A Civilization is a community which imposes its beliefs upon all other communities by violence.

A Community is a shared understanding; a creature that has a life-cycle like any other as it first waxes to a prime before waning into senility then dissolution.

As a civilization is a community, and a community is an understanding, then the study of civilization must be the study of understanding and so it is philosophy.

1. Understanding is the invoking by reason of a set of values (a morality) to recognise right from wrong , good from bad.

i. It cannot take place until a set of values has been adopted.

ii. And once adopted all understanding must reflect these values. For every time a man attempts to grasp the meaning of what he has seen, it is by invoking his founding values. A process that is similar to the use of a lever that always requires a fulcrum. The lever is reason and the fulcrum is values. The lever cannot be employed without the fulcrum. And as reason is the almost mechanical application of logic, the resulting understanding depends on the values employed, which makes reason the servant of values. Which in turn means that once a human understanding is formed (at the age of reason — seven years of age), it is for the life of that individual. And reason can never be used to change founding values (morality) because the process of reason automatically invokes the values of infancy.

2. The most crucial human value is the one formed first in infancy, which is the decision to be selfish or not. If the child is not taught that there is something more important than their own private demands, they become selfish. But if they are taught there is something more important than themselves they become unselfish.

i. It is for life for once this value has become resolved it becomes the parent of all other values.

ii. A crucial difference between the states of selfishness and unselfishness is their ability to recognise right from wrong:

a. The selfish are insane: as they are ruled by the tyranny of their emotions, which distorts their understanding. Right is what is they like, wrong is what they do not like, which of course changes with circumstances. If a murder realises private profit it is right; if it uncovers a threat to their survival, it is wrong. But they cannot form the understanding that something has a value independent of their own interests, which undermines their understanding of the world. The selfish cannot form a clear and constant understanding.

b. The unselfish are sane: as they are ruled by a fixed set of values which is more important than themselves and therefore independent of their feelings. This moral code allows them to resist the tyranny of their emotions and form a stable understanding of the world.

3.The condition of selfish or unselfishness of a citizen is decided by the experiences of infancy, which is when the foundations of understanding (morality) are established.

4. Language is understanding.

The Theory

1. A civilization is the tangible creations of a communal understanding.

2. A communal understanding is the single understanding formed by a group of people who, inspired by similar experiences, share the same beliefs. That is, they share a common morality which obtains common beliefs that are expressed in a common language. This obtains a common tradition made up not just of language, but manners, customs, laws and institutions, which makes them a community. (see the simple example of the Boer community)

3. Communal understanding is superior to individual understanding because it is not constrained by human anatomy but is practically unlimited in scope or duration.

4. The character, or personality, of a communal understanding is its culture.

5. The accumulated experiences of a communal understanding become the wisdom of the community.

7. A communal understanding recreates itself by each generation imbuing their offspring with the communities tradition.

8. A communal understanding (community) exists in one of two modes; it is either waxing or waning.

9. The mode of a communal understanding (community) is a result of the majority mode of its citizens, who themselves exist in one of two separate modes. A citizen is either:

i.	Unselfish and prepared to sacrifice private interest for the common good.
ii.	Selfish and prepared to sacrifice the common good for private interest.

10. The community:

i.	Waxes (gains wisdom) when the majority of citizens are unselfish.
ii.	Wanes (loses wisdom) when the majority of citizens are selfish.

10.1 The majority persecute the minority. The majority will always treat the minority as outcasts, forcing them to become isolated and alienated. In the vital mode the selfish win social stigma, in the dissolute mode the unselfish are viewed as simpletons.

11. All communities have a life-cycle: they rise to a prime—a golden age—then decline into senility. This is because the mechanism the community uses to recreate itself — imbuing its children with tradition— is not perfect; it does not only create unselfish citizens who revere the beliefs of their parents, but also a few selfish citizens who do not revere the beliefs of their parents. As every selfish citizen must fail to recreate the tradition of the community, over time the community must gain an increasing number of citizens who are selfish and lacking tradition. When the number of selfish citizens becomes the majority then the community stops waxing and starts waning.

