Monday, May 14, 2012

"We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way."-George Bernard Shaw

Another theme of Titus Andronicus is the idea of civilization vs. barbarism. The Romans see themselves as civilized while viewing the Goths and everyone else as barbarians. In modern times, we too, consider ourselves to be civilized. Are we? What does being civilized really mean? How can a society define itself as civilized? And, if  we are living in a civilized society, what constitutes a barbaric one?

43 comments:

  1. Tori SydenstrickerMay 18, 2012 at 11:26 AM

    The definition of the word civilize is to bring (a place or people) to a stage of social, cultural, and moral development considered to be more advanced. Honestly what is considered to be civilized is all in the eye of the beholder. One may see some actions and compleatly fine, while others think its absurd and unacceptable civilized behavior. To me I consider a civilized place a place where people respect eachother, work together, and solvr things appropriately. Our society is like this in some areas, however far from it just around the corner. In my opinion the only real civilized societies are places with collectivism and with less freedoms as opposed to our individualistic, "land of the free" society. Places such as china and other various asia countries arent givin the option to disrespect or not work together with out severe punishment and dishonor. Therefor they are programmed to be civilized basically for their survival, and most grow not to mind it because they never experienced the freedom we have. We have so much freedom that we grow selfish and only care about ourselves and showing everyone up. In a sence our society competes with eachother with out us conciously aware of it, as opposed to collective societies that work together. Selfishness promotes violence, and selfishness prevents teamwork, which prevents rapid advancement.
    So all im saying is that all though our society may be more civilized that al lot of places around the world, our society is still not what I would consider to be text book example of the word.

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  2. Webster's dictionary defines civilazation as "a relatively high level of cultural and technological development; a refinement of thought, manners, or taste." Our modern American society fits this definition perfectly. We have our own highly developed culture (no matter how messed up or disgusting it may be, it is still culture) and our level of technology is only surpassed by a few countries. Also we children of the Enlightenment which shows a kind of thinking seen in no other time period that has completely shaped our culture and truly made us a more civilized people (even though we are not completely there). We have rules for manners and our taste preferences in style, art, music, entertainment, etc. Being civilized means acting in a way that separates us from the animals. Breaking away from our ancestral roots of forest dwelling and behaving so as to respect one another and follow the rules of society. It means, having a structured society with rules and regulations that influence your behavior so that you act in a way not relative to wild animals. Society can define itself as civilized by the way that the inidividuals in a society treat one another and the way that they view being civilized. It mostly has to do with the way that they feel civilization is defined as and the way that they feel they behave. Our society is civilized for the most part. Sometimes we slip back into our barbaric roots with some of the violence and injustices that we do to our counterparts. A society that is not civilized at all and is completely barbaric would be a group of people living by no rules. Barbarism is not necessarily just violence but a society living in anarchy where the only repurcussions come from people getting revenge and not from some type of enforcement from a set guidelines of laws, rules, and regulations.
    -Matthew Greene

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  3. I laugh at this because everybody knows our society is everything but civilized. Were just a bunch of crazy nuts that steered humanity to the wrong way. We got people vandalizing private property, fighting other people just because they stepped on their shoes, and stealing items that is obviously not theirs. We lost our minds just like Titus Andronicus. Although I explain our society as small minded barbarians, but they're still some civilized people still out there. It's the people who clean up the table in a restaurant to help out the employees. It's that person who still walks old ladies across the street. There is more barbarous people than civilized. We need to influence everybody to return to the society we were suppose to be. I admit sometimes I can get stupid, but I know the difference between having fun and creating chaos. "We keep on waiting, waiting, waiting on the world to change."
    -$Gmoney$

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  4. We do consider ourselves to be civilized but we consider those who are stuck in the past and won't give up traditions as barbaric. Being civilized is pretty much soon what is socially acceptable to the public while bein appropriate. Sadly, in a time like this it is hard to know what is appropriate and what isn't. It is nearly impossible to define a society as civilized or not because there are so many conditions and factors to be considered. For example, if an outsider is judging the society it might be more likely to be called barbaric depending on how equal technologically they are and based on if the two societies share the same morals. If our society is civilized we might say that third world countries are barbaric when really they might call us barbaric because of our "low" moral value.
    - Kayla Barrett

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  5. There is no actual definition of civilization and there is no handbook on how to be one. However, people who live in a certain area will typically view their own society as being civilized because we figure there is always areas with things being worse. Being civilized can vary from having morals to having a low crime rate and acting as a whole, but the definition changes depending on the person you ask. In America we view our society to be civilized because we supposedly have morals and good people, but we fail to see how obsessed we are with violence and killing, along with having high crime rates, many murders, and tons of robberies on a daily basis. Every society has it evils because there isn't a Utopia that actually exists.-Alicia Wilson

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  6. Civilization is generally viewed as an advanced society that has rules, regulations, and certain expectations of how a person should act. They might view less advanced civilizations as barbaric because they are not up to the expected standards or because their culture can not be understood. While both might be equally barbaric, they tend to be so in different ways. As the quote above says, "We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way." We may do the same things as people we view as barbaric, but the way we approach doing such things is different and therefore allows us to believe that we are being civilized. In the end, it's impossible for a human society to ever truly be civilized, but we will continue believing that we do.
    -Krystal Midcap

