The civilizatory hexagon is a model proposed by Dieter Senghaas, the German peace researcher. It consists of six principles practised (ideally) in a modern democratic state: monopoly on the use of force, rule of law, interdependence and affective control, democratic participation, social justice, and constructive conflict resolution.

Regardless of Senghaas’ original intention, I want to use the civilizatory hexagon as a model of development of the modern democratic s~dte, with the six characteristics as consecutive stages of development. However, before expanding on this scheme, I want to preface this by discussing some previous stages in the development of human society according to anthropological models.

These models are taken from J.M.G. van der Dennen’s book “The Origin of War”. According to this book (page 347), Sahlins (1961) and Service (1962) proposed a scheme of social evolution in four stages: the band, the tribe, the chiefdom, and finally the state. A band is only a loose association of families, more or less residential. A tribe is a large collection of bands, gradually developing some structure; this ranges from non-segmentary to segmentary and from acephalous to more centralized. This trend to hierarchy (class distinction) and centralization is further emphasized in the third stage, the chiefdom, and then especially in the fourth stage, the state.

Thus development proceeds from an egalitarian group to accepting rank (based mainly on age and sex, but perhaps also on hunting or other skills), then stratification (i.e. class, status passed down in families), and finally establishing a ruling chief and then a king. (The latter is based on a scheme by Fried (1967), and Hunter and Whitten (1976).) The egalitarian order in bands and early tribes existed in hunter-gatherer societies. The beginnings of rank, stratification, and hierarchy were in agricultural-pastoral societies. The stage of building cities would go with the age of city states, followed by kingdoms and then empires, all being the early forms of the state.

Why did this trend toward hierarchy and centralization develop? I suppose Hobbes would say, to prevent the war of all against all, to cement society into order from a state of anarchy. However, the early egalitarian societies were not anarchic in Hobbes’ sense, they were anarchic in Kropotkin’s sense, i.e. peaceful. The image is that of Rousseau’s noble savage, of Abel rather than Cain. (Although, according to the Genesis myth, humanity are the descendants of Cain, since Abel did not pass on his genes. But maybe he did, before he was killed. And Adam and Eve may have had other offspring. )

I would surmise that there were some individuals eager to acquire power, and they created the hierarchy. Perhaps, in the developing agricultural revolution, they wanted to protect their accumulated food supplies from robbers. Robbers would be the unsatisfied strivers for power and wealth. Thus Kropotkin anarchy gradually transformed itself to Hobbesian anarchy, as the noble savage became a prudent and cunning peasant. Then, of course, law and authority had to be introduced in some kind of a tacit or implied social contract. This was sanct-ioned by religion, e.g. in the Ten Commandments, especially “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal”.

So now we are ready to enter the Senghaas scheme. In the state, the most fundamental rule is the state’s monopoly on the use of coercive force, i.e. violence. Notice that violence is not abolished, it is centralized (“kicked upstairs”). Anyone else using violence is a criminal or a rebel and must be punished. This presumably takes care of “violence from below” (though it never quite disappears), while “violence from above” recognizes no limits. This was the case in early kingdoms and empires, where the king or emperor decided everything, even had powers of life and death. If he was compassionate, he somewhat limited his own application of coercive power to his subjects. If he was malevolent, he became a ruthless tyrant (Hobbes’ Leviathan), and his subjects had to submit, unless a rebel could overthrow him – and perhaps the liberator would become a tyrant in his stead, as happened in many revolutions.

The next Senghaas stage introduces the rule of law. The ruler’s power was now limited by some kind of constitution, explicitly written down, or informal and implicit. Thus began the opposite trend to centralization, namely a loosening of tyranny, and a transformation of subjects into citizens.

However, this initial change was merely legal. Some emotional response from the citizens was also needed. As the state society became interdependent economically (division of labour among cultivators, merchants, artisans etc.), it also developed political ties in the form of feelings of loyalty and allegiance toward the state. Patriotism was born (later to degenerate into exclusive nationalism). Treason became a greater crime than theft or even murder.

Then citizens began to demand a greater say in state decision-making. Democratic institutions were introduced: parliament, elections, political parties, citizen pressure groups. The head of state (king or president) became even more limited in power. Eventually, he or she only reigned symbolically, did not govern in fact, like the British Queen. However, presidents or prime ministers still governed in a fairly centralized way, even in federations like the u.s. and Canada.

Democracy developed gradually in Iceland and Britain, by revolution in America and France. Even in our own day, democracies and dictatorships coexist in the world. There have been waves of democratization, as well as regressions to dictatorship. And democracies are not perfect or ideal. There seem to be degrees of democracy; it is a continuum, not a bipolarity.

Next, majority rule in democracies was further softened by observing the human ~lghts of minorities, which could not be legislated away without the consent of the minorities. This was the origin of the human rights tradition and its various charters and declarations.