12. A community wanes when its citizens no longer imbue the founding morality into their off-spring (see the law of reverse civilization). This is because the majority of parents are either:

i.	Selfish and so: a. Have no fixed morality, so cannot imbue the traditional morality of the community, so any offspring who are not taught to be selfish have an unpredictable set of values b. Find it difficult to resist the biological urge to indulge their own off-spring, which is teaching them to be selfish, and so creates more citizens like themselves.
ii.	Unselfish but lacking the founding morality of the community because of a failure in their upbringing.

13. A Class War marks the time when the community stops waxing and starts waning, for this is when the selfish become the majority and begin their rebellion against the demands of tradition. This revolution wrests power from the traditional rulers and places it in the hands of the declared agents of the selfish majority.

13.1. Authority Reversed This is a reversal in the nature of authority which stops being the master, and starts being the servant, of its charges. Then government stops being guided by the wisdom supplied by tradition but starts being tyrannised by popular notions (democracy) so replacing sensible with irrational rule.

13.2 Decline Ensues And from this moment the community enters an irreversible decline where it becomes progressively sillier and weaker (Senile) though officially there is no change. Under the influence of selfish citizens the restraints upon personal behaviour demanded by the founding morality are progressively discarded. Each successive generation becomes less restrained and more impatient of restraint so shedding more restraints. But as morality is the foundation of understanding, what is being shed is the understanding of the community, which is communal suicide. This is revealed by:

i.	The Retreat From Reason — As understanding is founded upon morality which is being discarded by the community, the ability to think clearly is also being discarded.
ii.	The Disappearance Of Plain Sentiments—Short and simple expressions are the currency of clear thinking, so language must decay along with the understanding it reflects.
iii.	The Suppression Of Truth— Selfish citizens are not concerned with self-sacrifice but self-aggrandisement, so the demands of duty are ignored in the pursuit of private gain. As the aim of duty is public good, this is what suffers to supply profit to the selfish. Such behaviour can only be maintained by the cloak of deceit, which makes truth an anathema to the selfish.
iv.	Growth Of Incompetence— Competence and achievement require the effort of dutiful citizens, the widespread presence of selfish citizens must obtain widespread incompetence.
v.	The Embracing Of Delusion— Unrestrained by truth or reason, individuals (and their community) are unable to resist their fears and fancies which become the inspiration for widespread absurd beliefs.
vi.	The Shrinking From Resolute Action—Selfishness prevents the private sacrifice demanded to endure in the face of adversity, so preventing individuals and the community from showing determination and perseverance. This makes the whole community timid and unable to overcome difficulties.
vii.	The Exchange Of Justice For Tyranny—the courts stop upholding the notions of justice revealed by traditional morality, but start enforcing the irrational tyranny demanded by popular fad. This change is signalled by an explosion of legislation which reveals the transfer of public stigma from the immoral to the statute breaker: from the unmarried mother to the woman who smokes a cigarette in the office (2004).
viii.	The Bureaucracy Becomes A Parasite—as institutions of the community inevitably reflect the nature of their citizens and become self-serving and incompetent.
ix.	Corporations Become Dishonest—under the influence of the people promoted to manage them: the worst citizens.
x.	Anarchy Prevails—because an imbued sense of morality is what restrains citizens' immediate physical desires, allowing public harmony and cooperation: this is the essential cement of any group. Once it is discarded by the self-seekers, so is order.

14. Communities Attempt To Dominate Each Other. A group of communities cannot create a collective intelligence because they do not share the same basic morality, which makes their different understandings incompatible. In attempting to assert its own beliefs each community will inevitably clash with the others, and the stronger community will dominate. Hence:

14.1.	Organizations that attempt to represent a group of different cultures, such as the United Nations, cannot resolve cultural clashes and must fail.
14.2.	Once a community declines it is only a matter of time before it becomes too feeble to resist the demands of other communities who will overrun and extinguish the dissolving community.

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