Is the USA uncivilised?

[pErvinalia]

They are more concerned with individual freedom than whether 'x' percent of society meets a certain standard.

Hey! Come look everybody, rev said something not stupid for a change!

If you can thoroughly explain this "standard" you speak of, even more points to you.

But, you should also realize, this "standard" you think of is highly subjective according to your own culture and socialization, which is not my culture or socialization. And there's a good chance I want no part of it.

Well that's pretty much what I said, if you could put your butthurt aside for a moment.

[pErvinalia]

No bears around here. But about 3 weeks ago, I sat on my front deck and watched 3 Orca (killer whales ) swim past. From that front deck I have watched dolphins (2 different species), pilot whales, Brydes whales and a wide range of sea birds, and schools of fish frothing the surface of the sea.

Well I just sat out on my front porch and noticed that my local crow had a brown nose (so to speak). Finally the answer to the question of what's been rummaging around in the fresh cow patties looking for goodies.. :yuk: :spew: :hurl: :sick: :fuckingwhatever:

[laklak]

No bears around here. But about 3 weeks ago, I sat on my front deck and watched 3 Orca (killer whales ) swim past. From that front deck I have watched dolphins (2 different species), pilot whales, Brydes whales and a wide range of sea birds, and schools of fish frothing the surface of the sea.

Not that this has anything to do with how civilised anyone is. Having buses or supermarkets close or far is not relevant either. Just how people behave.

Well, jonno thinks not having a bus stop withing 200 yards of your front door is highly uncivilized, and he's very, very dubious about bears. However, I think living cheek-by-jowl with large carnivores is quite civilized. A hundred years ago we'd have simply exterminated them, now we go out of our way to protect them.

I just got up to the mountains Thursday, after spending a very civilized week on the Panhandle Gulf Coast (aka redneck riviera), kayaking with dolphins and doing a little fishing. I found the 9 1/2 hour drive up here, over excellently maintained secondary roads, with full 4G cell coverage for 300 of the 350 miles to be highly civilized. As a matter of fact, that least civilized part of the journey was driving through the abortion of Atlanta. When we got here I found the goat curry and Red Stripe at the local Jamaican restaurant quite civilized, and the Jamaican owners didn't seem worried about the area's slave holding past, despite the fact that 160 years ago they'd have been picking cotton instead of running a successful business. I found the decor interesting, particularly the juxtaposition of the Bob Marley One Love and the Libertarian Don't Tread On Me flags, as well as the owner's T-Shirt with an American eagle over crossed AR-15s and the legend "America - Free Since 1776".

Yeah, there are a LOT of churches around here, it's a religious area, in fact a real hardshell Baptist area. I'll bet you any amount of money they hand snakes around in some of those churches every Sunday and people are foaming at the mouth as they're Slain In The Spirit by the Love of the Holy Lamb of God. Not my cup of tea, obviously, but to be honest I find the fact that they are guaranteed a right to worship in their own manner to be civilized, as well as my guaranteed right NOT to worship in any way at all.

Military adventurism - hmmmm. Well, up till about 1940 YOUR ancestors were the greatest military adventurers of all time, we were fucking amateurs in comparison. You take us to task for not abolishing slavery till the Civil War when at that same time you were holding the entire Indian subcontinent in de facto slavery. And let's not even mention the Zulu wars. No use saying "it wasn't me", you're tarring an entire country with the slavery brush so we're allowed to return the favor. I'm making a perhaps incorrect assumption that you're of British extraction, if you're a Maori then you have my apologies and my sympathy. After all, those fuckers didn't treat your ancestors much better than they did my Irish forebears.

So to wind it all up, are we more or less civilized than the rest of the "Western" world? I don't know. I know I purposely moved here form there as soon as I could, but that could be my Inner Redneck yearning to break free. It does appear that the definition of civilization is a bit of a moveable feast, eh?

