Our Civilization – C. E. M. Joad (Additional English II Semester)

The celebrated essayist C E M Joad praises “Our Civilization” because it assures order and safety for every citizen. Without order and safety, those higher activities of mankind which make up civilization could not be possible. The higher activities which are the epitomes of civilization.  The inventor could not invent, the scientist could not find out anything new and the artist could not make any beautiful thing if not security assured. All disputes between man and man are settled in the courts of law. Thus, order and safety are the great achievements of our civilization today.

Our civilization is more secure than previous civilizations because it is much more widely spread. Most of the previous civilizations came to an end because savage (uncivilized) people 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 enormous desert of savagery. Eventually, the desert engulfed in and oasis was no more. But today, it is the oasis which spreading all over the desert. Practically no part of the world is untouched by it.

In modern civilization man’s life starts in the early morning with the use of machines as they are the gifts of modern civilization. People enjoy comforts and luxuries from morning till late at night either at their offices or at their workplace. More and more machines are used in day to day to make their life easy.  Countless number of machines and gadgets are invented to help us in every stage of man’s life.  All these machines are extra limbs to travel and extra arms to do some extra work, or even extra wings to fly for distant places.  Thus, man invented all these machines and made them his slaves to work for him.

Further, C E M Joad expresses his apprehension that one day or the other day man may become a slave to his own machines. Machines may become the masters over the men. They may dictate and govern all human beings as we rule our brainless animals today. So man has to engage himself to satisfy their (machines) needs and demands or else they may sulk and refuse to work.

For the first time, the entire world has now a chance of becoming a single whole unit. Today the food we eat comes from all over the world. The things in a grocer’s shop are from the ends of the earth. Today the world is beginning to look more like one enormous box. Therefore, there is little danger upon our civilization from outside. But the danger comes from only within; it is danger from among us. Thus, CEM Joad brings out the defects of our civilization.

DEFECTS OF OUR CIVILIZATION

The first Defect: Disparity in sharing of the National Income

Today, the sharing of national wealth, food, clothing, houses and other amenities is still very unfair. In England alone, in sharing the National Income, we find that one half of it is shared among every sixteen and the other half goes to seventeenth person. So, some people live in luxury and many others do not have enough to eat, drink and wear. Today, in England, thousands of people live in dreadful surroundings. There many families with eight to ten persons live in a single room. In this 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 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 was that the world has known, took place between the great nations of Western Europe. (CEM Joad had known only World War I at the time of writing this essay) the chief causes for this war were fear and pride. Each nation was afraid of the power of the other nation and each nation was too proud to admit it. Today, each nation is spending its greater part of its budget on war preparations thus leading to another which will probably burn up entire civilization altogether. However, to prevent the impending danger, all nations decide to set up League of Nations, the chief hope of the world, to settle disputes between the nations and ensure peace.

The Third 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.

Thus, in this essay “Our Civilization” C E M Joad praises the remarkable progress that mankind has made in the field of civilization like order, safety and security. He also points out the dangers of our civilization in the form of dis-satisfaction, war and machines. The author feels that machines are not civilization but aids to civilization. If man will give his time and energy to removing the causes of quarrels between nations and discovering how to remove poverty then, our civilization would be greatest and the lasting that has ever been flourishing. 

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