Civilization and Savagery: A Response to Critical Reading Journal Question #2

532 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Conceptualize the word "culture

What makes one culture “civilized” and another “savage?” Is there a standard for a culture to be truly civilized? Marlow once said, “In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.” There are many cultures and between those cultures there are certain distinctions that make them “civilized” or “savage.” It’s is only according to one’s perspective that one can decide whether a society can be deemed “civilized” or “savage. Through the eyes of the world, the culture that establishes and adapts itself the best is usually deemed “civilized.” These civilized cultures then form a system in society on how everything is ran. A military and government is then set up. Through the government and the military, strength is built and expansion of the culture occurs. Through this expansion, many non-dominant cultures begin to be affected. The non-dominant cultures have already developed a system in which their society is ran on. The dominant culture then de...

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Savages By Joe Kane

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Huaorani are the bravest people in the Amazon. It says so throughout Savages by Joe Kane. It is about the indigenous group called the Huaorani residing deep in the rainforest of the Amazon. They have their culture that struggles to maintain tradition, “Though Moi hit the streets of Washington D.C., at the evening rush hour, he walked in the city as he does in the forest-in slow, even strides “(Kane, Savages). The small indigenous group that reside in the Amazon are fighting against outer forces. The petroleum companies are destroying the land of the Huaorani people. Joe Kane who is the author and narrator of the book, tells the story of the Huaorani people and their struggles in the outer world

    Read More

  • Society's Struggle Against Its Savage Roots

    1908 Words  | 4 Pages

    Webster's online dictionary defines civilization as "a society in an advanced state of social development". Without the restraints of society, the behaviour of people will regress to their savage beginnings, due to the fact that one's need for survival will overpower all other impulses. The descent into savagery, man's inherent desire to survive over anything else, and the need for civilization and order shows how society unnaturally holds everyone together. Society artificially bonds everything together by imposing rules and structures and without the reminders of civilization and its conventions the savagery of human nature emerges.

    Read More

  • Lord of the Flies - Savagery

    1037 Words  | 3 Pages

    Meaning, their true nature will be exposed. That nature is surely savage. For example, when you watch little kids, you tend to notice that if one has a toy, the other will start a fight just to get a toy. Since the kids don’t know the difference between right and wrong, they’re just expressing themselves naturally, which happens to be savagery. Here is a quote from Golding from chapter 4 of his book that proves that rules are the basis of civilization.

    Read More

  • Lord of the Flies: Savagery vs Civilization

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lord of the flies was about a group of boys getting stranded on an island. There was basically to groups I like to identify them as the “civilized group” and the “savage ones”. In this paper I will tell you examples of civilization and savagery in lord of the flies. From the conch to the pig head to the boys that are there .There are mean examples of this theme so let’s get started.

    Read More

  • Asimov's Foundation

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this, we find the first commentary, which in fact mirrors history. Here we see that a society, as occurred with the Roman Empire, can grow only up to a certain point, after which it begins declining and decaying, due in part to the gross levels of comfort that its populace become used to. This reliance upon comfort leads to an eventual loss of civic virtue among the people of the society. Once virtue is lost, the moral framework which holds a society together begins to fail, and after a time, crumbles, leading to a collapse of the society itself.

    Read More

  • Barbarians And Savages Research Paper

    1930 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Savages” and “barbarians”; were the words commonly used by politicians and citizens around the United States to describe Native Americans. Who were these “savages” and “barbarians”? They were native people who according to white standards did not conform to the idea of a “civilized” person. In the Southeastern United States, there were a group of tribes that were known as the “Five Civilized Tribes”. These five tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole were considered civilized because they had adopted elements of white society such as cultivating their land, converting to Christianity, creating centralized governments and becoming literate.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Social Structure In The Journey Of Ibn Fattouma

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a

    Read More

  • Savagery in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scientists of the nineteenth century speculated that humans were on an evolutionary scale that ran from savage to civilized.  The Europeans were considered to be at the highest point yet achieved by humanity -- the civilized.   Peoples and races not yet encountered by the Europeans were placed  further down the list, and were referred to as savages.  Although the Europeans believed they had reached the height of civilization, remnants remained of their own savagery.  Throughout the novel Heart of Darkness there is reference to the idea of civility versus savagery - this is also true of the movie Apocalypse Now.

    Read More

  • The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven Analysis

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    When one nation is invaded by another, its culture

    Read More

  • Arts of the Contact Zone

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...inferior cultures are always able to adapt and learn things from larger groups, in contact zone environments the larger groups are finally able to draw things from the smaller cultures as well, and thus transculturation becomes a two-way street. Only when people are made aware of the marginal diversity that surrounds them in everyday life are they able to gain a wider understanding and deeper knowledge of the world around them. They are then able to apply that knowledge to shape and benefit the way they interact with others and operate as a part of a society that is more open, leaving behind the mistake of imagined communities and applying inaccurate definitions to groups of people.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The West Unique, Not Universal

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    The next theory is the modernization theory, which is the basis for the rest of the essay. The modernization theory is that since the West led the push to modernization, many components of Western culture are embedded in modern society. “As the first civilization to modernize, the West is the first to have fully acquired the culture of modernity.” This theory also heavily relies on the idea that in order to modernize, the country must Westernize and lose its traditional culture. It is then proposed that although in present day many societies are modern, it does not mean they are all the same.

    Read More

  • Buidula Fedu

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the origin of times, influences have been made; merging, converging, and transformation have happened, giving birth to new cultures all over the world. Transculturation has played a huge part in these unions since it a “give-and-take process” (Chasteen 71). Furthermore, hegemony also helped the merging of different cultures, taking in account that hegemony is “a kind of domination that implies a measure of consent by those at the bottom” (Chasteen 66). These two processes tried to impose uniformity among the cultures uniting, since they need to let go of certain traditions to accept the new ones brought by the other...

    Read More

  • The Cultural Diamond: Twitter as a Cultural Object

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). United States of America: SAGE publications Inc.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of How Civilized Were The Romans

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    The definition of civilized that I am using is a society with a stable food supply, good social structure, a fair government, human rights, developed culture, advances in technology and an established language.

    Read More

  • Cultural Relativism: A Cultural Perspective

    848 Words  | 2 Pages

    Culture may be defined as the sum totaltotal of non-biological activities of a people. For anthropologists like Marvin Harris (1974). Culture is directly related to concrete material conditions of existence. It is a set of altitudinal and behavioral tools as well as a map of adapting to one’s environment. Culture is thus essentially adaptive. Following the concept of cultural relativism espoused by Margaret Mead (1968) it is the view of this article that culture must be seen asbe specific and valid in particular circumstances with value judgement as to its relative significance to other groups, even within the same nation-state or society. The point that is therefore being made is that there are some particularities of culture that characterize

    Read More

More about Civilization and Savagery: A Response to Critical Reading Journal Question #2

Open Document