[Blind groper]

To laklak
I am descended from British stock, but my ancestors had nothing to do with harm to Indians or to Maori.

However, as I said a long time back, Britain was uncivilised in days of yore. It is the recent past and the present I am discussing. Say, the past 100 odd years. Britain has become quite civilised in that time. But I have my doubts about the US.

Uncivilised behaviour is not just going to war. It is also how those wars are waged. Think of Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, napalm, land mines, cluster bombs against civilians, depleted uranium scattered across the landscape, agent orange - all of which the USA is guilty of.

[JimC]

To laklak
I am descended from British stock, but my ancestors had nothing to do with harm to Indians or to Maori.

However, as I said a long time back, Britain was uncivilised in days of yore. It is the recent past and the present I am discussing. Say, the past 100 odd years. Britain has become quite civilised in that time. But I have my doubts about the US.

More recently than that, for Britain. Post WW2 and letting go of the Empire, perhaps...

Rather than a spectrum from civilised to uncivilised, I think I prefer to think of the zeitgeist moving on. It lurches forward in some areas, in some nations, quite strongly. For example, most civilised nations (the US included) have vastly better laws and ethical positions on the issue of animal cruelty than in the past. However, the changing zeitgeist is multi-dimensional - you may have identified some areas where, comparatively speaking, it has stalled a little in the US. However, there may be other areas where it is ahead. Also, it moves unevenly within the US, particularly in matters such as gay rights, gun control and death penalties, to name a few...

[pErvinalia]

New Zealanders are fucking crazy drivers. As far as I am concerned, bad driving etiquette is a sign of incivility.

[JimC]

New Zealanders are fucking crazy drivers. As far as I am concerned, bad driving etiquette is a sign of incivility.

And their accents are simply appalling!

[Blind groper]

New Zealanders are fucking crazy drivers. As far as I am concerned, bad driving etiquette is a sign of incivility.

I just got back from a trip to the Philippines. Wanna see crazy drivers? Man!

[Audley Strange]

I've already indicated that I think the term "uncivilised" is fraught with difficulty, and is a very vague way to refer to a multitude of societal aspects. However, it is still worth exploring; and it would also be, if we were to discuss negative aspects of any other country's society...

Yeah sure, but again Sweden has the highest rate of reports and convictions for Rape and most people from outside of Sweden consider it an example of a left wing paradise. So can we say that Sweden is filled with rapist barbarians? How about our police's knack of getting away with murder and manslaughter, does that mean we are a police state filled with racist fascists?

How about if I said that in Oz, we see it's bereft of any high art or culture because my experiences of them is that they are a nation of low rent angry alcoholics in love with the myth of their criminal past? Therefore Australia is a land of inbred drunken criminals?

I don't think that, but then look at your Governments over the last 20 years and tell me you lot were sober.

I think the genuine question was a pop. It might not have been intended as such but it came across as such. If you were to discuss negative aspects of the citizenry of a nation I think you would be hard pressed to find a nation which wasn't pretty much the same, outside of North Korea where the Bing Bang Goon family have seemingly successfully turned their population into drones.

So what is the actual question. Is the American Regime aggressive? Are it's people savages? Are these opinions based on media perceptions or first hand experience?

[laklak]

To laklak
I am descended from British stock, but my ancestors had nothing to do with harm to Indians or to Maori.

Of course they did, they were British, right? Collective guilt, it has a very strong appeal. I have ancestors on both my father and mother's sides that fought for the Confederacy and for the Union. My mother's direct family was slave holding. My father's direct family produced a Union Brigadier General and a mayor of Philadelphia. So what am I, civilized warrior against Southern debauchery or racist Son of the South?

However, as I said a long time back, Britain was uncivilised in days of yore. It is the recent past and the present I am discussing. Say, the past 100 odd years. Britain has become quite civilised in that time. But I have my doubts about the US.

