Civilization according to wiki:

A civilization (British English: civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).[2][3][4][5][6]

Once upon a time, there was imagined to be an "Age of Progress." There was an era demarcated as the "Age of Progress" (and here I will arbitrarily choose the definition given in a Time-Life series book titled "The Age of Progress," in the "Great Ages of Man" series), approximately from the year 1851 to the onset of the First World War.

What one understands and how one understands is dependent upon perspective – personal, cultural, educational, experiential or what have you. There is a range of variability in how we see things, from people to people and from person to person.