Is the USA uncivilised?

[Audley Strange]

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...

Yeah but that's the problem, what might be a tolerable aspect of your culture might be seen as intolerable by others. So what one culture may find barbaric, like the death penalty for instance another may not. However that again is to speak of the Governance of a nation. I'm confident that if open to a public vote on things many countries governments would find themselves at odds with the will of the people. For example I think the public in the U.K. would be as a whole be happy for sexually motivated child murderers to be executed. So sometimes we find ourselves in situations where the people may well be civilised and the government not (example being the mass protests against the Iraq war) but other times when the Governments protect us from our own reactionary natures(when we get emotive and want revenge).

Let's be honest, none of our cultures are quite there yet, at least not enough to adequately judge almost identical cultures uncivilised based on things like foreign policy. Literacy rates, clean water, personal safety, a legal system, reasonable governance may actually be better signifiers.

I think it also worth noting that at the height of its "Civilisation" The Empire of the United Kingdom was a brutal fucking monster without peer.

[Blind groper]

Audley

I have tried to make it clear that when I use the term 'civilised' or alternatively 'uncivilised', that is purely relative. The USA is clearly more 'civilised' than Somalia, or a wide range of other nations. However, compared to western Europe, Scandinavia, Britain, Iceland, Canada, Australia and NZ, plus Singapore and Japan, what then?

The USA claims to be part of the most civilised nations. More, it claims to lead them. I am very cynical about that. I think it trails them.

My view of being civilised means behaving in the most humanitarian way. If Robert Mugabe typified barbarity, then Nelson Mandela typifies civilisation. Treating other people according to the golden rule is civilised. Treating them badly is barbaric.

So, if a nation goes to war against another nation, called Iraq, probably for reasons relating to oil exploitation, and ends up causing 1 to 3 million deaths of innocents (as estimated by various independent surveys), can that nation be called civilised?

[cronus]

Audley

I have tried to make it clear that when I use the term 'civilised' or alternatively 'uncivilised', that is purely relative. The USA is clearly more 'civilised' than Somalia, or a wide range of other nations. However, compared to western Europe, Scandinavia, Britain, Iceland, Canada, Australia and NZ, plus Singapore and Japan, what then?

The USA claims to be part of the most civilised nations. More, it claims to lead them. I am very cynical about that. I think it trails them.

My view of being civilised means behaving in the most humanitarian way. If Robert Mugabe typified barbarity, then Nelson Mandela typifies civilisation. Treating other people according to the golden rule is civilised. Treating them badly is barbaric.

So, if a nation goes to war against another nation, called Iraq, probably for reasons relating to oil exploitation, and ends up causing 1 to 3 million deaths of innocents (as estimated by various independent surveys), can that nation be called civilised?

They'll never own up to Iraq. You know how murderers have amnesia.

[Audley Strange]

Audley

I have tried to make it clear that when I use the term 'civilised' or alternatively 'uncivilised', that is purely relative. The USA is clearly more 'civilised' than Somalia, or a wide range of other nations. However, compared to western Europe, Scandinavia, Britain, Iceland, Canada, Australia and NZ, plus Singapore and Japan, what then?

The USA claims to be part of the most civilised nations. More, it claims to lead them. I am very cynical about that. I think it trails them.

My view of being civilised means behaving in the most humanitarian way. If Robert Mugabe typified barbarity, then Nelson Mandela typifies civilisation. Treating other people according to the golden rule is civilised. Treating them badly is barbaric.

So, if a nation goes to war against another nation, called Iraq, probably for reasons relating to oil exploitation, and ends up causing 1 to 3 million deaths of innocents (as estimated by various independent surveys), can that nation be called civilised?

Yeah I get what you are saying but I'm saying that you are creating the rules by which you decide and then deciding and asking us to agree with the rules and with your conclusion based on them. You might as well be asking is American Fashion "hip".

Now I know you are not saying a 35 year old doctor or Teacher is Somalia is less civilised than you just because the country is fucked, that's no reason to think of the people as being some kind of savages the same applies across the board. And to answer your final question. Yes it can be called civilised, if you take things that that nation succeeds and excels at and use them as signifiers for civilisation.