You were using the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 as evidence of our relative barbarity. At that same point in time your ancestors had about half the world under your less than kindly colonial heel. Look at the shambles you, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium left Africa in, a shambles that resonates to this day. You fucked those people ROYALLY, and in far, far, far greater numbers than the miniscule percentage our Southern Planters managed to put in the cotton fields. We had no African colonies at any time, just for reference. Matter of fact, the only African country we had anything to do with was Liberia, which we set up as a self-governing democracy.

Uncivilised behaviour is not just going to war. It is also how those wars are waged. Think of Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, napalm, land mines, cluster bombs against civilians, depleted uranium scattered across the landscape, agent orange - all of which the USA is guilty of.

Aided and abetted by the UK, Australia and a host of other "civilized" countries. Remember that whole Coalition thing? Mrs. Lak has several family members in the Royal Navy and the RAF who served multiple tours during the Late Unpleasantness. The only reason you weren't more involved is you didn't have the dosh, because you had to keep the lumpen proles in beer and rollups so they wouldn't slit their better's throats during the night. Oh yeah, the British were SO much more civilized than the Yanks, you only bombed the Germans during the day, so they'd have a sporting chance dodging the Dambusters.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Kiwi.

[JimC]

Seabass, this is a reminder that the following posts contain personal attacks on another member, and are thus against our rules.

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 6#p1513536

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 8#p1513498

Please desist from such posts in future; your objection to the contents of any given post can be expressed robustly without personal attacks.

[Gallstones]

Civilization in Australia: AKA is Australia civilized?

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

In Australia, as in many places, experts say the legal system is not set up to prevent, catch or punish elder abuse.

The few regions with mandatory elder abuse reporting laws - including most US states, some Canadian provinces and Israel - still catch only a tiny fraction of cases. And even then, the victims rarely see justice.

Only one case out of the hundreds Diane Pendergast investigated as Queensland's Adult Guardian was prosecuted.

"People won't prosecute - whether it's police, whether it's family members - because it involves family business," she says. "Because it's private. Because there's a level of abuse that's tolerated in the community that none of us wishes was there. We all turn a blind eye."

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Collector1337,

Despite multiple reminders, warnings and suspensions, you continue to routinely insult other members when they disagree with you. As is evinced by this post. Accordingly, your account has been suspended for 7 days.

[JimC]

Civilization in Australia: AKA is Australia civilized?

I'm sure there are quite a few aspects of Australian culture which put us well behind the 8 ball in comparison to a collection of comparable countries.

* treatment of indigenous peoples
* excess drinking culture (mea fucking culpa)
* denigration of intellectual effort as opposed to the glorification of sport

And I'm sure we could find quite a few others.

As I have said earlier in this thread, comparative degree of civilisation is a highly fraught subject, not least because it exists in many possible dimensions.

I have tried to be balanced here, and remind people that the intention of the OP, if read carefully, was not an anti-American smear, but to raise certain points, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't...

BG was at pains to say he was not talking about individual Americans, but aspects of society and culture which, arguably, could be seen as lacking in some dimensions of civilised behaviour; but only in comparison to other developed countries, not as some sort of universals, absolutist sneer...

[pErvinalia]

I've already indicated that I think the term "uncivilised" is fraught with difficulty, and is a very vague way to refer to a multitude of societal aspects. However, it is still worth exploring; and it would also be, if we were to discuss negative aspects of any other country's society...

Yeah sure, but again Sweden has the highest rate of reports and convictions for Rape and most people from outside of Sweden consider it an example of a left wing paradise. So can we say that Sweden is filled with rapist barbarians?

"Rape" isn't the same thing in Sweden as it is in the rest of the world.

How about if I said that in Oz, we see it's bereft of any high art or culture because my experiences of them is that they are a nation of low rent angry alcoholics in love with the myth of their criminal past? Therefore Australia is a land of inbred drunken criminals?

You'd be right, except for Melbourne which is full of cultured inbred drunken criminals.