Is this civilization?

Undoubtedly we have produced by dint of advancement of having the motors, the radios, the cinemas, the railways, the airways, the medicines, the toilets, the big buildings, the big mills, agricultural implements, big offices, hodgepodge philosophers, industrialists, poets, scientists, politicians, iron men, statesmen and what not but the net result is no food, no clothing, no shelter, no peace.

Will any thinking and sober man with any sense of human reasoning call this status of human life as civilized? We think not. This unrestricted material progress of civilization must be checked if humanity has to exist at all and the big brains who pose to lead the people in general must now try to understand and recognise that matter is not all in all but it is subordinate to the spirit.

(From an early essay by Srila Prabhupada)