Without this power all civilisations tend to perish under a load of language and ritual.

Doubtless, because all modern culture and civilisation tend to that conviction.

There's a sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted by an alien civilization is that civilizations tend to destroy themselves when they reach our stage.

This hypothesis is more plausible if alien civilizations tend to stagnate or die out, rather than expand.

In cases of collapse civilizations tend to revert to less complex, less centralized socio-political forms using simpler technology.

It was just one of those usual 'If you don't stop it you'll go blind' myths that civilizations tended to hand on to their descendants.

A civilization that believes itself capable of making do without other civilizations tends to be headed toward its doom.

Technological civilizations tend to use more and more power as time goes on.

Thus civilizations tend to have technologies in common, and it is mostly nonmaterial things that distinguish civilizations.

Civilizations are made of such interacting privacies, since civilizations tend to rely more on communion than communication.