OUR PRESENT CIVILIZATION - C.E.M.JOAD

Our Present Civilization - C.E.M. Joad

PRAISE OF OUR CIVILIZATION:

Order and Safety:

C.E.M. Joad praises our present civilization because there is order and safety.

In disputes between man and man,
Right has taken the place of might.
Without safety, those higher activities of mankind which make up civilization could not go on.

The inventor could not invent,
The scientist could not find out, or
The artist could not make beautiful things.
Hence, order and safety are as necessary to our civilization as the air we breathe is to us. Thus, order and safety is a great achievement of our civilization today.

Good health and long life:

People today are free from the fear of pain because of the common use of anaesthetics. To be healthy is not to be civilized – because even savaged are often healthy, but unless one has good health, he or she cannot enjoy or achieve anything. Not only do men and women enjoy better health but also live longer than they ever did before.

Present civilization: Widely Spread:

Our civilization is more secure because it is much more widely spread. Most of the previous civilizations came to an end because uncivilized peoples broke in and destroyed them. This was the fate of Babylon, Assyria, India, China, Greece and Rome. Previous civilizations were specialized and limited like an oasis in a surrounding desert of savagery. Eventually, the desert closed in and the oasis was no more. But to-day, it is the oasis which is spreading over the desert. Practically no part of the world is untouched by it.

Present Civilization - : The World as One:

For the first time, the world has now a chance of becoming a single whole, a unity. To-day, the food we eat comes from all over the world. The things in a grocer’s shop are from the ends of the earth. There are:

1. oranges from Brazil,
2. grapes from Africa,
3. rice from India,
4. tea from china,
5. sugar from Columbia etc.

To-day the world is beginning to look more like one enormous box. Therefore, there is little danger upon our civilization from outside. The danger comes only from within; it is a danger from among us. Thus, C.E. M. Joad brings us to the defects of our civilization.

DEFECTS OF OUR CIVILIZATION:

The first Defect: Disparity in sharing-out of National Income:

To-day, the sharing-out of money – the sharing-out of food, clothing, houses and books, is still very unfair. In England alone, in sharing out of the National Income, we find that one half is divided among every sixteen people and the seventeenth person gets the other half. So while some few people live in luxury, many have not even enough to eat and drink and wear. Again, in England to-day, thousands of people live in dreadful surroundings. There are many families of five or six persons who live in a single room; in this same room they are born and in this same room they die, because, they are too poor to afford another room.

Until everyone gets his proper share of necessary and delightful things, our civilization will not be perfect.

The Second Defect: - The Danger of War: -

A still greater danger comes from war. Four years from 1914 to 1918, the most destructive war that the world has known, took place between the great nations of Western Europe. The chief causes were fear and pride. Each nation was afraid of the power of the other nations and each nation was too proud to admit it.

In spite of this last explosion, to-day, nations are spending still more money on war preparation thus leading to another destructive blaze which will probably burn up civilization altogether.

What may prevent this is a body called the League of Nations, which was set up after the last war.

This is a sort of law court for nations to which they could bring their disputes for settlement. Thus, in the league of nations lies one of the chief hopes in the world.

The Third Great Defect: - The Danger from Machines: -

The third great defect of our civilization is that we do not know how to manage our machines.
Machines were made to be man’s servants; yet, they have grown to become his masters;
Moreover, the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, given petrol to drink, oil to wash with, and they must be kept at the right temperature. So we have to wait upon them attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper. The time may come when they rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals.

Conclusion:

Thus, in this essay, C.E.M. Joad praises the remarkable progress mankind has made in the field of civilization like order, safety, health and security. He also points out the dangers of our civilization in the form of war and machines. The author feels that machines are not civilization, but aids to civilization. If man will give his time and energy to
Making more beautiful things
Removing the cause of quarrels between nations, and,
Discovering how to remove poverty,
then, our civilization would be the greatest and the most lasting that has ever been.

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