The next two stages are still problematic, although there are indications of progress. Social justice is not necessarily established by giving citizens the vote, as early theorists expected. There is a lot of manipulation of public opinion by powerful elites and the media. Economic capitalism produces social inequality in democracies. Democratic socialism aspires to providing justice along with freedom, but it has been in decline in recent years.

Finally, constructive conflict resolution has been rather rare. Conflicts in democracies are resolved somehow, but not always constructively. The prevalent mode has been settlement or compromise between opposing interests, using the adversarial model; not true transformation or reconciliation in the cooperative mode. Therefore settlements and compromises eventually break down, as the balance of power between interest groups shifts. Lasting reconciliation can come only from transformation of the interests themselves, from pursuing selfish gain to seeking the well-being of the whole society.

While Adam Smith thought that “the invisible hand” would channel selfish pursuits by individuals to produce beneficial effects for society as a whole, this applies only in some cases, as in free markets composed of many small producers and consumers. It is not a general rule for all social interactions, or even all economic transactions (e.g. when producers become oligopolies, i.e. large corporations). The opposite model is the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, in which the pursuit of selfish interests by the players lead to suboptimal outcomes even for the players themselves. The invisible hand can be either benevolent or malevolent, depending on the circumstances.

Rousseau aimed at achieving the greatest good of society by having individuals suppress their selfish interests and voting directly for the greatest good of society. This was his concept of “the general will”. Ants and bees do this in their “eusocieties”, closely integrated as ant-hills and bee-hives. However, human society is not a eusociety, it is much less closely integrated; it values individual freedom, as long as it does not harm ,thers or society. J.S. Mill formulated this in his famo,,“s essay “On Liberty”.

Rousseau’s “general will” idea only led to wholesale suppression of minorities as “enemies of the state”, in the reign of terror that followed the French Revolution, which was repeated after the Russian Revolution. Robespierre and Stalin surely do not re~resent human progress. Yet the idea that individuals should aim altruistically at the greater good of society has merit. Can we try again, in a better spirit? We might succeed if we can evolve into more spiritual and moral beings. Then terror and suppression would be irrelevant, as we would engage in spontaneous altruism. But at present, human nature is not up to creating this Utopia, and attempts to do this prematurely have resulted in the major catastrophes of the modern age.

What about international society, the unity of humankind? This does not yet quite exist, although some enlightened individuals already consider themselves world citizens. There has been progress in international society, which is formally anarchic in the Hobbesian sense, but is in reality approaching the Grotian stage, with some influence of international law in some cases, while still far from the Kantian stage, which would be wholly cooperative like an ideal domestic society.

Also, an important result of peace research has been to establish the fact that democratic states hardly ever fight wars with each other, while they still fight wars with dictatorships. Possibly this is because democracies share the values of the civilizatory hexagon, even though these values are as yet imperfectly expressed.

Internationally, we are not yet even at the first stage of the civilizatory hexagon, the monopoly of power by a world government, i.e. a society of disarmed nations, with a transformed united Nations being the only agency allowed to wield corecive power.

Some peace advocates do not want to go that way, fearing a world dictatorship from which there would be no exit except revolution. A world dictatorship would be even worse than a national dictatorship, because dissenters would not even have anywhere to go as refugees. The preference, they say, lies in the total abolition of violence, and the application of Gandhian principled nonviolence as the road to justice. But perhaps the institutions of world government could be combined with the stages of the civilizatory hexagon, which, after all, are designed to prevent tyranny and give a greater voice to citizens, as well as other constituent units of a federation (nations, provinces, and municipalities). Principled nonviolence could be the last resort in case a tyranny arose, as a substitute for bloody revolution.

It seems that the first Senghaas stage for a world society (monopoly on the use of violence by the centre while nations are disarmed down to police levels) should be quickly combined with the subsequent stages. Rule of law certainly would go a long way toward preventing usurpation of power by a tyrant, a very urgent requirement. A feeling of allegiance in the form of world citizenship should follow, and perhaps would spontaneously follow, or even precede, leading to loyalty to humankind as a whole. Democratic institutions should include a lot of decentralization to nations and local communities, in structures of subsidiarity formed from the bottom up. Social justice between as well as within nations (especially overcoming the North-south gap) would have to follow in short order through deliberately arranged redistribution schemes. Constructive conflict resolution, while highly desirable, could perhaps be somewhat delayed until we learn how to do it, which would entail mental and spiritual re-orientation. Only after this has been achieved, would the Greater Peace be established, transforming the world legal order into a spiritual one.

These are not easy tasks, but their fulfillment is necessary for a sustainable world-wide culture of peace.

This completion of human social development from hunter-gatherer societies to what could become our future follows an interesting path: from egalitarian and peaceful primitive societies, through over-centralized and turbulent intermediate stages (where we still find ourselves), to a final plateau of peace, justice and democracy at a higher wealth level than at the beginning. It is a vision worth working towards. Only then could we proclaim “the end of history”. Yet perhaps there are higher stages yet, to a thoroughly spiritualized world, in which violence and injustice would be unthinkable.