noticeable

 about civilization

This is actually an old draft but weeks ago people talked about post colonialism etc and I had myself visited the indonesia museum (i should congratulate for my-super-mager-self). It somehow triggered my revisit civilizations thoughts. 

Since international trade class that discussed about comparative advantages and economies of scale and of course development economics book and human capital discussion in class, i started haing  interest in civilization history, including ownership, colonialism, job creation, labors, wealth, social security that somehow affect how i see the world works and revisit values that i have for decisions that i've made. 

Civilization is one of the first thoughts when i got my feet in europe, besides wishes that i will enjoy it with my loved ones someday. I found the cities were so, what i can say, out of mind. The buildings, the detailed scruplture, old bricks and roads and bridges, while it was developed hundred years ago.

The civilization questions is also the first question that comes in my mind when i visited a city out of no where surrounded by forests or acres of rice field, and they are even have a small train station. The cities almost exactly were the same with metropolitan cities, at least for the architecture of the house or the clothes that people wear. They have bricks and roofs and sofas while Indonesia used to had their own unique traditional house which was various between region. How "the same" civilization at that kind of place is made? I remember an old friend saying that i should be a planology student. 

Everytime we've talked about colonialism/imperialism, people sometimes will say that the dutch did not enough give "help" to civilized the people, to make people "smarter". And of course it is always british who found the wallace line, raflesia arnoldi, etc. But, train line is one of the best thing that happened in indonesia (or java, the small but most populous island far away in the south of the world) and that pantura roads. I dont agree with slaving, kerja rodi, romusha, colonialism of course, but then I remember there is a piece of writing from owid that said the end of colonialism did reduce poverty (which i somehow believe one of the reasons is because technology/knowledge transfer during the colonialism era). There are many papers how colonialism affect economic growth.

I remember a class about how technologies is an exponential factor for economic growth in romer book. Then i think colonolialism (and trades) were actualy exported civilizations and then it is the continued with globalizations and and modernisations. It is a form of (which i believe will be a debate wether it is good or bad) technology/knowledge transfer. 

People basically export and import their civilization through trade and expanded exploration (that somehow become colonialism/imperialism). Then i try to understand why the new way of living are sucessfully adapted everywhere? Except in some areas that people refused it or too indegenous. Why people just dont back with the old traditions (or civilizations) when colonoliasm ended for examples. Maybe people found the new way of living are more practical. There is a word, which was assimilation, that i usually saw when reading articles about an old wave of indonesia international trade with sellers from arab, china, portuguese, etc. I think it is beyond assimilations, it is more than accepting, it is technology/knowledge transfer that adapted in life. But then, I remember a discussion with a friend that logics and reasonings that were imported and now adopted globally were somehow reduce capacity of people's sense to "feel", beyond what can be measured.

I sometimes ask myself what is the definition of civilized people. Most of the time, each people will fight that their civilization is the best, weather it is western-eastern, religions based, indigenous people etc. But i think in the end, it is about respecting human rights. Whats for being civilized people but you dont respect human life. 

Revisiting what i understand about "civilization",

Best,

Ayu