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Evolution and civilisation

True civilisation exists only with the emergence of the truly human from the animal. This begins in infancy with the first formation of a semantic structure, but its maturation is possible only through forming means of preventing the error we call identification, not only conceptually, but also in its effects upon our emotions and our actions.

Identification, in the sense in which I use the term, is to see part of ourselves, to see something that happens within us, as being the whole of ourselves. When we do this, we become blind to our own realities. To change this requires special training. This becomes a civilising influence which if performed correctly leads to the formation of special elements in the psyche whose function is to correct this ‘fallen state’.  In the formation of Western civilisation, those corrective elements originated in the gospel teaching, taking detailed shape in inner psychological and moral teachings, and in ancient practices, developed within the Christian churches during the first few centuries.  Those who taught these things were once known by the Eastern Church as the ‘early fathers’ of the church.  Even with the narrowest view in the Eastern church, there were several hundred of them, and the teaching formed a true discipline in the way that certain modern sciences form a discipline.  With this training, man attains a truly human evolutionary state as ‘steward’ of the planet and its life forms.  Understanding this, one can grasp how civilisation can thus be regarded as an evolutionary experiment entailing the formation of a truly human and self-sustaining society and the stabilisation of the planetary surface, eventually including its oceans and its atmosphere.