Civilization

Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die.

You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery.

Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.

We are at our best when we serve others.”

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In many posts in this blog I have referenced time and again how the current values we as a species have, are detrimental to our success off-world. I have promoted alternatives to carrying our current value system to space and how we need to re-condition our explorers to live and thrive in an environment hostile to our existence. This simple concept by Mead about the first sign of where civilization began speaks volumes about what I have been writing about.

The lesson here is also that when you go off-world to a hostile climate, if you don't help each other and share resources, there will be only death, no civilization is possible off-world unless you leave man's current profit margins and human nature behind.

The only possibility for success off-world is co-operation, not capitalism and self.