Yes, to some people, this is funny. But whether Scott Adams did it on purpose or not, it’s also rather profound.
Wait, you ask with a smile. Are you seriously suggesting that “preferred pronouns” are a sign of the death of Western civilization? Actually, you think this too, whether you know it or not. You just may not have noticed yet. But to get there, we have to go on a bit of a detour first. Actually, it winds up being a pretty long detour, so I have split this post in half. Part I of this post will briefly cover the development of the current idea of our civilization, Part II will contrast it with the idea of personal pronouns and show why they cannot both work.
Our Western
Civilization
“Civilization” is
a pesky word that is hard to define. Just try for a second. To our grandfathers
it often meant grand cities of towering buildings instead of mud huts and loincloths. In a
history book it can refer to any large, probably rather urban, gathering of
people, i.e. “the Mayan civilization.” To an academic these days it might
merely be the lingering Power of the White Heterosexual Male. To a hiker just
coming off a two-week walk in the wilderness, it can often be the humblest
porcelain toilet in the most run-down, filthy gas station you have ever seen (the
academic might then point out that the toilet is also white, or at least used
to be.)
We get the word
by way of the Latin civilitas, which carried the idea of the manners
necessary for the running of the Roman state. Romans were expected to act a certain
way in public; if one did not, one was a “Greek-lover,” or a “barbarian,” perhaps
a dramatic fool like Nero—at any rate, someone not worth respecting. A foreign king might
have been wealthy and powerful, but Rome did not merely value power. If some
king got a good report from a Roman historian, he was more than grand or
authoritarian—he had civilitas, or as we might say, he had good manners.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. A “homo civilitatis” meant someone who
lived in Roman society and by its rules, as distinct from the barbarians.
Over the next millennium,
Christianity took that notion and built on it. The idea of proper manners
became married to the idea of the proper man; one who knew his place in the
cosmos (God’s regent on earth) and his station in his own country (from the king
to the beggar). This became the medieval standard of civilization. There was
still a sense of superiority to the uncivilized, but it was now derived not
from citizenship in one particular powerful city, but instead in a proper
worship of the true God. A “civilized man” meant someone who lived in Christian
society and by its rules, distinct from the pagans.
As Enlightenment
rationalism leached its way into this worldview, the idea of worship began to
be divorced from man. The philosophers and deep thinkers of this period made
the curious assumption that after a thousand years of Christian training,
certain morals and manners were actually natural to men—particularly white-skinned
men. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary leans toward this view when it defines
civilization as “the state of being refined in manners, from the grossness of
savage life, and improved in arts and learning.” Instead of “Christian civilization”
we now had “Western civilization”: a vaguely Christian moral compass married to
the tremendous technological advances made by the Scientific Revolution. A “civilized
man” meant someone who lived like a European, distinct from the darker-skinned
society any other place on the globe.
Whether a modern
person likes it or not, it is this Western civilization that built the American
system of government, laws, and manners (though it was reinforced, joined, and
in some cases supplanted by the older medieval view). The idea that you can
elect a leader, retain the right to disagree with that leader publicly after an
election, and do whatever you wish with your free time (without that leader having
the least say) are all direct fruits of it. So is the Bill of Rights. So is the
ability to walk down the street without having to move aside for a superior human
being. So is the idea that you can walk into a courtroom and have a case
decided by what you have done, and not who you or your opponent are.
And it also means enjoying the richest, most technologically adorned lifestyle
in history. In a contrast to Webster, the OED currently defines civilization as
“the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is
considered most advanced.” (Note the idea of progress.)
So currently, the
(Western) “civilized man (and as you must say now, woman)” means someone
who lives by ideas of electoral and legal equality, in a state of
technological advancement; distinct from any society either hierarchically
structured, or less technologically developed. This is why it is possible (though rarely politically popular) to speak
disapprovingly of Chinese, African, or Indian civilization as inferior to the
United States’, they are either repressively unequal (China), underdeveloped
(Africa), or both (India). These emphases will be important when
we get to Part II.
