The Strategy of Human Obligation

Abstract

Civilization, the life of human beings under the conditions imposed by cities, with agriculture a prerequisite, is not much more than 20,000 years old. In terms of the length of human life in pre-history it is a mere moment. In short civilization may be regarded as an experiment, and the time has been far too brief for anyone to be able to say whether or not it will work. The motivations of an earlier million years have not been changed. We have noted that men still wish ambivalently to help and hurt their neighbors, and we may still watch them do both with dependable alternation. Neighbor-love exists, but rivalry and competition of both the violent and peaceful varieties are so common in human life that the only justification for the continuance of the species is the hope that it may evolve into something better.