The quest here is for leverage points that can affect climate, thoughts that have been missed because of limiting assumptions in our current approaches. Arnold Toynbee, an Oxford historian looked at the dynamics of the rise and fall of empires. He concluded that the major actors in history are not states bound by law and regulations, but civilizations1 determining that flow of mind, thought, and spirit at a higher level than the states reached. The states are bordered by rigid surveying that decides unequivocally what is in and what is out. Civilizations follow minds and are not so affected by state borders. Consider yoga and the attraction to Lao Tzu and how these have moved through the porosity of state borders to tint what is inside and outside.
Civilizations are more intricate and allusive than states that appeal more to the engineering mentality because of their concreteness that can be objectified whereas civilizations appeal to those who think in history, literature, philosophy, and relationships.
Once having chosen civilizations as the primary actors he moves on to the encounters of civilizations. For example, Russian Orthodox embraced conflict, first with nomads (not a state and not a civilization, but a coherent social group on the Eastern border, then with East Asia including China. If you are in doubt do you not feel that Islam The West and Chionna are differing civilizations beyond nation-states? Are these sources of agency when it comes to climate?
In earlier times, the night sky took a lot of people's attention, and their sense of where we lived was under the stars and planets as populations increased and cities grew. The night sky became less visible, and because of competition between societies less important to pay attention to the movements of the planets against the less flexible pattern of stars. We understood that under the stars was where we lived, but the increasing population forced us to defend our place. Those coming over the horizon were becoming more important than the stars for pragmatic survival.
Leaders can lead at the state level while failing at the civilizational level. We see the now in the West where the leaders of nation-states are not leading at the level of civilization. 17th and 18th centuries politicians - statesmen - read and quoted from Western literature. I don't need to make the whole case here that civilizations are important and different from the states. An important argument is that civilizations have leverage that states. not able to reach while civilizations have the power to move people and their imagination and commitments
Leaders often fail to lead and followers become disgruntled or despairing. The states cannot act, and if we are to have an impact on the unfolding of climate issues, the leverage probably is more likely to come from civilizational values than from political ones. Our, civilization is hamstrung by the search for state power. As a result, we are chasing things like STEM. Isn't it obvious that we need people educated in history and diplomacy and politics and technology and psychology 2. and science? Look at how many climate proposals are purely technical with no understanding of the social dynamics that create them, or would be needed to change them, we are limited in our debate because we have forgotten things like the difference between science and technology so the climate is described as a science pulling climate com\ping onto the umbrella of technology might actually help, but most of it is engineering practice,” measurement and manipulation of material stuff.
Surely you recognize the difference between the meaning of high in high civilization and high society.
*My favorite guess as to what Plato meant was his discovery that all systems of meaning can be deconstructed and would undercut the belief in that particular society,,
*spirit is not an adequate name for all this.
Next, Sorokin
A very good survey of attempts to use the concept of civilization is Fernandes-Armesto's book, Civilization.
Oppenheimer once said that Scientific American is great, except in physics. One’s own field is never dealt with adequately.