Start of Civilisation

The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. – Sigmund Freud

I can visualize the day and situation. Here is somebody confronted by a bigger and better armed hunter and the lesser guy who has had to hone-up on his intellectual skills to survive is in a no-win situation. So he gets this brainwave and hurls an insult and most perhaps runs for his life. The first intellectual salvo has been hurled and the next step in the evolution of man taken place.

What a beautiful way to put it. I must grant Freud the accolade of being a seer. But I wish he was here today and he would have seen how his observation has gone a step further.

As civilization kept on maturing and the intellect kept on growing, refinements were added. There were small kingdoms and then bigger kingdoms and then huge unwieldy empires. People had to be educated and pioneers were afoot. The control slowly slipped from the few to the many. But the many, specially the intelligent ones were busy making money or running productive lives so they chose the never-do-well ones to become leaders and called this choosing democracy. These in turn came together and met in a body they called the Parliament or Congress and they in turn chose the most incompetent and most easily influenced type as their President or Prime Minister. Things were going well but then these leaders began to think too much of themselves and their stupid decisions began hurting the very people who had put them there.

Civilization had reached a point of no return and hurling insults was not working. You could see the centuries of refining of social norms spiraling out of control. You can judge this by examining some of the trends. See how music from calm, elevating experience has changed form slowly from polka to symphony to jazz, from quadrille to waltz to rock-n-roll and the wild zanghy music and let-me-be of today’s wild gyrations. You can see it in the transformation of languages. The courtesy and kindness shown in interactions has now been replaced by grunts and heartless SMSs which take much too long to decipher and leaves the recipient confused.

See the art side. The subtlety of Reuben and Renoir went the Picasso way and now even monkeys and elephants are featured as artists.

And lastly to make my point even clearer, we have had to use coarser and louder methods to be seen and heard. Words do not create any effect on the thick skinned leaders who have first created so much displeasure that people have risen in arms and then to protect themselves these leaders have now surrounded themselves with more arms and they keep on developing more sophisticated arms instead of listening.

Is it a wonder then that hurling solid objects is back in vogue and we are seeing this phenomenon catching on?
Civilization is not fully dead; now they are throwing shoes!

Civilization has gone full circle and we are back in the Stone Age although we now do it in T shirts and shoes. Perhaps to differentiate between now and then, we should call it the Shoes Age.