saying what I say at Spherical Model, only without the graphic model. So I’m going to take his words and apply them to the model, in the hope that it will make his words even more convincing. 

First is a description of the chaos, the anarchy of the southwestern quadrant on the sphere: 

The world was watching London again as hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passersby and throwing rocks at the police. 

…This was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat-screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control. 

Much of the history of the world has been the oscillation between the chaos of the southwestern quadrant and the statist control of the southeastern quadrant. But we know, particularly here in America, that there’s a whole northern [hemisphere] to move to—with effort, and with principles to follow to get there. Rabbi Sachs identifies those very principles. First comes the description of the movement away from those principles: 

In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. 

In Britain today, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage. This has led to new forms of child poverty that serious government spending has failed to cure…. 

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women—91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data—is practically absurd and morally indefensible. By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them: not parents, teachers or even the local police. There are areas in Britain’s major cities that have been no-go areas for years. Crime is rampant. So are drugs. It is a recipe for violence and despair. 

What is one of the main principles for civilization: Family is the basic unit of civilization. Married parents who raise their own children, inculcating in them the principles necessary for living a civilized life, are necessary. There is no guarantee that all children will turn out well, nor is there only hopelessness for children in broken homes. There are exceptions both ways, but the critical mass of society gives direction toward or away from civilization. Here is Sachs’s summary of raising these children without the civilizing influence of intact families: 

They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement. 

So when responsibilities are ignored, civilization decays. At this point we can probably summarize the other northward moving principles as moral principles. Religion is key: 

We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital…. 

There are large parts of Britain, Europe and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you’re worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps, and the single overriding command is “Thou shalt not be found out.” 

In the Spherical Model, I have said that, while not all religious societies are civilized, every civilized society is a religious society. This does not mean state-sponsored religion—the opposite. But the civilizing principles hold true: Honor God, who is the giver of human rights, and to whom we are held accountable for our choices in this life and the next. And beyond honoring God, following these basic commandments makes it possible to live in harmony with others:

·            Honor parents

·            Do not murder (take innocent life)

·            Do not have sex outside of marriage

·            Do not steal

·            Do not lie

·            Do not covet (want what belongs to your neighbor)

These are the principles families will pass along, so civilization can continue. So, if the principles are true, it must be possible to move northward into civilization—and that gives us hope. Sachs reminds us, savage chaos has happened before, and the solution was to follow the principles that move us northward. 

In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and “unruly ruffians” by night. 

What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men’s institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society—much of it driven by religion. 

…[Toqueville, in Democracy in America, found] a society in which religion was, he said, the first of its political (we would now say “civil”) institutions. It did three things he saw as essential. It strengthened the family. It taught morality. And it encouraged active citizenship. 

Yes. Of course. If you apply the principles, you get civilization as a result. Sachs then turned to observations for our day. He quoted Robert Putnam, in Amazing Grace, saying,

Social capital… has not disappeared. It is alive and well and can be found in churches, synagogues, and other places of worship. Religious people, he discovered, make better neighbors and citizens. They are more likely to give to charity, volunteer, assist a homeless person, donate blood, spend time with someone feeling depressed, offer a seat to a stranger, help someone find a job and take part in local civic life. Affiliation to a religious community is the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender or race. 

Religion, individually lived, and extended generation to generation by families, can change people’s lives in ways governments simply cannot do. Religion is “a shaper of behavior, a tutor in morality, an ongoing seminar in self-restraint and pursuit of the common good.” 

What evidence do we have that moving northward will work in our current world? How about China? Historian Niall Ferguson, in Civilization,

…quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tasked with finding out what gave the West its dominance. He said: At first we thought it was your guns. Then we thought it was your political system, democracy. Then we said it was your economic system, capitalism. But for the last 20 years, we have known that it was your religion.

It was the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave the West its restless pursuit of a tomorrow that would be better than today. The Chinese have learned the lesson. Fifty years after Chairman Mao declared China a religion-free zone, there are now more Chinese Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.

I didn’t know that. A civilized China may be a formidable economic foe, but if we move northward as well, they will not be an enemy—they will be friendly trading partners in a more peaceful civilized world. If we stop the southward decay and make the necessary northward repairs.

The Way Back Up to Civilization

Over the weekend I was reminded of a piece from August in the WSJ concerning recent riots in London. The editorial, by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, addresses what has happened there (and what to expect here for the same reasons), and what is the way back. 

