The American Democrat/On Civilization
ON CIVILIZATION.
Civilization means a condition of society that is the opposite of the savage, or barbarous state. In other languages this term is more strictly applied to the arts of life, than in the English, in which we are more apt to associate with it the moral condition of a country.
England stands at the head of modern civilization, as a whole, although many countries surpass her in particular parts. The higher tastes of England are not as refined and cultivated, perhaps, as those of Italy and France, but the base of society is infinitely more advanced.
America occupies a middle place in the scale, wanting most of the higher tastes, and excelling in that species of civilization which marks ease and improvement in the middling and lower classes. There is one feature connected with the civilization of this country that is peculiar; for while the people have long been accustomed to the habits of England, they have not been possessed of those arts by which the different objects of the comforts they have enjoyed are produced. For a long time articles as humble as hats, shovels and hoes, were not fabricated in the country, though the time never has been when the Anglo-Americans were unaccustomed to their use.
Although there is a difference between the civilization of the towns, and that of the country, in America, it is less marked than in Europe. The disparity between the refinement, mental cultivation and the elegances of life, is much less apparent than usual, as between an American capital and an American village, though the localities, of course, make some distinctions. As a whole, civilization, while it is less perfect in this country than in the European nations, is more equally diffused throughout the entire community. Still it better becomes the American people to strive to advance their condition than to manifest a weak, unmanly and provincial sensibility to the faults that are occasionally commented on, nations, like individuals, merely betraying a consciousness of their own demerits, by meeting admonition with insult and anger.
The Americans are deficient on many points of civilization, solely for the want of physical force in given places, the practice of covering large surfaces unavoidably retarding the improvements of the nation. This is rather the subject of regret, than a matter of reproach. They are almost ignorant of the art of music, one of the most elevating, innocent and refining of human tastes, whose influence on the habits and morals of a people is of the most beneficial tendency. This taste and knowledge are not only wanting to the people, but an appreciation of their importance. They are also wanting in most of the high tastes, and consequently in the high enjoyments, that accompany a knowledge of all the fine arts in general, and in much that depends on learning, research, and familiarity with the world.
The Americans excel in humanity, in the ordinary comforts, though inferior to the English in this respect, in general civility, in the means of motion while confined to great routes, in shipping and most of the facilities of trade, in common instruction and an aptitude to ordinary pursuits, and in an absence of the sophisms that beset older and more artificial systems. It is, however, to be regretted, that as the nation recedes from the struggle that created the present system, the truths that came uppermost in the collision, are gradually yielding to a new set of sophisms, more peculiar to the present order of things.
There is a familiar and too much despised branch of civilization, of which the population of this country is singularly and unhappily ignorant; that of cookery. The art of eating and drinking, is one of those on which more depends, perhaps, than on any other, since health, activity of mind, constitutional enjoyments, even learning, refinement, and, to a certain degree, morals, are all, more or less, connected with our diet. The Americans are the grossest feeders of any civilized nation known. As a nation, their food is heavy, coarse, ill prepared and indigestible, while it is taken in the least artificial forms that cookery will allow. The predominance of grease in the American kitchen, coupled with the habits of hasty eating and of constant expectoration, are the causes of the diseases of the stomach so common in America. The science of the table extends far beyond the indulgence of our appetites, as the school of manners includes health and morals, as well as that which is agreeable. Vegetable diet is almost converted into an injury in America, from an ignorance of the best modes of preparation, while even animal food is much abused, and loses half its nutriment.
The same is true as respects liquors. The heating and exciting wines, the brandies, and the coarser drinks of the laboring classes, all conspire to injure the physical and the moral man, while they defeat their own ends.
These are points of civilization on which this country has yet much to learn, for while the tables of the polished and cultivated partake of the abundance of the country, and wealth has even found means to introduce some knowledge of the kitchen, there is not perhaps on the face of the globe, the same number of people among whom the good things of the earth are so much abused, or ignorantly wasted, as among the people of the United States. National character is, in some measure, affected by a knowledge of the art of preparing food, there being as good reason to suppose that man is as much affected by diet as any other animal, and it is certain that the connection between our moral and physical qualities is so intimate as to cause them to react on each other.