That's the problem. I don't agree the behaviour of governments are representatives of the will or mentality of nations, sometimes they can be completely in opposition and to judge a people uncivilised based on the excesses of those in power seems to me to be like hating all Pakistanis because you got ripped off once in a shop and their all terrorists innit?

[Clinton Huxley]

I concur with Mr Strange. Choosing parameters at which, in your view, the USA performs badly, then defining those characteristics as determinants of civilization is like well dodgy.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, it's essentially a subjective affair. I'm happy to leave it at: the US needs to improve on some things. So does Australia too.

[Blind groper]

Hmmmm

I do not really agree that the factors I am quoting are purely arbitrary. Going to war, for example, is hardly a minor matter. Yet, aside from civil wars like Syria and a few African places, the only wars involving several nations in conflict in the last several decades have been pretty much all started by the USA. I know that the US government will come up with some high minded rationalisation for going to war, but only an idiot will believe that. Each war started by America will be for the benefit of the US government, or the US president, even if, as so often happens, it backfires.

One or two of my original list could be called trivial, like resisting a change to the sensible system of weights and measures. But some of the others are not trivial, and not arbitrary.

[Jason]

Don't forget the US economy is made up, in large part, by the military-industrial complex. They have to go to war. Things were easier, and better, for them when the cold war was still chilly, but now they have to go picking fights. It's the nature of the beast.

[JimC]

Don't forget the US economy is made up, in large part, by the military-industrial complex. They have to go to war. Things were easier, and better, for them when the cold war was still chilly, but now they have to go picking fights. It's the nature of the beast.

If there is at least some truth to that, then that adds weight to BG's argument, at least in so far as the US government and economic system. The zeitgeist of civilisation has moved beyond naked power and self interest, one hopes...

Perhaps, as Audley was implying, not the people themselves...

Although ultimately, a people must take some responsibility for the actions of their government.

[klr]

Hmmmm

I do not really agree that the factors I am quoting are purely arbitrary. Going to war, for example, is hardly a minor matter. Yet, aside from civil wars like Syria and a few African places, the only wars involving several nations in conflict in the last several decades have been pretty much all started by the USA. I know that the US government will come up with some high minded rationalisation for going to war, but only an idiot will believe that. Each war started by America will be for the benefit of the US government, or the US president, even if, as so often happens, it backfires.

One or two of my original list could be called trivial, like resisting a change to the sensible system of weights and measures. But some of the others are not trivial, and not arbitrary.

Not even close. And the phrase "... a few African places" is quite frankly demeaning and racist, especially given the very large numbers of casualties in some of those conflicts. As for civil wars: Why should they be discounted? Some of the bloodiest conflicts since WW 2 have been fought within the borders of a single state, including some in which the USA was in some way complicit - and many more where it wasn't.

[Seabass]

Hmmmm

I do not really agree that the factors I am quoting are purely arbitrary. Going to war, for example, is hardly a minor matter. Yet, aside from civil wars like Syria and a few African places, the only wars involving several nations in conflict in the last several decades have been pretty much all started by the USA. I know that the US government will come up with some high minded rationalisation for going to war, but only an idiot will believe that. Each war started by America will be for the benefit of the US government, or the US president, even if, as so often happens, it backfires.

One or two of my original list could be called trivial, like resisting a change to the sensible system of weights and measures. But some of the others are not trivial, and not arbitrary.

No, of course your factors aren't arbitrary. They have been deliberately chosen by you to make the US look bad. For example, you have hilariously chosen to exclude technology from the discussion. You are so blinded by your own bias and your desire to malign the U.S. that you cannot see how absurd it is to exclude technology from a discussion about civilization.

And, as both Lak and Audley have already told you, Britain was the biggest, baddest empire the world has ever known at the height of its civilization, so there doesn't seem to be any correlation between a nation's ability or propensity for waging war, and its level of civilization. At least not when using more conventional definitions of "civilization".

Perhaps you should have asked if the USA is impolite, rather than uncivilized.

[Jason]

High technology is at the cutting edge of military industry. Unless you're talking about throwaway trinkets like iPhoneys and shit.

[cronus]

You get judged by how you treat the blues in the long run nothing else.

[Jason]

Not at all sure what that was intended to mean, but if you mean that Merkins get tetchy when criticized then yes I agree.

[Ian]

I only get tetchy about blanket accusations, especially when they're ill-considered.