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  7. Civilized?, I think not. Compared to the cavemen people, we,.. nope, that is still a lie. The only way that I could see humans being civilized, in any manner, is the fact that some of us morals and are genuine. Civilized can mean having a humane culture or society, but it can also be taken from an individualistic perspective, and focus on the person as being polite, well-bred, or refined. From other aspects of the word, civilized also means easy to manage, or control. The human race as a whole is hard to control. No matter how many political leaders we have, and no matter how bad people are threatened with the death penalty or prison or Karma for that matter. Dictators, Presidents, who ever else, don't help, if no one has noticed. We still have wars, we still have upper class against lower class, you have friend vs. foe, (friend vs. friend, foe vs. foe) the point is, People still act like hoodlums. Civilized in the case that, we can walk upright, and can move our thumbs, and can use fire appropriately, but other than that, we are just as barbaric as everyone else in the world. There is no such thing as a civilized culture, because if that was the case, we would have had world people from the beginning of time!

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  8. I would not consider us to be a civilized society. There are different definitions of civilized the dictionary being advanced and also polite and well mannered but, everyone has there on personal definition of what the real meaning of being civilized it. Our society is full of the barbarians and we live off of them. The more barbarous something is the more our society is obsessed with it. It's kind of sickening. We are not well mannered or polite we are individualist assholes. I would consider a country like China a collectively civilized country. Probably because they are collectivist, they are much more well mannered and respectful, they are also by advanced. I don't think our society was built up to be civilized we were always told that we can do what we want.

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  9. Haley rasnick ^^^^^

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  10. The thing is, we don't know whether or not we are civilized until we define the term civilized. The sad thing is that we can't. What is civilized to us, can be uncivilized to others. We can say that it means acting peacefully towards one another. We are not civilized, if we were, there would be no such thing as the KKK or Black Panthers etc. No society can define itself as civilized because every society has participated in some sort of violence. If being civilized is acting peacefully, by fighting then we aren't civilized. If being civilized means living peacefully with one another we can come to the conclusion that a barbaric one is the opposite.

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  11. For many being civilzed is a highly developed society and culutre. For the most part we can fit into this category. Civilized also means showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement. This can be debated. We might be more advanced in technology,but were falling backwards when it comes to what is moral and our reasdoning. Were individualistic. Murder, rape, abusement, and suicide have increased in the century. Just treating people with respect is enough and that is not even heard of anymore. How can we call ourselves civilized just by how well our table manners are and our advancements if our government and legal system is so messed up. So many abuses that our government does and justice is never made. People die and are arrested innocently and the guilty ones smile and live their lives freely. If were so civilized and so smart why can't we put the right people in jail.

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  12. We may not be as civilized as we would like to be, but I don’t see us becoming any more civilized any time soon. Try defining civilized by looking back at all of the civilizations that we have recorded history of, and even ones we don’t; we’ve never been any more or any less civilized than we are now. So, looking at it that way, thru all possible examples of the term, yes we are civilized.

    How can a society define itself as civilized? How could one not define itself as civilized? I’ve never known of a society that would admit to being uncivilized much less barbaric, which seems to be the alternative. I would say that based on my understandings of the term, a barbaric society would be lacking any social structure, and common cultural ties, otherwise I would consider it a civilization and so civilized.

    - Alex Colling

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  13. I do not believe we are civilized in todays society. There are many definitions of 'civilized', really considering the person. Civilized is being well mannered, respectful, well rounded people. But other people have other definitions of it. I believe our society has many barbarians. I agree with Haley when she said "The more barbarous something is the more our society is obsessed with it." Our society seems to think when we do stuff like that it is considered 'cool'. We may be considered civil at times, but not most of the time. China & Japan would be a better example of being civilized.

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  14. I think we cannot consider ourselves to be civilized because of the differing views of everyone in the world. We constantly persecute others because their views conflict with ours. We start wars over religion and power. We have new and amazing technology, and yet we still have people who cannot even feed themselves. Before we can be considered civilized, the world must be peaceful and every human must be equal. Since this will never actually happen, we will never be civilized. - Barack Jordan

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  15. I think that we are considered "civilized" in our terms but in other places/cultures, they may view being civilized as something completely different. We usually associate civilized people with certain social skills and manners. We consider a "barbaric" civilization as one that doesn't fit in to our "civilized" definition. We eat with utensils so we think that in a place where people always eat out of their hands - we would consider it barbaric, even though it's just the culture of the area and they don't know any different.
    -Lindsey Tonnesen

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  16. I don't believe we are really civilized people because all around the world people kill, steal, rape, and other terrible crimes. Civilized can mean different things. In our culture, it means to be respectful and honorable. When we describe other cultures, we don't think they are civilized because they are different, and less advanced than we are. We believe that we are better because we don't know any different. Barbaric people are people that do not have the same beliefs or attitudes as we do. For example, in other cultures they have to eat whatever they can to survive, or because its the only way they know because it is how they were raised.

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  17. I believe that since we as a society perceive ourselves as being civilized we are civilized is some way. We set our own standards for what it means to be civilized as a whole and we, "meet" them as a whole. A society can be able to define it self as civilized if it meets its standard of what most of its inhabitants think civilized is. A barbaric society can be described as any society in which there is a break away from this civilized version of the same society by a majority portion of the same society.-Brandon Day

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