BS: Are we less civilised?

Subject: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 06:55 AM

The growth of casual cruelty, and public humiliation, in the name of entertainment, shows just how selfish, inconsiderate and uncivilised we have become.
Even characters like that portrayed by the terminally smug Ricky Gervaise, mock the socially inadequate, and hold their frailties up to the world, for them to laugh at.
Take a look at what comedy has become. Now that it is non PC to make Irish or other racial jokes, what happens? Father Ted, and Mrs Brown's Boys! It's all changed from laughing at the racial stereotypes, to laughing with them.
The same dichotomy exists linguistically, where forbidden words that were once used by "us", to describe "them", are now common currency amongst those who would bridle, were we to use them, on them.
It's becoming, don't laugh at us, unless we give permission, for you to do so.
So look around, before you laugh at something, that the PC brigade might disapprove of ;)
We all do it, and I think that it's not the laughing that's wrong. It's the feeling guilty afterwards, that seems slightly odd.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 07:05 AM

I still like to believe in Robert Owen's view that given the right environment, humans have a natural tendency towards cooperation and kindness.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: gnomad
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 07:24 AM

Romans watched gladiatorial combat (to the death) for entertainment, heaven knows what they got up to in the dark ages.

Later hangings were common entertainment, bear baiting, watching the 'lunatics' in Bedlam, hunting as sport (and I don't mean for the pot, not opening that can of worms) cock fighting, one could go on, seemingly without limit.

Much of what we regard as entertainment seems, historically, to be based on cruelty of one kind or another, just the object and the means of that cruelty changes over time. I don't think we are getting worse, but no better either.

PS: Are you sure RG's smugness is terminal, I had thought it merely perennial?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman sans Cookie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 09:35 AM

PS: Are you sure RG's smugness is terminal

We can but hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 09:48 AM

I am civilized because I have no idea who Ricky Gervaise is!

As to PC jokes & remarks... that is a perennially changing cultural situation with no easy resolution. Those who care about respecting others will usually manage to avoid offense... bearing in mind that some make special effort to BE offended.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 10:06 AM

'I am civilized because I have no idea who Ricky Gervaise is!'

Well, I guess that makes me civilized, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: meself
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 10:24 AM

So, let me see if I understand: you feel that you will face social opprobrium if you use certain racial epithets, and are frustrated that members of the races that are the subject of said epithets can themselves use those epithets and not face the same social opprobrium that you would face using them, and you wonder if this is a sign of the decline of our civilization. Um ... nope, don't understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 11:44 AM

Nobody mentioned race. So that's why you don't understand. One wonders why you lept to that idea?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: meself
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:37 PM

" Now that it is non PC to make Irish or other racial jokes, what happens? ... It's all changed from laughing at the racial stereotypes, to laughing with them.
The same dichotomy exists linguistically, where forbidden words that were once used by "us", to describe "them", are now common currency amongst those who would bridle, were we to use them, on them.
It's becoming, don't laugh at us, unless we give permission, for you to do so."

Yes, how could I ever have leapt to that idea?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:45 PM

That was a seperate part of my question. The clue was in the separate peragraph. If you're determined to sneer, please feel free to do so, it lessens your argument and not mine.
I posit a thought, you reply with a sneer, which does not address the OP.
Please try to be positive

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: meself
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:54 PM

I'm not determined to sneer, but neither am I determined to carry on an argument that's going nowhere in particular, so ... have a nice day.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 01:03 PM

gee i never noticed anyone stopping irish jokes. i hear and read them all the time.

our culture was making progress in the sixties ans early seventies. there has been a right wing backlash that has made racism and corporate greed normal now.

here on mudcat bigots repeat stuff from racists like . "obama is a third generation socialist". or "obama is a national socialist"

and every time a posting is made about a positive action by natives helping others the chorus arises to slander natives with every not so subtle claim there is--whether its relevant or not,

tolerance is disappearing. education and knowledge are disappearing. the worst racist ideas are recycled all the time. some one just posted on mudcat that his family worked land that was red bog never touched by natives. this is the old racist cannard that |they weren\t her before us"   . they were jst passing though, thet israelis use dgaianst nomadic arabs and white south africans use against the natives of the cape. this is saying that because they used the land differently than use they didn't exist. do people understand this meand that people who are using theior land in a culturlly different manner, do not exist. its he oldest racist arguement there is, but people still recycle it.

