Civilisation

This is the American and the French spelling--singular in the French way to emphasize the coherent unity of the idea of civilization as being more important than any of its many diverse material manifestations.  Skimming the Wikipedia entry on the subject, I am astonished to see how diverse, how heterogeneous, how empirical, and frankly, how fatuously puerile are most definitions and conceptualizations of Civilisation--most writers and thinkers on the subject having apparently imbibed a tall glass of Postmodernist Sewage before they began to consider this, which is arguably, in our time, the most necessary and important of all questions which our species must answer--and answer soon--or face extinction:  What is Civilisation?

Upon consideration of the question, first, from an historical perspective, and after much reflection, I have arrived at several linked, suggestive, but not in themselves definitive answers:

1.  First of all, Civilisation is Sewerage, Waste Management, absolute Mastery of an Adequate Water Supply--with all this implies of Free Access of all citizens to Flush Toilets and Pure

Hot and Cold Running Water.

2.  Secondly, Civilisation is Antisepsis and Microbiology.

3.  Thirdly, Civilisation is Anesthesia and Modern Medicine and Surgery.

4.  Fourthly, Civilisation is Antibiotics.

5.  Modern technology and the Internet have rendered obsolete the Ceremonial and Cultural  Centers, and the Literacy, which previous generations of historical philosophers and Italians have judged necessary for there to be Civilisation.  Non c'è centro.