Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » What societal structures are the most CIVILIZED? Which are the most savage basic uncivilized? TRIBES?

What societal structures are the most CIVILIZED? Which are the most savage basic uncivilized? TRIBES?

Posted - September 18, 2019

Responses


  • 3719
    Tribes are civilised almost by definition: cohesive social assemblages with their own, established ways of doing things. Some aboriginal tribes may have done things we'd see as abhorrent but the supposedly-civilised "developed" world is not exactly squeaky-clean.

    Really, a nation is a sort of super-tribe, however much its populace is comprised of disparate groups. 
      September 18, 2019 4:40 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    There are nationalists and isolationists and populists on the one hand while globalists are their opposites. A citizen of what? A political party a specific country or the world at large? I think globalists are by far much more civilized than those whose entire identity is limited to their tribes. Just an opinion Durdle. The person who shares what he/she has with whomever is in need versus the person who says "I've got mine get your own" or even worse "screw you". You are undoubtedly familiar with John Donne's poetry? I refer to "never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee". And "no man is an island entire of itself". That's how I think and feel. The chumps of the world don't care about anyone or anything but themselves. Anyway that's what I mean by civilized. I'm gonna look up the definition of civilized. Perhaps I need to correct my understanding of the word.  I just did that. Next I shall ask a question about being CIVILIZED. Thank you for your reply and Happy Thursday! :)
      September 19, 2019 2:17 AM MDT
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  • 3719

    A "citizen" is normally defined as being of his or her nation, but I know some people claim to be "citizens" of much larger groupings like Europe or, rather more pretentiously, the world. The latter lay themselves open to a fair charge of not really knowing where they stand or which culture they live by, because the world is not the homogenous whole they imagine but a hotch-potch of many different cultures and societies.

    You can only be of your own, native society even if you adopt others' ideas or way of life; but that does not mean yours is necessarily any better than theirs just because it's different. 

    I do not know John Dunne's poems, no, but I agree with the premise that no man is an island. I see nothing wrong with loyalty to one's own tribe or country, just as one can be loyal to friends or relatives, or to some social organisation of which you are a member. Besides, loyalty assumes not considering oneself as an "island". What is wrong, is using that pride to assert some sort of superiority over others, especially for no other reason than difference. The key is acknowledging and respecting those differences, not rejecting them or flattening them into some sort of standard "~ist".

    You can't be a "citizen" of a political party, nor come to that, a religion or specific culture; You are a "member" or "follower" respectively, of those.  

    "Civilised" originally was often meant as living similarly to the speaker's own society, but this has rather unfortunate connotations. It seems now to refer more to living or behaving in a way that respects your own society and the people and places around you.

    As for "populist", I have yet to find a convincing definition or need for that word to even exist. It appeared to have been coined in the excitement of the last US Presidential election; and appears mainly a slang, un-analytical term of abuse of political opponents. On the face of it though, the word reads as meaning something else, proposing policies that would be popular with the electorate... Heaven forfend that, in a democracy!

      September 19, 2019 4:05 PM MDT
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