i watch american politics and gordon gecko almost won the presidency!! one of the leveraged buy out exploitive capitalists(romney) almost won.   people forget in a week.

i recomend everyone read "unconscious cicilization" by john raulston saul, and if you are braqve and ambitious read his book"voltaire's bastards"

in anglo culture, english canada, the united states, britain, australis and new zealand. plain meaning has been so debased that most people no longer have the intellectual tools to even discuss the problems. this is widespread ignorance that rivals the dark ages. we live in a culture that has made warf in every corner of the globe, and people call it freedom. the british and american governments have committed war crimes and murder in almost every nation and people call that enforcing human rights. george orwell was an optimist when he wrote 1984

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 01:12 PM

Well, there are still Irish jokes around, the same as there are MiL jokes, but they have become less socially acceptable, and not at all acceptable on mainstream UK TV. Same with jokes about physically handicapped people, which I remember as a child. They have now totally gone, and a good thing too.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: number 6
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 01:48 PM

"Are we less civilised?"

civilized as in having an advanced or humane culture, society,

Hmmmmmm .... has the human race ever been truly civilized?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 01:49 PM

good luck with that, but when i hung around anglo folk groups i heard irish jokes and in western canada slanders about eastern canadians every day. when i was recently in england i went to a folk group where some one sang "a parcel of rougues in as nation". i said privately to one person, well i love to hear lowlandres sing about their selling out their nation with no apparant awareness that their co countrymen in the highlands were beinf decimated by famine and land loss. he siad i better not talk about that here.

i didn't push it but it looked to me like you can't talk about the ethnic cleansing done by the british empire.

on the bright side among other songs i sang lukey's boat and a few people knew the words to this newfoundland song.

and of course in the discussions about the murder of innocent irish protestors by the hard core racists of the british army at bloody sunday, and the subsequent cover up and criminalization and slander of the worst criminal sort, few acknowledge the criminal and racist behavior, and no one seems to be charging the murders with murder.

so civility? yeah the progressives used to try. few do now.

if you want a civil scoiety you have to acknowledge the evils of the past and not play pretend that they will go away. they never go away as long as the play pretend game is allowed to be used by racists to hide behind. few in the gaelic world, or the north american native world for that matter are vindicvtive, nor seeking any revenge. howeever simple open acknowledgemnent of the evils of the past and the refusal to allow continued cover ups, goes a long way to establishing civil society. without it there will never be one.

i do have to give david cameron some credit for acknowledging the wrong of the bloody sunday cover up and for acknowledging while in pakistan that many of the world's ethnic stfifes were the responsiblity of the british. that's a big step, but only half way. the media went wild. you have to shame those kind of media for such shamefull behavior.

so ceasing to tell irish jokes is hardly much of a achievement.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 02:14 PM

There does seem to be an interesting contrast that the courser we as a society become the more thin skinned we seem to be. No answers. Just an observation.

David E.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 02:26 PM

Different can of worms there. The only thing I will say is that Parcel of Rogues is enjoyed by most Scots, highland or lowland. Most of us bear our grudges lightly here in the highlands.
Remembering the past is good, but we don't let it rule our lives in the present.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 03:06 PM

There are some attributes of today that I admire and am proud of: more awareness of gratuitous hurt and avoiding it with more empathy, i.e. "political correctness", as in that most people realize that it is meant to make civilization smoother, more awareness of doing our part in improving our planet, or at least not hastening its destruction, more awareness of the value of our pets and the multi-layered costs of disrespecting them and their lives.

There are others, but I guess that what I admire is awareness of impacts.

On the other hand, what I consider alarming in our society is the things that deaden us and our instincts, and of that we have numerous examples.

I have read of Japanese examples of extreme violence in their everyday entertainment: stomach-turning graphics of gore.

I have come to believe that in western culture what we consider entertaining is no better.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 08:00 PM

Chongo answers with an emphatic "Yes!" to this question, but he means "compared to Chimpanzees". He is a bit biased, however.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: gnu
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 09:23 PM

ollaimh... stop calling me a racist. And, answer my question on the first thread in which you called me a racist today.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 10:45 PM

I think, personally, that civilization is a very thin veneer with which we delude ourselves that we are better than other animals. The picture of the "genteel" Victorian Age, with its breakthroughs in science, medicine, the arts, ignores the abject and grinding poverty of millions. The Renaissance, the Age of Reason, medieval Europe, Japan, China -- all do the same. The "highly civilized" Spaniards killed the Caribs, Aztecs, Incas, and other peoples just as the US and British did to Iroquois, Seneca, Delawares, and others.

