Civilization is not something absolute but… relative… our ideals and

conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes.

-Franz Boas (French Anthropologist)

Civilization in itself means a way of life. It means people coming together

to live. Civilization or so-called society is place where people share their ideas,
opinions so as to have social development and organization. Society can also
consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a
larger society. Civilization is usually governed by ideas for a better future.

Civilization runs by a concept of being governed. Usually in a well

organizer civilization there are sets of rule that are followed by all so as to have a
living. But then again these rules do not have to be absolute they just have to be.
Civilization is not only formed by the rule we create but the people who follow
them. In my opinion, in a society there are no right or wrong. An example can be
taken from a Japanese TV show that I watch. It’s sort of like a supernatural
horror themed show where they have shown two races living on the same
planet, the first race human beings and the other known as Ghoul. The story
starts off with the main character being a human being. In this story humans hate
the race of Ghoul and from the beginning of a child’s life he is taught of hating the
ghouls. The human media give the perception of ghouls being evil and
murderers. The show continuous to show on the fighting between the ghouls and
the humans and after a certain incident the main character is converted into a
ghoul. At this point of time he became unstable and began questioning his
identity because he already had his views about the ghouls being murderers and
now he had become one of them. But after a while he began seeing thing from
the ghoul’s point of view. The view he had about them had started to fail. That
incident changed his life and he was able to see the world from human as well as
the ghoul’s view. He then was able to understand that neither of them had
understood the other race properly and the meaningless fight was just
continuing on. Their views contradicted each other’s and neither one of them
were true or false. People just continued on fighting from a long time but no one
really knew why. Then character goes on to saying that “The world is messed up”

He understood the views of both the races but then again couldn’t
determine the reasons behind it. He got to know that their views, their ideals
were based on their own rules in a civilization. He wanted everyone to
understand but all has his or her absolute rule set to it, hence he came to a point
of the world being messed up.
 Another example is, there were a group of scientist who placed five
monkeys in a cage and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on the top. Every
time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientist splashed water on the other
monkeys. They continued to do this for some time and every time the monkeys
went up the ladder they were being splashed with water. So after a while, each
time a monkey went up, the other monkeys beat up the one who went up the
ladder. Then no monkey dared to go up the ladder regardless the temptation.
Then the scientist decided to substitute one of the monkeys, and the first thing
the new monkey did was got up the ladder. He was immediately beaten up. Then
the scientist decided to keep changing the monkeys and after a round of being
beaten up and a change in the member monkeys the new monkeys also learned
not to climb the ladder. After this all of the old monkeys were replaced one by
one and then all the members in this cage were new members but were all
beaten up after climbing the ladder. Now whenever a monkey was replaced the
new one climbed the ladder and ended up beaten up but this time the scientist
did not splash the water. This continued and no one really knew why the one’s
who climbed the ladder were being beaten. The new monkeys weren’t there
during the splashing of water but still the beating was being continued. If the
monkeys were asked why were they beating the ones who climbed the ladder
their answer would be that they didn’t knew and that it was being continued
from a long time1. If the monkeys would just observe that why were they being
beaten and that there was no water being sprayed the story would have been
different. Similarly as we advance in our civilization we have to adapt to the
changes rather than blinding following the customs and traditions that have
been going on. As the time progresses we have to change with the time and move
forward towards future.

In conclusion I believe that civilization in this world should be relative

and not absolute. I’m confident that our own ideas and conceptions are true
regardless of what the society believes in.

1Stepper, J. (2013, October 26). The Five Monkeys Experiment (with a new lesson).
Retrieved September 11, 2014, from http://www.johnstepper.com/2013/10/26/the-five-
monkeys-experiment-with-a-new-lesson/