> Unwin described four “great patterns of human culture” and degrees of flourishing measured in terms of architecture, art, engineering, literature, agriculture

> Unwin described four “great patterns of human culture” and degrees of flourishing measured in terms of architecture, art, engineering, literature, agriculture, and so forth. ... The article doesn't define the word "flourish," despite using it 11 times. Given the importance of this concept to the conclusions, it seems only fair to have some working definition, and ideally one that uses some objective, quantitative measure of "flourish" as applied to a culture. That said, the original work was written at a time (1930s) at which non-western cultures were neither well understood nor respected. Without some quantitative grounding it's going to be hard to shake the notion that all the author is doing is re-iterating contemporary western values and ideals. Oddly, the article doesn't mention anything about gender-specific expectations. The notion of pre-marital continence mainly applied to women, AFAICT. Men enjoyed much greater latitude and have for a very long time, despite what the church and morality observers may preach. Edit: Why is this article flagged?