苏三：我对文明一些看法

已刊登于2017年首期《和平传媒》，附英文。时间长，忘记哪份是最后清样了

（相当于苏三文明学总纲）

研究文明起源的许多学者大多数都坚持全球文明各地独立起源论，这一观点建立在旧的人类学理论之上。进入21世纪，人类出非洲的分子人类学逐渐普及。“出非洲说”从根本上撼动了旧的各地文明独立起源学说，为人们认识文明的起源和传播带来了新的话语体系和言说范本。

在旧的体系下，全球文明发展没有规律可寻，新的视野下，人类文明发展的规律像游动于历史长河中的一条红线，虽历经各种扭曲和撕缠，但其中的脉络昭然若揭。基于分子人类学意义上的人类文明传播动力和传播路径的研究，正风起云涌，在这个基础上之上我有以下的一些新的认识。

关键词：文明  传播  规律  路径  人类  中国  加速度  大历史

1 农业时代文明传播路径与长线压制效应

人类文明有一条清晰的传播发展路径，其初始阶段与人类出非洲的分子人类学路径基本一致。

学者们的全球化视野诞生不足100年。传统史学一般发轫于大约5500年前的西亚文明。随着当代科学技术的不断进步，当我们把旧石器时代结合进来，甚至是重点考察旧石器时代对今天的影响时，会发现我们看待中国与世界的眼光与结论会发生重大变化。著名的莫氏线非常清晰，宏观看中国（东亚，下同）自古就落后于西部旧大陆，而欧洲自古就是先进地区。进而考察新石器时代、工业时代，乃至到今天互联网时代的几个宏观人类发展的每个突变节点，可以说，以中华文明为代表的东方文明一般都是处于一个中等发展地位。换句话说，以中华文明为代表的东方文明发展可能一直存在一个“长线压制效应” (LTSE)，这在200多万年的历史进程中都没有明显突破。

从“长线压制效应”的视角来看当代所谓的“中国崛起”、亚洲崛起和太平洋时代的到来，这就是一个值得特别认真对待的事件。也许，我们正站在大历史的转折点上，东西方不平衡的钟摆从此即将倾斜于东方？这种历史转折真的会成功吗？这都是文明学要面对解决的重大问题，也是中国学者要特别慎重研究和面对的问题，这是对中国人的一个考验。可以说，风是来了，但你是否飞得起来？它挑战的是一个大约200万年的“自然”定律。

图：旧石器时代的莫氏线。

在莫氏线所划分的旧石器时代，非洲作为人类的发源地与临近的南欧、西亚成为第一发达地区。包含中国在内的稍远的东亚的为次发达区。除此之外的其他地区为，更远的为北亚与美洲等地。文明的这种区域分布为我们昭示了一条很明显的传播规律，这就是:根据地缘传播。新石器时代以后，尽管东亚农业文明的发展也迎来了自己的几次高峰，比如汉唐宋，但宏观上并没有发生文明突变性飞跃。从旧石器时代迄今两百万年，直到工业革命之前全球人类发展才开始出现打破这一规律的苗头：工业革命爆发于西北欧，而非环地中海的南欧。而今天可能正面临着另外一个文明转折节点，而它很可能与包括中国在内的东亚有缘！作为中国人必须严重关切，严重对待！

《文明大趋势》《新文明简史》两书的扉页示意图。

2  几个人类文明发展与传播规律

人类活动主要受气候与地缘、地理环境的恒久影响，直到今天人们依然不能彻底摆脱环境的束缚。但毫无疑问，由于早期人类生产力水平的低下，各种客观环境对人类文明的进步影响会很大，而随着人类科技水平的不断提高，人类战胜客观环境制约的能力越来越强。同时，环境制约有先强后弱的效应。

气候对于人类的影响至关重要。几个旧石器时代中晚期的冰期（如第四季冰期顶峰与新仙女木事件）可能是导致旧石器时代晚期最发达的欧洲文化南移的主因。大约12000年前开始的安纳托里亚文明的萌芽绝非偶然，而是欧洲旧石器时代文化南移的结果。大约5500年前开始的全球降温，使人类文明的核心区继续南移到西亚，然后是古埃及；印度河谷也都是这种气候压制的结果，乃至更远的东亚，也就是三代的突然出现，都与这个气候事件有关，具体为印欧文化的四散南下效应，其中的印欧利器是车马并行。但此时地中海东南沙漠化开始，另一方面，随着人类生产力发展提高了自身的御寒能力，文明的火种后来还是又重返北方，尤其是欧州逐渐得到恢复。欧洲自旧石器时代的一再文明崛起，说明这里有一些天然的气候或地理条件更适合人类生存，但最主要的有利条件是这里距离“人类出非洲”更近的“近水楼台先得月”效应。

