Barbarism And Civilization

Mass murdering, massacres, and human suffering are all something that we are familiar with; whether this familiarity is from a personal experience or something we learned from a book or movie. This concept is all living within us in the back of our heads, setting up camp for the long haul. The short story from Night by Elie Wiesel is about a family that gets taken to a concentration camp in the midst of a genocide. The family faces intolerance just because of their Jewish heritage and religion. This intolerance and genocide is relevant in today's world. No, nobody is trying to take over the world and kill half the human population while doing it. This intolerance and possible genocide is occurring because we are doing it to ourselves. The short story from Night by Elie Wiesel connects to the world issue of abrupt climate change through the noun “genocide”; like the Jews being mass murdered by the Nazis, the whole human species will be obliterated by mother nature if we don’t take crucial environmental steps and focus on science and technology.

There have been many historians and just regular people that take one look at the Mongols and just assume right away that they were ruthless barbarians that killed anyone in their way or without the same beliefs. But if you take a closer look is that still true? No. The mongols were in fact not barbaric but in turn were civilized. Although some people will still make the argument even after that closer look that Mongols were uncivilized monsters. I see where that is a valid point, but with their understanding ways and their clever techniques, we should admire them, not put shame on them for being barbaric when they weren’t.

After reading “What we have to lose” By Theodore Dalrymple, I can conclude that it is a defense of civilization from barbarism. Dalrymple puts forward his main arguments which many come from his own experience with details and examples. Also, the article helps convey to the reader that the greatest threat to our great society comes from within. Dalrymple's article helped enlighten me that today's society has grown so used to civilization that it seems impossible to conceive that it is actually a delicate thing. Dalrymple’s article gives us an important lesson that even though we have countless amount of resources and technology in today's world, society is not unconquerable, and it can vanish.

In Western history the term “civilization” has often been equated with “progress” which is absurd because both terms are subjective to the individual or a group. Europeans created the word civilization which means they also set the standards for what qualifies as civilized and the rest of the world follow. According to Raymond Williams, "Civilization", “`in modern English civilization still refers to a general condition or state, and is still contrasted with savagery or barbarism”, this quote brought back the origin of the word “civilized” and its opposite barbarism.. Barbarism is the act or the attitude of someone of greater authority degrading an outsider or a foreigner because of how they are different from you. This started with the Europeans calling any foreigners that didn’t speak their language or look different

Humans have come a long way, being able to create advanced technology, many different ways to communicate with one another, and many different ways to live, and each human in the world has a role in the world. Each human is unique and have many different traits that define one another. For example, in Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, written by Frederick Douglass himself, is an autobiography of his life growing up around slavery and his path to freedom, and also how becoming literate changed his whole perspective on the way he lived. Another example would be in Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address, where he discusses the fact that the civil war was unnecessary and also how the country should end the war and that they should help each other rebuild the nation together. A final example would be in The Minister’s Black Veil, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who writes about Mr. Hooper who wears a black veil, and the townspeople have no clue why he’s wearing it, and this scares the town and the people around him. This veil holds a heavy toll on him because it represents his sins that he needs to atone for. Although humans are naturally evil and make decisions that are based to benefit themselves, ultimately the trait of the human is to be cowardice, fearful, and optimistic, therefore we should not succumb to our greediness and instead become a better person.

In a civilization, there is an organization there are laws and a leader. When savagery exists, there is a chaos that leads to savagery. At first, the boys had a civilization. They were organized and had a leader. They would have an assembly where everyone could talk and make a decision together. You can’t talk unless you have the conch. “Where's the man with the megaphone.”

There have been many barbaric leaders over the span of ancient history, but Attila is “one of the few names from antiquity that still prompt instant recognition, putting him alongside the likes of Alexander, Caesar, Cleopatra and Nero. Attila has become the barbarian of the ancient world” . Although it is debated whether Attila was barbaric and savage, it widely accepted that he was and still is considered a good leader. From the ancient accounts it is apparent Attila had a barbaric traits as well as being prone to fits of rage, although it is also apparent that he planned his battle strategies rather than charging straight into war, something many barbaric races did. It is difficult to declare that Attila was or was not a savage leader, as

“Civilization and Its Discontents” is a book written by Sigmund Freud in 1929 (originally titled “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” or The Uneasiness in Culture.) This is considered to be one of Freud’s most important and widely read works. In this book, Freud explains his perspective by enumerating what he sees as fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. He asserts that this tension stems from the individual’s quest for freedom and non-conformity and civilization’s quest for uniformity and instinctual repression. Most of humankind’s primitive instincts are clearly destructive to the health and well-being of a human community (such as the desire to kill.) As a direct result, civilization creates laws designed to prohibit

