Civilization.

This is a word of a great Japanese, said on middle of 19th century.
"Western countries are no civilized. If they are really civilized, they must bring equal living standard to uncivilized regions and treat the barbarians equally as the civilized people, instead of colonizing those lands and exploiting those people."

Profound, huh!?

In the world and times of imperialism, there was only two kinds of nation: strong or weak.
And the definition of civilization was clear: strong nation is civilized, and weak nation is not. It was synonymous with imperialism.
Japan tried to be a strong nation, and framed a lot of policies, like "the wealth and military strength of a country".
It seemed that was successful until WWII.

Japan was vanquished.
But at the same time, imperialism collapsed.
Now the definition of civilization is changed.
Most probably this is the definition accepted to almost everybody.
"Civilization is a society which justice is common to all the people."
In other words, "Civilization is a peaceful society."
When the standard of justice is different, there will be no peace.

I'd like to define peace here:
"Peace is a state that society is in order; thus, the opposite of peace is chaos."
One more, definition of war:
"War is a method of diplomacy with military power; thus, the opposite of war is consultation."

Iraq War is over, but we can't tell that Iraq is peaceful.
Yes, there are still uncivilized regions in the world.
And the people who go natural, go as they desire, or self-interested, are uncivilized.

Civilization is opposite of going natural.
Isn't it ironical that Peace isn't natural at all?

At the end of the pursuit of wealth, spiritual declination awaits, followed by collapse of civilization.
It can never continue eternally.
Environmental problems we are encountering may be the warning from nature to us.

Civilization isn't measured by wealth.