传播、交流是人类社会发展的主要特征。地缘影响文明的传播交流与路径，哪里为文明高峰，就会迅速影响其周围也跟着发展发达，所谓近朱者赤；反之，则会相对落后。如农业文明开始时期，中国距离西亚相比于美洲是一个中等距离，所以，东亚地区就比西亚落后，但却比印第安美洲先进；日本也是在中国的东边，所以也落后于中国。地缘最隔绝的是澳洲土著，理论和现实上看那里都是最落后的地方。这就是地缘传播规律。

地理条件对文明的发展也非常重要，比如北非地区在新石器时代的沙漠化就直接导致了贫瘠落后。埃及与西亚、中亚的古老文明也受制于沙漠化而逐渐衰落。中华文明的发展，得益于几个适宜农业的大平原，广阔的纵深和肥沃的土壤，把这片土地培养成养育了世界五分之一人口的文明高地。

美国著名的学者库兹韦尔从微观层面提出，人类文明发展有加速度效应Acceleration Effect（AE）。我从宏观方面也有如此的总结。人类从一种普通的动物发展到今天的文明奇迹，是一个长达几百万年的渐变-突变、渐变-突变过程，其中，每一次发生突变的渐变周期都越来越短。比如，从直立人到现代人，从旧石器时代到新石器时代，历经百万年时间；从农业文明到工业文明的突变却只有1万多年时间；而从初级的工业文明到今天的高级的工业文明——信息时代只有几百年。人类的发展在不断加速，主要的催化因素可能与人类信息系统的愈加完善有关，早期信息是简单的声音和图画，然后是语言文字，后期是则加上了马匹与畜力车，上个世纪则是火车、飞机、电话、电视等，今天是大数据支撑的智能化的秒杀利器互联网。这些交通通讯工具的速度发生着几何指数的突飞猛进，正是他们带来了文明的加速度效应。

加速度效应的研究异常重要，因为信息传播的极速时代已经到来，它已经或正在改变着人类社会的种种负面。我们也许正面临着一个新的文明突变期。这个规律在微观层面的应用应该极其广泛，同时我认为人们对这个规律的重大价值的认同只能是在整体更新了文明观之后，在旧的文明观之下看不到它的真正价值与意义。

对于文明加速度效应的认识很可能会影响到当今社会的许多方面。由于缺乏深入到旧石器时代的“大历史”意识，人们普遍在旧的历史框架下认知的人类社会是一个相对静态、扁平的形态，这种观察问题、研究问题的的视角在各个相关方面都会导致一系列问题乃至错误。

人类文明从无到有、从小到大，乃至循序渐进发展的规律，它具有一个自身的发展性。这个发展性类似于一种生物的发展，在时空两个方面它都具有一定的成长规律，。这个发展性本身也没有得到过全方位的有效认知。

现有的对人类文明全部考察，都是盲人摸象式的黑色幽默的重演，所以出现了各种悲剧。我认为西方世界的智库战略研究近年来出现了许多问题，不断在走臭棋，就是因为他们的文明观或文明研究没有及时更新到更加合理的解释体系造成的，包括加速度在内的诸多人类文明发展规律，没有得到有效认识与对待，今天他们依然在错误的道路上前进。

3  工业时代的水路传播及其他

水，自古是文明传播的大动脉。事实上，西北欧的工业文明的爆发，就是农业文明从地中海一路沿水逐渐向西传播的结果。水路自古至今在人类文明发展与传播过程中发挥着重大作用。

由于工业革命爆发于西北欧，加之船舶工具的发展，传播扩展的文明路径与农业时代及之前又呈现出不同的风景。从工业革命的爆发地英国，工业文明传播到中国。中国的地缘位置相当于农业时代的印第安文明，它是东西两条传播路径上最落后的最后一环。

欧洲工业革命先锋向西的挺进路径是，跨越大西洋，点亮美国。美工业文明成熟后，继续向西，越过世界上最宽的水域太平洋，促成其“邻国”日本最先成为亚洲现代化成功案例。然后，文明的龙头劈波斩浪继续向西，最先登陆中国东部。工业文明的这一向西的传播路径也解释了中国自身内部的东西不平衡的原因所在。英国向西到东亚，尽管空间距离看似很远，但中间都是无屏障水路。这一文明沿着顺时针方向向东亚传播的脉络上看，日本是美国的第一邻国，中国实际上是美国的第二邻国、英国的第三邻国，这种文明传播比另外相反的路径更快、更便捷。