Panos Pictures, from original editorial.
A priest and imam join with community
in prayer for repair of society.

What caught my attention was how well he was saying what I say at Spherical Model, only without the graphic model. So I’m going to take his words and apply them to the model, in the hope that it will make his words even more convincing. 

First is a description of the chaos, the anarchy of the southwestern quadrant on the sphere: 

The world was watching London again as hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passersby and throwing rocks at the police. 

…This was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat-screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control. 

Much of the history of the world has been the oscillation between the chaos of the southwestern quadrant and the statist control of the southeastern quadrant. But we know, particularly here in America, that there’s a whole northern quadrant to move to—with effort, and with principles to follow to get there. Rabbi Sachs identifies those very principles. First comes the description of the movement away from those principles: 

In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. 

In Britain today, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage. This has led to new forms of child poverty that serious government spending has failed to cure…. 

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women—91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data—is practically absurd and morally indefensible. By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them: not parents, teachers or even the local police. There are areas in Britain’s major cities that have been no-go areas for years. Crime is rampant. So are drugs. It is a recipe for violence and despair. 

What is one of the main principles for civilization: Family is the basic unit of civilization. Married parents who raise their own children, inculcating in them the principles necessary for living a civilized life, are necessary. There is no guarantee that all children will turn out well, nor is there only hopelessness for children in broken homes. There are exceptions both ways, but the critical mass of society gives direction toward or away from civilization.  Here is Sachs’s summary of raising these children without the civilizing influence of intact families: 

They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement. 

So when responsibilities are ignored, civilization decays. At this point we can probably summarize the other northward moving principles as moral principles. Religion is key: 

We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital…. 

There are large parts of Britain, Europe and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you’re worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps, and the single overriding command is “Thou shalt not be found out.” 

In the Spherical Model, I have said that, while not all religious societies are civilized, every civilized society is a religious society. This does not mean state-sponsored religion—the opposite. But the civilizing principles hold true: Honor God, who is the giver of human rights, and to whom we are held accountable for our choices in this life and the next. And beyond honoring God, following these basic commandments makes it possible to live in harmony with others:

• Honor parents
• Do not murder (take innocent life)
• Do not have sex outside of marriage
• Do not steal
• Do not lie
• Do not covet (want what belongs to your neighbor)

These are the principles families will pass along, so civilization can continue. So, if the principles are true, it must be possible to move northward into civilization—and that gives us hope. Sachs reminds us, savage chaos has happened before, and the solution was to follow the principles that move us northward. 

In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and “unruly ruffians” by night. 

What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men’s institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society—much of it driven by religion. 

…[Toqueville, in Democracy in America, found] a society in which religion was, he said, the first of its political (we would now say “civil”) institutions. It did three things he saw as essential. It strengthened the family. It taught morality. And it encouraged active citizenship. 

Yes. Of course. If you apply the principles, you get civilization as a result. Sachs then turned to observations for our day. He quoted Robert Putnam, in Amazing Grace, saying,

Social capital… has not disappeared. It is alive and well and can be found in churches, synagogues, and other places of worship. Religious people, he discovered, make better neighbors and citizens. They are more likely to give to charity, volunteer, assist a homeless person, donate blood, spend time with someone feeling depressed, offer a seat to a stranger, help someone find a job and take part in local civic life. Affiliation to a religious community is the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender or race. 

Religion, individually lived, and extended generation to generation by families, can change people’s lives in ways governments simply cannot do. Religion is “a shaper of behavior, a tutor in morality, an ongoing seminar in self-restraint and pursuit of the common good.” 

What evidence do we have that moving northward will work in our current world? How about China? Historian Niall Ferguson, in Civilization,

…quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tasked with finding out what gave the West its dominance. He said: At first we thought it was your guns. Then we thought it was your political system, democracy. Then we said it was your economic system, capitalism. But for the last 20 years, we have known that it was your religion.

It was the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave the West its restless pursuit of a tomorrow that would be better than today. The Chinese have learned the lesson. Fifty years after Chairman Mao declared China a religion-free zone, there are now more Chinese Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.

I didn’t know that. A civilized China may be a formidable economic foe, but if we move northward as well, they will not be an enemy—they will be friendly trading partners in a more peaceful civilized world. If we stop the southward decay and make the necessary northward repairs.