Is the term civilization a dead word?

During the course of the year we have been learning about civilizations in general.  In class we mostly cover on how they function in the past.  Something that is never brought up is how is civilization used in the present.  No one refers to cities or countries as civilizations.  When you look at civilizations in the past they were smaller, less civilized, and less populated then cities now.  They are referred to as smaller colonies inside countries.  But they were still groups of people living together under similar circumstances.  So why isn't the United States of America referred to as a civilization? 

 Civilization nounthe stage of human social development and organization that is considered most advanced (Definition from Webster Dictionary)  
As a member of social development thats at one of its most advanced states why are we not referred to as a civilization?  A other way to look at this I guess is that we don't know how advanced we are going to get and what other civilizations may evolve to.  So maybe we aren't called a civilization because we aren't there yet.  It really is just a question that can never be answered.