欧洲工业文明向东的传播路径主要是靠陆地，这就很慢。这正是另外一个全球自古的文明传播规律：水路快，陆路慢。但传播结果也看不同时期的交通工具。陆路上看，从西欧到中国，中间有无数的国家与民族阻隔，每种文化或其他复杂因素都是阻碍文明顺利传播的因素，所以传播困难（史前的规律却相反）。目前的中亚地带还有许多落后区域，等待文明曙光的照亮。当然，中亚还有地理方面的特殊不利因素影响了文明发展，如沙漠化与干旱加剧等因素，中国西部同样。

有关文明传播的动力学研究也很重要。这个课题直接触及中国今天的崛起根源以及中国的明天发展。总体我认为，不同时期的文明传播动力源不完全一样，比如今天的中国发展较快很可能就是因为“市场”的出现，当然还有其他因素，但这一因素最为突出。中国的改革开放，实际上是突然向全球展示了一个全球最大的“市场”，从而中国成为世界上最有经济活力的地区。印度也存在这样的市场效应。欧盟的出现表面可能有种种原因，但实际上是欧洲潜在需求一个“大市场”的建立，它需要活力来抵挡正在加速的其他新兴地区的“威胁”，尤其是来自亚洲的威胁。从这个角度而言，中国假如想持续发展，必须要保持目前的疆土格局，否则“崛起”进程可能会被突然打断。尽管有计划生育的影响，中国人口生育率与某些国家地区相比有下降，但目前中国的人口问题还不是很大，反对简单地鼓励生育以免造成大面积低素质人口的拖累。

以上就是我对于人类文明传播发展的一些认识。我把以人类起源、文明起源以及文明发展规律和未来文明走向为核心的探索研究，尤其是我的研究，归纳为一个至今尚未完全建立的学科：文明学或文明传播学。愿文明的光芒随着人类文明规律的逐渐发现而照亮这个仍然不平等、不公正、不自由、不和平也就是不文明的世界！

苏三于北京 2016年12月12日

(时间长，忘记下面英文是不是最后修订的了。聊为存档)

On the Development of Human Civilization

By Susan Xu

Many scholars, especially Chinese academic circles, still adhere to the global civilization around the independent origin theory, which is based on the old theory of Anthropology on fossil remains. But in 21stCentury, the molecular anthropology of the human out of Africa has gradually spread to the world which fundamentally shook the independent origin of the civilizations Chinese scholars still insist today.

Under the old system, the development of global civilization has no law, but in the new perspective, the development of human civilization is regular. With these laws, we can not only understand yesterday, but also today and tomorrow, it's necessary for us to re-examine development of civilization again.

Key words: civilizations, communication, laws, path, human, China, acceleration, big history

1,  The Path of Human Development in the Agricultural Era

The development of human civilizations should have a clear path of development or dissemination. In the early stages of this path, it is the same as that of the human-out-of-Africa's path according to molecular anthropology, except the initial stage in northeast Africa. In this line, the laws of the development of Chinese civilization, as well as many of the phenomenon of Chinese civilization also can be explained.

The official development of the global history is less than 100 years, so far, many people have known about the human society from the beginning of the history of the civilization of West Asia about 5500 years ago. But now the science and technology already can support us to see farther. When we put the Paleolithic period in combination, many ideas about China and the world will change. The famous Movius Line was very clear that from the very beginning East Asia has been backward, versely, in Europe (south),North Asia and the New World the most backward. And then inspecting the new stone age, industrial age, and even today's Internet era, China has always been in a medium development status as the first stage. It is possible that there has always been a long term suppression effect (LTSE) over the development of civilization in East Asia, for up to about 2 million years this rule have never been broken through. If this is true, then the rule for today's "China rise" lurks on several interesting topics: Will China successfully challenges the " LTSE " with the rise of today ?

Considering a variety of factors, human activities in the different period including the late Paleolithic period may still play a subtle influence on today's human society, and I call this influence as "cable-stayed bridge effect" (CBE).

( Movius Line based on Paleolithic period.

Due to Africa as the cradle of human kind, Africa and southern Europe, West Asia as the first developed area, is logical. Including Chinese, East Asia finished the second, the further away from Africa the wilder at the very beginning. It is obvious that there is a geographical spread of the law, from  the Paleolithic period, the regularity is obvious.

