Vita thought for a moment and said, "Then let's start by talking about your classification of civilizations. And could you also tell me about the issues related to the Honkai?"
Yukino Yukinoshita nodded and said, "No problem. None of this is a secret."
"The classification of civilizations is very clear. In the past, civilizations were often classified based on their actual productivity."
"This method of classification is acceptable within human society, as internal human classification is determined by the mode of production to define class boundaries. However, this classification becomes insufficient later on."
Yukino Yukinoshita pulled up relevant examples from within Academy City and said, "With the deepening of Geneticism in daily life, the differentiation of humanity has taken on the form of organizational ecological differentiation. We can no longer simply use productivity, but must use human practical power to make new divisions of civilization."
Vita had never heard such a term. She asked curiously, "What is practical power?"
Yukino Yukinoshita then brought up the production and living conditions of humans during the industrial civilization era, pointing at the industrial production process on the screen and saying, "Productivity is the result of human social practice. In the rigid and conservative parts of productivity, the rules that human society must abide by were born. In other words, human productivity is limited by the balanced expression of actual practical activities in human life."
Now Vita understood some of the situation. That is, social productivity was actually limited by the scope of practice expressed in a balanced way in human life.
If everyone in a society could have the practical conditions to create, or to try out art, music, etc., then the productivity created in that direction would also become more powerful.
This was what Yukino Yukinoshita meant by 'practice determines production.'
"I see. Is this how you view civilization? It's an excellent and interesting method. So how do the people here define and classify civilizations?"
Yukino Yukinoshita was not proud of this; after all, it was all content summarized by the Academy City Board of Directors. This included the power relations between human social activities, the inseparable connection of political life, and so on. All of this was content that students were allowed to record and was open for everyone to view equally.
Yukino Yukinoshita was certain that the depth of Academy City's management far exceeded all previous social states, but at the same time, it also gave a freedom and power that no previous society had.
Regarding Vita's question, Yukino Yukinoshita thought for a moment and replied, "Because there are no similar cases to compare with, we are not sure what criteria to use for comparing civilizations. According to our Academy City's historical data, whether it's the slave system, the feudal system, or the modern system, they all simply use social productivity to divide the progress of social civilization. The core has not changed much because of this."
"You might think that human rights, democracy, and so on are very progressive, right? Actually, they are not. These are just slogans shouted by people who simply have the ability to engage in practical activities."
"For example, from slavery to feudalism, it was actually a slogan shouted by the feudal lords who managed agriculture after they had the strength to practice their own power. In the capitalist era, it was the slogans of human rights, democracy, and equality shouted by people in industry and commerce after they had the strength to practice their own power."
"But even under these same slogans, human liberation was only temporary. In the end, they were still squeezed back into a life of high and low by various social organizations and powerful social forces."
"Doesn't this kind of progress show a cyclical pattern?"
"So, according to Academy City's thinking, people should have the power to practice their own selves. They should have the power to build their own production relations. And what we truly need is to maintain the foundation of productivity that allows people to build new production relations."
"This is the content of the new social research journal recently written by Mr. Welt Yang. I think what he says makes a lot of sense. So, on the matter of whether something is civilized, we have to consider these issues from the perspective of the authority that humans possess."
"The primary principle of civilization is whether it can reproduce its own kind with the same social practical rights as us. This means we can create more thoughts and wisdom, and more possibilities for social direction."
"According to the Honkai's treatment of the Previous Era, when only a few people were left in the Previous Era, this ability to reproduce their own kind dropped to its lowest value. The humans produced were just primitive people in a slave system. In this state, the Honkai disdained to regard it as a civilization."
As Yukino Yukinoshita's explanation deepened, Vita listened more and more intently. She gradually realized why Sa was being mocked and ridiculed by Noldrei.
That is, the 'Abyss' had already determined that Sa did not have the ability to produce a prosperous civilization. The people Sa created were just slaves under a powerful force, not enough to be taken seriously as a progressive civilization by the 'Abyss.'
In other words, even if Sa hadn't fled to the Sea of Quanta, the Cocoon of Finality would have had no interest in dealing with such a stray dog.
All of Sa's fear and trembling was just a battle of wits with the air.
In Noldrei's eyes, Sa was probably just a clown jumping around on the spot.
"After we have the first principle, 'reproduction of our own kind,' then comes the second basic principle of civilization."
"'Internal circulation and feedback capability of productivity,' which is what we usually understand as the idea of dividing social stages by productivity. The Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Information Age. Productivity determines what kind of social peers you can produce in that era."
"The third principle, 'the ability of production relations to handle internal social contradictions.' This is the so-called political parties, companies, markets, the extent to which these can help people solve their needs, and how much suffering they can help people overcome."
"This ability is the key condition that determines humanity's fight against the Honkai. The fewer suffering people there are, the more affectionate the Herrschers born from the Honkai will be towards humanity, and the stronger their willpower will be to suppress the thought of harming their own kind."
Yukino Yukinoshita's 'Three Principles of Civilization' opened Vita's eyes. She now realized just how much the civilization of the native world surpassed that of Venus.
What Venusian civilization?
They were like primitive natives. These guys didn't even realize what the basics of their own civilization were.
Yukino Yukinoshita thought for a moment and then said, "For example, the Kengan Association you saw. Don't look at how fiercely they fight, but if you told them you wanted to abolish this method of resolving conflicts, they would probably become hostile to you immediately."
"This is the upper limit of the ability that a civilization can bear to resolve human contradictions."