I shan't even go into the subject of deliberate wars.

Civilization? It's a beautiful city built by a river down which always flows a trickle of blood -- and sometimes the river overflows.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: number 6
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 11:03 PM

Rapparee ..... I agree. Well said indeed.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 03:29 AM

Uh-huh. But if we look at human beings as individuals...then we see that there is an entire range of possibilities in each one of us, all the way from a "devil" at one end to an "angel" at the other, and everything else in between.

Civilization reflects that. You can see whichever side of the human condition you wish to reflect on when you look at it. We're sometimes very good, sometimes very bad, often in the gray areas between, and often conflicted.

So...what do you choose to reflect on? Why? And where does that leave you? We all have that choice in front of us, every moment of our lives. Best to choose carefully.

The very fact that we can even imagine being "better than other animals" (Meaning merciful? Forgiving? Altruistic? Loving? Compassionate?) means that the possibility of doing so...and the option...is always there, right in front of you, if you are willing to rise to the challenge.

We're all going to die at some point anyway, no matter what our strategies for survival are...so why not rise to the highest and best that we are capable of before that happens? Some have done so, and are remembered for it. All can do so. They just have to consciously make that choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:20 AM

I think we are less civilised toward one another. Even something as simple as please and thank you, are fast disappearing. People rarely give way on pavements, never mind when behind the wheel of a vehicle. Offering ones seat to an elderly or disbled person, has become an act of mythologicl proportions. and courtesy is, if not dead, on it's last legs.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:29 AM

I wonder if the lack of true socialising in families, neighbourhoods and communities is part of the problem? We seem to be more isolated than in previous centuries. Old people, single mums, teenagers in their rooms texting, families silent in front of the TV; there isn't much meaningful conversation or interaction. And the more detached from our fellows we become , the more aloof, aggressive and non-empathetic we are. I was much struck on a visit to London years ago, how people on the Tube sat stony-faced and avoided eye-contact. Here in Norfolk, you can't go on a bus without having a good old yak to somebody you've never met before, it just seems natural. And if you engage with people, you treat them with courtesy and kindness. This is civilsation.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:46 AM

I think our civilization began to disintegrate with the advent of two technologies: television and central heating.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:53 AM

The Future of Humanity: a Lecture by Isaac Asimov

I'm an Asimov fan. That aside, I think many of you would enjoy that piece of writing.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 07:11 AM

I'm totally civilised.


And I'll thump anyone who suggests otherwise :)

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 08:50 AM

I think that many of those we have been told are 'Uncivilized', they being The Indigenous Peoples, are probably some of the most Civilized people on the planet these days.

Once, we were too, but we broke away from our Tribes...and went out to Party..haven't stopped for thousands of years..and now we're drowning in our 'Civilized Society' where so many give feck all about other people, other species, or Mother Earth.

We need to get back to 'Sacred' and 'We Are ALL Related' ASAP...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 01:38 PM

I agree with you, Lizzie. We have no right to feel 'superior' to indigenous tribes. Many of them appear to have far more dignity and wisdom than us.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 01:53 PM

And then, there's the way Black folks were and are treated- if you want to talk about whites "feeling superior".

Or Irish in America in the 19th & early 20th C. Or Chinese. Or Vietnamese. Or Mexicans. Or Central Americans. Or Indians (from India) Or Pakistanis. Or Muslims. Or damn near anybody else.

You'd think that Native Americans were the only people that ever got seriously shit on by the dominant White culture world-wide.

Give it a freakin' rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 02:06 PM

I rather meant my remarks to apply generally, Greg, and not only to Native Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 03:13 PM

Apoliogies. Eliza - my comments were not directed at you personally.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 03:39 PM

THE MERRY MINUET
(Sheldon Harnick)

Intro:

There are days in my life when everything is dreary
I grow pessimistic, sad and world weary.
But when I'm tearful and fearfully upset
I always sing this merry little minuet:

They're rioting in Africa
They're starving in Spain
There's hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much

But we can be grateful
And thankful and proud
That man's been endowed
With a mushroom shaped cloud

And we know for certain
That some happy day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away

They're rioting in Africa
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't do to us
Will be done by our fellow man.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: number 6
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 03:50 PM

" Many of them appear to have far more dignity and wisdom than us"

Hmmm ... I quess the Iroquois thought they were more were more dignified than the Hurons.

