1. A civilization is a communal understanding that upholds its beliefs by inflicting violence upon any dissenting citizen (justice) or community (war).
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 increase its knowledge while refining its morality so increasing the strength of the understanding, which is the wisdom of the community.
6. A communal understanding maintains its wisdom by refining its tradition, which is made up of Language, Customs, Manners, Laws, and Institutions.
7. A communal understanding recreates itself by each generation imbuing their offspring with the community's tradition.
8. A communal understanding (community) exists in one of two modes; it is either
waxing — improving its knowledge and morality, which is revealed by increasing wealth realised by increasingly powerful and reliable technology used to achieve the sensible aims suggested by religion: so creating a Heaven on earth.
or
waning — corrupting its knowledge and morality, which is revealed by decreasing wealth won by increasingly less powerful and less reliable technology used to achieve the silly aims demanded by superstition: so creating a Hell on earth.
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:
Unselfish and prepared to sacrifice private interest for the common good. OR Selfish and prepared to sacrifice the common good for private interest.
10. The community Waxes (gains wisdom) when the majority of citizens are unselfish AND Wanes (loses wisdom) when the majority of citizens are selfish.
i. 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.
a. Authority Reversed This is when it stops being the master and becomes the servant of its charges. Then government stops being guided by the wisdom supplied by tradition but starts being tyrannised by popular notions so replacing sensible with irrational rule.
b. 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. 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: superstition.
v. Growth Of Incompetence— In the face of the growing insanity adopted by the community, sensible workers can only survive by accepting menial work or by pretending to fulfil their duty, so filling important jobs with fools and charlatans and rendering the community incompetent.
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:
i. Organizations that attempt to represent a group of different cultures, such as the United Nations, cannot resolve cultural clashes and must fail.
ii. 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.
15. Dark Ages: Is the Absence of a sane community, for unless there is a sane community to impose its understanding, under the impact of selfishness, science and religion will decay into ignorance and superstition, which will result in all communities returning to a primitive state, where life will be short, harsh and miserable.
16. Re-Birth A new civilization can arise from the collapse of an old civilization when:
i. Life has to become so harsh that it prevents the creation of spoilt (selfish) children so over time the majority of selfish citizens are replaced by unselfish citizens.
ii Some event has to force the abandonment of the existing corrupt traditions set by the collapse, which now restrain the dutiful citizens.
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