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What makes a human being civilized?

 
 
Cyracuz
 
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 09:19 am
What makes a human being civilized?

I don't have any suggestions. It seems to me that any tribe, society or previous civilization or any gathering of people that we can contrast ourselves against come out above us on the civilized scale for one single reason. We are providing for half the world by depriving the other half.
So I felt like asking any human being that is aware that it's happening just how civilized they think we are? Are we the most civilized people who have ever lived?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 15 • Views: 16,494 • Replies: 89
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Fil Albuquerque
 
  0  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 11:27 am
...FAITH !!!
( ...I was going for Indoctrination, but is well past that... )
0 Replies
 
Jebediah
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 11:54 am
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

I don't have any suggestions. It seems to me that any tribe, society or previous civilization or any gathering of people that we can contrast ourselves against come out above us on the civilized scale for one single reason. We are providing for half the world by depriving the other half.


I don't really understand this. I assume you don't mean it literally but that doesn't leave me knowing what you mean. What connection do you think there is between a society being a civilization and it being altruistic towards other societies? Isn't that altruism and not civilization?


BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  2  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 11:54 am
@Cyracuz,
About ten million years.

BBB
0 Replies
 
Fil Albuquerque
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 12:19 pm
Fear and Faith are the 2 big motors of Human condition...(and the Biological World in general )

P.S. ...By Faith I was not necessarily referring to Religion, but merely to belief in general...after all where does Hope came from, uh ?
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 01:11 pm
@Jebediah,
If you eat children for breakfast, silver forks, fancy tablecloth and 90 servants dont make you civilized.
But who the hell eats children for breakfast?
Jebediah
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 01:57 pm
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

If you eat children for breakfast, silver forks, fancy tablecloth and 90 servants dont make you civilized.
But who the hell eats children for breakfast?


Civilized is just a bad word to try and think with. We talk about the aztec civilization, and yet they had mass human sacrifice (close enough to eating children for breakfast?). They were more of a civilization than some of the other north american peoples, by the definition of civilization. But when we describe an individual as civilized we are talking about something vaguely different. At least it feels like it, we use it like we use "cultured". But wasn't ted bundy a civilized person? He was also a serial killer, but to deny that he was civilized is to pretend that civilizations must somehow wipe clean all the nasty sides of humanity in order to be called civilizations. When really that is not the use or purpose of the word.

I think you're using the no true scotsman fallacy. A true civilization would not do such and such, you say. And yet it's obvious that our civilization does. So you ought to express your argument in terms of altruism, compassion, and fairness, or something of that nature.

HexHammer
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 03:36 pm
@Cyracuz,
It's about living up to the morals, ethics, and laws.

In western society where we have very advanced form of social standards, it's not to be overly emotional and give in to hate (ofc all the above things too).
0 Replies
 
north
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 07:04 pm
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

What makes a human being civilized?

I don't have any suggestions. It seems to me that any tribe, society or previous civilization or any gathering of people that we can contrast ourselves against come out above us on the civilized scale for one single reason. We are providing for half the world by depriving the other half.
So I felt like asking any human being that is aware that it's happening just how civilized they think we are? Are we the most civilized people who have ever lived?




when we less savage thoughts towards another Human Being

and when get rid of god related religions
Razzleg
 
  1  
Reply Sun 22 Aug, 2010 10:55 pm
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

What makes a human being civilized?

I don't have any suggestions. It seems to me that any tribe, society or previous civilization or any gathering of people that we can contrast ourselves against come out above us on the civilized scale for one single reason. We are providing for half the world by depriving the other half.
So I felt like asking any human being that is aware that it's happening just how civilized they think we are? Are we the most civilized people who have ever lived?




i'm afraid i agree with Jebediah. The etymological roots of "civilization" pertain to living in cities. What makes a person civilized? Living in an area with a concentrated population. Civilizations, in the common use of the word, arise as a consequence of this concentrated population and the various conventions that develop to negotiate one's way through it.

