Another view on civilizations

Recently I had an argument about culture and civility, and what a civilized person would or would not do. I don’t remember exactly what I was saying and what the opposite opinion was, but during this argument one young man said that to improve schools we have to start beating children with sticks to take care of the discipline problems. I know that there are too many people who would agree with him and this is why I am writing here: to answer to all those people. How do you define civilization? Do cars make us more civil? Or maybe television sets, telephones and computers make us civilized society? Maybe our tanks and bombs make us more civil? What do you think? Does technology make a society civilized? I think that there are no gizmos in the world that can make a barbarian into a civilized man. Every person who believes in “an eye for an eye” is still a barbarian in my opinion. Every bully on a school yard is a barbarian. Every father and mother who hit their children to discipline them are barbarians. Every leader who is trying to solve a conflict using force is a barbarian. What really makes our society civilized is how we treat small and weak members or smaller and weaker countries. So I have to research this topic some more, but so far on Earth we do not have a civilized society IMHO. Sorry :( All people, who think that since their parents used to beat them up and they came out well often think it’s OK to beat up their own children to get the same results, continue the cycle of violence and live their barbaric lives.