Mongols

When debating over the Mongols in class I was a little disappointed that my luck put me on the side defending them for their barbarian and crazy ways. I was hoping to argue for the point that while the Mongols had some faults they should be still classified along with the other civilizations that we have categorized earlier in the semester.

Some key points that I took into consideration when preparing for the debate were the qualities that have characterized a civilization. The points that we had come up with earlier in class included that of a complex economy, trace, a system of centralized government, a common language and culture among the people living in the community, cities, city-states or some type of urban based community, advanced technology as well as writing and documentation for the happenings during those times. Agricultural base and large scale populations were other important aspects in civilizations as well as specialization and surplus, control of a water source or multiple water sources, social hierarchies among "governmental"officials or rulers of that civilization as well as spirituality and a common belief system among those living in these places and lastly was a military or type of protection system to warn off dangers and massive wipeouts through killings of the entire community.

When analyzing these points and trying to determine if the Mongols were or were not a civilization I came to terms to believe that they were indeed a civilization but an adapted one at that. They had advanced technology and militarily uses through learning the specialization of creating saddles to ride horses. They acquired skills and spirituality from those who they conquered and didn't force those new conquered people to conform to Mongol beliefs. They had a varied agricultural base with the main product being livestock which also doubled as a mobility utilization. They also used the meat and blood from their livestock to live off of. The Mongols had an organized system of government through the Khans and their centralized government was an adaption to the normally recognized capital city of a civilization. Normally capitals could be picked out instantly because of the high importance and effort put into showing the divinity and excellence of these high ranked officials but the Mongols had an adapted view. Being nomadic they moved constantly and had no time to set up a centralized capital. They also had a large scale population, control of water where ever they migrated to and advanced war tactics including a germ-fare that locked people in their city walls with infected bodies to kill them slowly.

The other side of the argument was much weaker and did not have as many points to defend those of the side claiming the Mongols to be a civilization and I think that was clear in our struggle during the debate. Points that should have been addressed I thought were interesting and hadn't thought about them until our professor pointed them out; does it matter if they were a civilization and how successful were the mongols at passing on their genes.