If your question is: What determines the way one person treats another? I think it is usually incentive; although, i am one of those rare people that makes room for the occasional possibility of altruism.
0 Replies
 
GoshisDead
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 01:49 am
@Cyracuz,
A civilized person is one who can follow the courtesy rules in the area in which she currently finds herself
0 Replies
 
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 07:45 am
@Jebediah,
Quote:
I think you're using the no true scotsman fallacy. A true civilization would not do such and such, you say. And yet it's obvious that our civilization does. So you ought to express your argument in terms of altruism, compassion, and fairness, or something of that nature.


You are probably right about that scotsman.
I can't decide if it would be altruism to sacrifice from our material wealth in order to bring acceptable living conditions to the places that need it. It would be if we had nothing to do with how things are in the first place, but can we claim that we don't?
Are we, the nations of europe and the US and others, in any way contributing to the imbalance of wealth that leaves so many barely alive in the world?
Jebediah
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 11:16 am
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
I think you're using the no true scotsman fallacy. A true civilization would not do such and such, you say. And yet it's obvious that our civilization does. So you ought to express your argument in terms of altruism, compassion, and fairness, or something of that nature.


You are probably right about that scotsman.
I can't decide if it would be altruism to sacrifice from our material wealth in order to bring acceptable living conditions to the places that need it. It would be if we had nothing to do with how things are in the first place, but can we claim that we don't?
Are we, the nations of europe and the US and others, in any way contributing to the imbalance of wealth that leaves so many barely alive in the world?


Well, how can it be fixed? I don't think we're bad enough people that we wouldn't have fixed it if it could just be done like that. We certainly try things, so maybe the problem is just really hard to crack.
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 03:10 pm
@Jebediah,
Maybe it's not the giving hand that needs to work harder. Maybe the taking hand needs to chill a bit..
thack45
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 03:19 pm
@north,
north wrote:

when we less savage thoughts towards another Human Being

and when get rid of god related religions
I think you'd find yourself having merely scratched the surface.
0 Replies
 
Jebediah
 
  1  
Reply Mon 23 Aug, 2010 03:40 pm
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

Maybe it's not the giving hand that needs to work harder. Maybe the taking hand needs to chill a bit..


What are we taking? You mean like sweatshops?
Cyracuz
 
  1  
Reply Tue 24 Aug, 2010 08:35 am
@Jebediah,
Well, the balance between resources going in and out of the third world is grossly uneven.
Jebediah
 
  1  
Reply Tue 24 Aug, 2010 11:02 am
@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:

Well, the balance between resources going in and out of the third world is grossly uneven.


In the past we had poor people in the west, living by subsistence farming. And poor people in the rest of the world, living by subsistence farming, or by hunter gathering. The western civilizations have been able to provide a vastly improved quality of life for the billion+ who live here. That's a huge accomplishment, and very civilized. But for us it was a long, long road. These days some of the third world countries are trending up, due to our help and their own effort. Others are not--but when they aren't, it isn't because of deliberate exploitation on our part.

I guess I'm saying that western countries shouldn't be blamed simply for being wealthier but rather if they aren't contributing to the process that pulls the other countries out of poverty.
kennethamy
 
  1  
Reply Tue 24 Aug, 2010 11:10 am
@Jebediah,
Jebediah wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

Well, the balance between resources going in and out of the third world is grossly uneven.


In the past we had poor people in the west, living by subsistence farming. And poor people in the rest of the world, living by subsistence farming, or by hunter gathering. The western civilizations have been able to provide a vastly improved quality of life for the billion+ who live here. That's a huge accomplishment, and very civilized. But for us it was a long, long road. These days some of the third world countries are trending up, due to our help and their own effort. Others are not--but when they aren't, it isn't because of deliberate exploitation on our part.

I guess I'm saying that western countries shouldn't be blamed simply for being wealthier but rather if they aren't contributing to the process that pulls the other countries out of poverty.


What kind of processes do you think wealthy countries have a moral obligation to perform to pull other countries out of poverty? My view is that it is a good and even sometimes a wise thing to do, where possible, but that no country has a moral obligation to do it. In fact, I think that to think that countries have moral obligations is a category mistake.
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Tue 24 Aug, 2010 12:00 pm
The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

-Sigmund Freud
0 Replies
 
 

 
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