2,Several Other Human Development Laws

There are many laws of human development in the past. First of all, the climate and geography has a permanent impact on human beings, until today, people still can not completely get rid of it. It is no doubt that the  the earlier the impact greater.

Climate is crucial to human impact. A few climate disasters in late Paleolithic age (such as the Fourth Glacial and later the Younger Dryas) might be the main reason of pushing the most developed culture in the south Europe to the Anatolia, finally  the rise of climate from about 9000 years ago gave birth to the Anatolian civilization. Temperature continuing drop approximately 6000 years ago drove the civilization further south to West Asia and Egypt. The climate changes also caused other events, civilization flourishing suddenly in India Valley, and the largest river Sarasvati vanished.

Communication is an important feature of the development of human social civilization. Geographical location directly impacted on the spread of civilization and the path of civilization, the civilization of center district will quickly affect the surrounding, the farer away from the later will be infulenced，for instance, East Asia had been advanced comparing with Indian America during the agricultural period, native culture of Australia was the most backward because of geographical isolation.

Geographical conditions are also very important. The North African region directly resulted in poor and backward for the reason of desertification in Neolithic Age. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, West Asia and Central Asia are also subject to the gradual the desertification. Thanks to a few of the Great Plains suitable for agriculture, with the broad depth and fertile soil, the Chinese civilization developed smoothly.

The famous American scholar Kurzweil believes that there have been a rule of Acceleration Effect (AE) of the development of human civilization.  Each time the gradual change cycle between mutations became shorter and shorter. For example, from Homo erectus to modern people, from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age, from the agricultural civilization to the industrial civilization , and from the primary industrial civilization to internet time of today. Human development will continues to accelerate. The main catalytic factors may be related to the more and more perfect human information system. After languages pictures and characters created, the horses and vehicles followed, and trains, airplane, telephone and TV in last century appeared, today is the support of large data intelligent internet.

Acceleration effect research is very important, because the time of topspeed of information dissemination has come, it has or is changing the human society, and even make human society unprepared. Today is facing a new period of civilization mutation, even the spreading path of human development changed suddenly. The five BRIC countries, including China, appeared on the earth, disorderly to random distributed breaking the spread rule of civilization in all previous times. Thus mankind has entered anew era. And we may not have enough theoretical preparation for this new era.

What are the mysteries behind the great civilization's development and expansion? At present is still a controversial topic. However, in the development with their own energy gathering, civilization constantly release positive value. The acceleration of civilization in this sense seems have a positive value of self-replication, self-correcting direction and improving the efficiency of replication. From simple to complex, and gradually people can not keep up, do not understand, and even unexpected. It’s lucky for civilization, but it is more and more difficult for us to grasp the future.

3,Transmission through Waterways in the Industrial Age

Water, is the main spreading path of civilization. In fact, the outbreak of industrial civilization in northwest Europe is the result  spreading westward of agricultural civilization from the Mediterranean.

As the industrial revolution broke out in northwest Europe, the spreading path of expansion of civilization showed a different landscape comparing with the agricultural era. From the outbreaking place of the Industrial Revolution, Britain, China’s location is equivalent to that of Indian America in the agricultural age, the last place to be influenced.

The path of the industrial revolution in West Europe skipped over the Atlantic, the United States was built. North American industrial civilization continued westward across the Pacific to its "neighbors" of Japan, which became the first Asian successful sample of modernization. Then civilization continued to head westward, infecting eastern China in the end. This path also explains the internal imbalance in China's west and east part, and even the inevitability of China's rise today. The westward spread to East Asia seems very far away, but there was no barrier on the sea, China is actually the second neighbor country to US, and third neighbors to Britain. There are other reasons of eastern China’s rise, today is actually the Time of Water. Industrial civilization spread eastward mainly by land with a very slow speed. This is another global civilization spread law: Waterway fast, land route slow. But communication results mainly depend on different transport of different periods. From West Europe to China there are countless countries and peoples, getting through is very difficult. The spread of industrial revolution from land to East was also very regular, passing through Central and Eastern Europe, the current Central Asia region are waiting for the dawn of industrial civilization.

Above is my understanding of human civilization and China's development. And I called the research on the origin of human and human civilization, the development of civilization and the future of civilization, Civilization Studies, a subject not yet fully established, perhaps it belong to a branch of macro-history.

Susan Xu

December 16, 2016