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Thomas hobbes view of mankind
Thomas hobbes view of mankind
Samuel P. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations? synopsis
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From the earliest and most basic history classes taught in school, students are presented with the concept of “civilization”, and how they rise and fall with time. These “civilizations” presented range from the Sumerian to Roman to Western Civilizations. As taught, when one civilization rises to power, another typically falls from power. This rise and fall typically includes a clash that brings one civilization to dominance and another to its knees. Samuel P. Huntington believes that the next “clash of civilizations” will occur between the “Western” and “Islamic” civilizations. Scholars have varying opinions on Huntington’s claim, ranging from supporting material to “The Clash of Ignorance” by Edward Said.
To best evaluate Huntington’s
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The first of these different meanings of civilization came from French jurists of the 1560s, who began to classify people as “civilité” and civilisé” based on how different peoples were governed (Patterson, 29). Since that time, the term has expanded and has been used more and more to “other” people. This “othering” as a part of civilization “was forged in the context of European oversees colonial expansion…” and “was used by the elites…to distinguish themselves from the people they encountered” (Patterson, 30). In modern times, civilization is seen and taught to be “beneficial, desirable—and definitely preferable to being uncivilized” (Patterson, 1). Thomas Hobbes also weighs in on the civilization versus barbarism debate. According to one source, Hobbs believes civilization “has been a condition which combines government, leisure and intellectual cultivation” (Kraynak, 90). According to Huntington, “Civilization is not a thing: it is an idea, a concept, a way of organizing reality”(Patterson, 22). Huntington describes civilization as “the highest cultural grouping of a people and the broadest level of cultural identity…” (Huntington 43). According to him, many layers exist within a civilization, like customs, institutions, and religions. He also claims civilization should be inclusive not exclusive. This definition is very similar to the definition …show more content…
He says: “First, a distinction exists between civilization in the singular and civilizations in the plural” (Huntington, 40). Next he claims that civilization is a “culture writ large” (Huntington, 41) and is in the most basic form a “cultural identity” (Huntington, 41). Thirdly, Huntington claims that civilizations are comprehensive. This means, “none of their constituent units can be fully understood without reference to the encompassing civilization” (Huntington, 42). This idea means, in theory that a city in Arkansas is different from a city in California, but both share a commonality of being an American and “Western” city, and being “Western” cities they are not part of any “broader cultural identity” (Huntington, 43). This reinforces the overall claim that Civilizations are the “broadest level of cultural identity” (Huntington, 43). Fourth, Huntington claims that Civilizations must be long lasting. They must remain despite “political, social, economic, and even ideological upheavals” (Huntington, 43). Huntington’s last criterion for civilization is that they do not function as governments. Since civilization is so broad, it is above normal governments of individual states, and therefore should not take part in the governing of any states, which belong to that civilization (Huntington, 43). Currently, six possibly seven civilizations exist in the world,
In the mind of Ray Bradbury, people are scared of reality. His dystopian novel entitled Fahrenheit 451 is noted as one of his best stories. It tells of a futuristic American society where books are illegal. The main character, Montag, is a “fireman” who burns books, but he soon realizes the knowledge the poses. A dystopian novel is one where everything goes terribly wrong. A motif is a recurring theme or idea through out a book. To be ignorant is to not have the knowledge of something. In this book, ignorance is a motif. The imaginary society is very ignorant of books. Their ignorance prevents them from gaining knowledge, having control over what they know, and being satisfied with life.
According to Johnathan Malesic, in his article “How Dumb Do They Think We Are?” students think that professors are ignorant at not being able to tell if their paper is plagiarized or not. Some students believe that they can get away with plagiarizing a paper, but they do not realize that professors know how to search and locate authors’ work online and identify a plagiarized essay. In the beginning, Malesic talks about how he was completely insulted when he found his first plagiarized paper, but little did he know that this would surely happen again. Other teachers had told him that this would not be the final time; as a matter of fact, they said to expect it to happen almost every time he assigned a paper. Sure enough they were right. He mentions how he wishes that students would use their taught knowledge to do their papers and put an author’s work into their own words. He ends the article with how he believes that a person who plagiarizes a paper is not really a student at all (87).
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.
Stearns, Harold E. Civilization in the United States. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1922.
to bring out of a savage, uneducated, or rude state; make civil; elevate social and private life; enlighten; refine: Rome civilized the barbarians. Dictionary.com - "The 'Dictionary'" The Europeans had this common belief that Africa needed to be civilized. As I read through these books, I felt that the Europeans thought they were helping the Africans become civilized through Christianity. Ones definition of civilization depends on their point of view. Joseph Conrad shows how the white man viewed the natives in his word choice, he states in his book.
Getting one good grade in school is easy, the difficult part is to keep getting good grades. This concept applies to other things also. For example when a group is given a certain privilege they have to maintain it. In the essay “The Unexamined” by Ross Chambers, the author discusses that different races are perceived differently depending on where they are. He says that white people are the superior ones, and they bare the privilege of not being marked by others. While other races are discriminated, the whites are excluded from discrimination. Together with the color category there are other ones which also are the privileged ones, like for example: men and straight people. In the other essay “Man Royals And Sodomites” by Makeda Silvera,
Nations and people founded by Europeans and other countries with western ideals have be very critical of their view of civilization. When one thinks of western ideas and the civilization we think of an end to savagery, progress and prosperity. These same ideas were the ideas that many of European countries and the United states rooted into its citizens. Industrialization was at the heart of creating a more civilized world and western ideas.
Perry, Marvin, et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society. 4th ed. Vol. I. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Shuster Inc., 1997.
I share the view of Edward Said who responded to Huntington’s thesis in his 2001 article, “ The Clash of Ignorance”. He argued that Huntington’s categorization of the world’s fixed “civilizations” omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. Said (2004) also argues that the clash of civilizations thesis is an example of “ the purest individious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud writes primarily to examine the relationship between the individual and society. Through Freud's examination of the relationship, a deeper understanding of the complexity of mental life is realized. Freud begins to develop the relationship early in the work by depicting the most primitive realizations of self and the most primitive realizations of the external world. He further develops this relationship through the musing of sexual desire and its connections to love, which he claims, lead to the formation of families and then later groups of humanity that came to comprise civilization as a whole. Through questions raised concerning society, culture, history and the self, Freud is able to depict a sort of map of the mind. This map that Freud depicts further enables him to develop an understanding of the relationship between civilization and the individual.
There are many different ways that this article can be perceived. In my opinion, the argument is very convincing that Western culture is not the culture of the world. There are many cultures around the world that are highly functioning with Western influence and the author does an excellent job of incorporating examples of these societies into his argument. Countries such as Japan are experiencing what Huntington describes as cultural
A civilization is the starting point of a society. Civilizations have existed for millions of years and are the basic unit of structure for a society. Civilizations were the base of great societies such as Egypt and Rome. If not for civilizations these societies would not have flourished or even existed.
Perry, Marvin, Myrna Chase, James R. Jacob, Margaret C. Jacob and Theodore H. Von Laue. Western Civilization: Ideas Politics and Society: Volume II, Sixth Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
In 1992 within a lecture Samuel P. Huntington proposed a theory that suggests that people's cultural and religious identities will undoubtedly be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world, this theory is known as the Clash of Civilizations. Therefore this essay provides a criticism of this theory, whether I agree or disagree with it and also the aspects I like or dislike about the theory as a whole.