Humans are humans.

Once we no more categorize our fellow humans as black, white, red, gay, Jew, Catholic, Irish, Polish, German ..... etc. etc. ... then hopefully then, we will become civilized.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 04:02 PM

I dunno, 6 - the Hurons at least weren't cannibals, as far as I recollect.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: number 6
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 04:06 PM

Good point Greg F. ... maybe that's why the Iroquois considered the Hurons to be inferior.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 04:45 PM

Yes, those who are cannibals probably have always regarded those who are not as gutless "wimps" and "poofters", 6. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 08:38 PM

I think it was Gandhi who was asked for his opinion of Western civilization, and replied that he thought "it was a very good idea.".

We may fancy we are civilized in some way because we have conquered so many material problems, and have a steady food chain, more or less.

But the fact is that we haven't even begun to guess at what truly civilized life might be like--a world without hatred, hunger, brutality and without war. We haven't even begun to design the rudiments of civilization on that order of magnitude. The fact that we can lift pinkies with those of the right color and income level is laughable parody compared ot what the real thing would look like, I imagine.

One can hope.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 09:49 PM

Well said, Amos. That sounds like exactly the world I was hoping for (and indeed expecting) when I was a very young child. I was presently astonished to find out how many other young people (primarily the males at that time) didn't think that way at all when I arrived at school...I've remained somewhat astonished about it right to this day.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 10:46 PM

I've experienced too much of the world and studied too much history to believe we have anything but the thinnest of veneers over our savagery.

For example, King Phillip's War, where the heads of both English and Indian were exhibited on poles in both Indian villages and places such as Boston and other, similar, things were done. Mangas Colorado and his fight against the Mexicans. "To Hell or to Connaught." My Lai in Vietnam can't hold a cndle to the Japanese in New Guinea or the Cabatuan Camp. Is what happened at Cowboy Wash different from Buchenwald or Mathausen? Are the gulags that different from the Siberian prisons of the czars or the prisons of Iran and Iraq?

The trickle of the bloody river continues to flow....

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 03:23 AM

The way I see it is that I am incredibly nice.

Stop worrying. I more than make up for these other buggers,

Gosh! What a splendid fellow!

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 05:22 AM

>>>>...You'd think that Native Americans were the only people that ever got seriously shit on by the dominant White culture world-wide.

Give it a freakin' rest.<<<<


I said 'Indigenous Peoples' YOU are the only one to have mentioned Native Americans.

Get OFF your feckin' soapbox of 'Let's make Lizzie look bad!' for keriste's sake!

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 05:33 AM

I agree Lizzie, we need more indigenous people. Women running round with tiny loin cloths, naked and unashamed...

Did the National Geographical Magazine die in vain..?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 05:34 AM

We do, Al....
But, we also need more men who do not lust after those women in the same way western men do, for they treat them with respect....

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 06:06 AM

Are some jokes not fair to the sheep?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 06:27 AM

"But, we also need more men who do not lust after those women in the same way western men do"

I am a so called "western man" and don't recall ever lusting in any such way. Maybe you meant to use the word "some" to avoid unfairly including the innocent? I do not rule out that, possibly, "respect" only matters when it comes to some folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 06:41 AM

'some', Ed.
I stand corrected..... xx

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 07:16 AM

Tom Lehrer said it best.



"One week of every year is designated National Brotherhood Week. This is just one of many such weeks honoring various worthy causes. One of my favorites is National Make-fun-of-the-handicapped Week which Frank Fontaine and Jerry Lewis are in charge of as you know. During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood. This year, for example, on the first day of the week Malcolm X was killed which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is. I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that. Here's a song about National Brotherhood Week."

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise,
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic.
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can't stand.
You can tolerate him if you try.

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week,
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week.
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

Subject: RE: BS: Are we less civilised?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 07:23 AM

Kinda sums it up nicely, John..