Global Civilization and Local Cultures A Crude Look at the Whole

abstract: This article distinguishes between civilization and culture in the tradition of Alfred Weber and Robert Merton. Civilization denotes the human control of nature and is used in the singular; culture indicates the social construction of meaning and is used in the plural. Civilization is also the term for the social-natural whole, and culture for the local parts of the whole. The renewed distinction between civiliz-ation and culture aims to correct the underattention in the social sciences and humanities to technoscientific develop-ments. Furthermore, it is unsatisfactory to view contempor-ary history from the points of view of local cultures only. The author argues that a revised understanding of civilization is necessary to deal with the globalization of technoscience