technologation

The misnomer of the day? "Civilization".
Let's take a close look at the definition, and decide whether this is a word we ought keep using in the way our parents taught. According to Oxford, civilization is "The stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced." That's fairly safe and innocuous - the only distinction of note is that relativity is at play, as some sort of "non-civilized" or "less-civilized" reality is implied. Merriam-Webster makes that point explicit, to wit: "A relatively high level of cultural and technological development; specifically: the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained". Hm, they invoke technology but then ignore that qualification in favor of a literary benchmark. Dictionary.com ignores the literary angle, with "An advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached".
On one hand, we have technology and science. On the other, we have culture, government and literature. Some hard-to-pin-down combination of all these is apparently civilization. I have no problem with that. The problem lies in our relative understanding of what constitutes "culture". And i'm fine with the relativistic approach itself - i do think it's fair to talk about one culture as "more" or "less" civilized than another.
But it's our understanding of what makes for that "more" or "less", that leads us to horrible abuse of the word. Generally, we equate civilization with technology and literary/artistic achievement, yet it's safe to say that we're more impressed by the former than the latter. The key ingredient that seems to be missing from any sane definition of "civilization" is moral/ethical evolution. Stated more plainly, how many cultures have we glibly accepted as models of "great" civilization, that were built on slavery, sexism, war, or poverty? Or all of the above?
We compare the european culture that conquered much of the world, with its victims, many of whom lacked agriculture, gunpowder, an alphabet, or even the wheel. It's clear who is civilized, and who is the barbarian, right? Yet many of those subjugated cultures were much more evolved in their notions of equality and justice. On this continent, for example, the natives were leagues ahead of Europe in terms of egalitarianism, feminism, and the notion of crime and punishment. They were less murderous and rapacious toward other cultures, the environment, and their own people. Similar examples abound.
In our connotation of civilization, "might makes right" is far too prevalent. More specifically, the idea that technological/scientific achievement is a key (or even central) measure of "civilization", is a notion that has justified exploitation and suffering beyond measure.
So it's time to add a new word to our language, and fix the definition of an old one. The new word? "Technologation" - a culture that has achieved a relatively high level of scientific or technological achievement.
And the new, improved definition of civilization? "A literate, artistic culture that takes care of its members, but not at the expense of another culture".