Consider the following comments on civilisation.
The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.
Anonymous
Civilisation is a thin and precarious crust erected by the personality and the will of a very few.
John Stuart Mill
When asked what the first sign of civilisation was, the answer given was a healed thigh bone, evidence that someone cared for the injured.
Every document of civilisation is at the same time a document of barbarism.
Walter Benjamin
We call our own customs civilisation and everyone else's superstition.
Write a piece in response to one or more of these comments. Your essay will be assessed on the quality of your argument and the way you express it.
A way into this prompt
Argue that civilisation is best judged not by its monuments or technology but by its capacity for care and restraint toward the weak. Concede the achievements that the word usually evokes, art, law, cities, then unsettle them with the reminder that the same societies built empires on conquest and slavery. A second move could question who gets to define what counts as civilised. Caution: do not slide into pure cultural relativism, since the essay still needs a standard by which to call anything an advance at all.