As most people would agree, the 20th century contained some of the bloodiest and most gruesome events ever recorded in history. Why do words such as Hiroshima, Rwanda, The Final Solution, A Great Leap Forward, The Great Purge and so many more spark such vivid images of blood, torture and murder in our minds? And despite those horrific images, what is it that causes us humans time and time again to commit such crimes against humanity? Those are the kinds of questions Jonathan Glover, a critically acclaimed ethics philosopher, tries to answer in the book he had spent over ten years writing, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Through Humanity Glover tries to answer those questions in a way which will give a solution as how we can

Throughout the 13th century world, the Mongols constantly showed displays of continuous violence, drinking, brutality and unfair treatment. They were considered to be savages, and people who lived far beyond what we would know as a “civilized world.” They single handedly became one of, if not the most powerful empires to have existed, building their empire through violent and barbaric manors. The Mongols were very barbaric people, for they portrayed many inhumane and mannerless actions while their empire lasted, causing death destruction and the downfall of all of the land they took over.

Experiments have proven, time and time again, that humans will cause other humans intense pain, it has even been theorized that every baby is a true sociopath, and has to be taught how to feel by society. Hazlitt, similarly to said theory, believes that children are unnecessarily cruel, citing when “[they] kill flies for sport”. In evoking the image of children, who we consider the innocents in humankind, killing for the pleasure Hazlitt is stating that all humans are inherently cruel. The concept of inherent cruelty in humanity, promotes Hazlitt’s general argument that Humans enjoy hatred. To enumerate, the demonstration of fundamental human cruelty corresponds with Humanity's love for hatred because to be so unnecessarily cruel one must hate. Hazlitt goes on to use the sadistic nature of humanity to facilitate the other elements of his argument in his illustration of fire which “a whole town runs to present at… [but] by no means exults to see it extinguished”. In the sadistic act of enjoying watching others suffer great loss, inherent hatred is undoubtedly present. To feel antipathy so great that seeing others harmed is gratifying, takes a great effort and to do such without the conscious realization that such is happening - which is what Hazlitt argues - suggests a large underlying hatred for other Humans. Moreover, the toxicity intrinsic to the lack of willingness to aid in the end of the fire speaks to the larger toxicity of Human society. A society that doesn’t heal or help those in it which are suffering, but instead revels in it’s members suffering is rank with toxicity, becauses it harms its

e first appurtenances that occur in Godless is that Jason gotta ornament by a ridicule called Henry, who is smaller than him. Jason gotta the impression then to lead a piety, Pretty readily his befriend Shin is into the henotheism too. Shin is even weirder than Jason and Henry. The flower part is where they all swarm up to the top of the calender bastile at death and go floating and almost flood, and Henry drop off, and they all get caught.

Waiting For The Barbarians” by J.M Coetzee is a novel that truly helps the world understand how colonization might just be the worst thing human has done to destroy other civilizations culture and respect. “The Empire “ is a nation that is set up to have a centralized government. The capital is where all the power is contain and then there are other subunits of smaller governments such as the magistrate who rules the frontier of the whole country. The magistrate lives and guard a town on the frontier and from his years there everything been peaceful with the barbarians. However, once the third Berru which is a powerful branch of government arrive to town everything changes. Violence, torture, and chao overwhelmingly flood the town and the rest of the capital. Resulting in major realization of how colonization is a pattern of destruction that can be seen in this novel and in real life. A close resemblances of The Empire is The Song Dynasty which begins from 960 to 1279 and share a common barbarian enemies known as the mongols who are from Mongolia which is north of China. The Song Dynastie follows many of The Empires principles that eventually causes internal demolition.

When people associate things with the word “dark” there mainly referring to things that are evil, bad or have an evil look. So when you put the label “Dark ages” on the Middle ages, you make the assumption that it was not a good time. But you’d be mistaken, it was completely the opposite. Though not much revolution took place in the early Middle Ages, the people were happy and content, and "the Dark Ages" just doesn’t fit with that, it’s not a accurate label to put on the Middle Ages.

To begin, selfishness is one of the most common personality traits shared amongst society, Kenneth Grahame’s literature features the theme of how making rash decisions can lead to dramatic effects to those around you. As this is still seen today through historical marks such as, the Zimmerman case which led to social movements across nations. Sadly not every selfish decision made leads to something greater. Such decisions include WWII and dictators amongst history. Kenneth Grahame’s use of personification by having animals represent humans in many of his stories can be interoperated as an analogy for how making selfish and rash choices, can cause humankind to look barbaric and primitive, just as animals.