SU CONZETTU DE ZIVILIDADE ISPRICADU A SOS ISTUDIANTES DE 1 B.

Thathari, su 21 de Nadale de su Duamizas e doighi

SA FINE DE SU MUNDU O SA FINE DE SU BLOG IN SARDU E BIA?
(That's the end of the world as we know it...R.E.M.)

Su deus Mitra (chi assimizat meda a su Cristos) chi dominat  sa forza brutale.

Calendariu Maya 

Cun custu blog torramus a impittare sa limba inglesa pro sos istudentes de inglesu de iscola e pro chie lu cumprendet.

Passadu un annu dae cando amus cuminzadu a iscrier in limba sarda diad esser tempus de unu "bilanciu".

Seighi miza lettores in d'un annu no sun pagos ma mancu meda. Sempre pius mi enid a conca de mudare su blog in limba sarda in d'unu blog de incontru de limbas in su cale dognunu iscriet e legget in sa limba chi connoschet mezus.

Zertu s'ideale diad esser a bortare su sardu in italianu o in inglesu cun babylon, ma paret chi ancora no bi semus.

E duncas, i s'impertantu bos devides abituare a bider post in sardu, in italianu e in inglesu.

Mi dispiaghet pro sos puritanos de sa limba sarda, ma mi so abizende chi sa limba sarda a sa sola no mi bastat pius, no in s'internet.

E tando custa orta, leggidebos unu pagu de inglesu, si puru MADE IN SARDINIA.

 su conzettu de zivilidade

MODULE ONE . HISTORY OF CIVILISATION

UNIT ONE THE CONCEPTS OF CIVILISATION, CULTURE AND LITERATURE

Through words, symbols, pictures and movies.

CIVILISATION AND THE MYTHS OF THE WESTERN CULTURE.

As Antonio Golino said in ian interview on the radio (Radio 3, 20 12 2012) old nations get tired of wars as Europe after the 1^st and 2^nd world war tragedy , while new nations like the United States, or Israel, seem never tired of wars and they are always ready to engage in a new one. So peace and war seem to be conncted with the youth or old age of nations and with the averafge age of its population. The older the popularion the less inclined to war it seems, the younger, the readier.

William Golding, the author of Lord of the flies, a terrible parable of man’s evil, thinks that man produces evil as a bee produces honey. Until we don’t understand this very simple and sad truth we are condamned to repeta the sama fatal errors.

One of the basic meaning of civilised and civilisation is connected with the idea of peaceful living and respect of others.

The word civilisation comes from the latin civitates which on its turn is related with the semitic word bitu, which meant at the same time population, territory and house. The latin word civitate(m) meant ectly the same thing: the house-territory inhabited by one population. This is the origin of villa, and village and probably of vicus.

An introduction to the study of Language and Civilisation.

The word civilisation may cover many different meanings which have overlapped over time. Nevertheless, some basic implications can be identified.

1    civilisation as being “civilised”

The first concept of civilisation, from ancient times, is probably the one which considers it as the state of being civilised, as opposed to the wild, the savage, the primitive and brutish state of man, the barbarous.

In this sense “civilised”, “civil”,  seems synonimous of evoluted, organized, “urban”, belonging to a civitas, a city, a township. That is a member of a cultivated and superior population, more advanced in culture, learning, technologies, as opposed to the conquered, very often (but not always) the more “natural” and rustic man, the inhabitant of the countryside, the steppe, the mountains, that is to say, countryman, the sheperd, the nomad.

In a similar way it was used by the Greeks, the Romans, the European colonists, by the colonisers towards the colonised.

This concept also includes an idea of superiority, as when the Romans felt superior to the more primitive Germanic tribes, or when the white, puritan English colonist, like the archetype Robinson, felt naturally superior to the primitive Friday.

civilisation as the progress of mankind

With the XVII century and the Enlightenment the concept of civilisation developed and acquired two contradictory ideas: one positive and one quite negative. On one hand it meant the progress and the evolution of mankind during its long history from the primitive darkness to the light of conscience and reason. The progress of mankind was seen as inevitable, a direct line through time which was bound to glorious destinations of wealth, justice, peace, tolerance and freedom from slavery and oppression. The primitive state of mankind was seen as a state of savagery and violence, which was behind, while civilisation lay ahead.

Civilisation as the social and historical achievemnts of one historical population.

On the other hand we generally refer to civilisations, in the plural, to those historical examples of progress and technology and culture among one given population: so we may speak of Roman civilisation, Greek civilisation, Etruscan civilisation, or, in other continents the Indian civilisation, the Chinese civilisation, The Mayas, the Aztecs etc.

In this sense he word civilisation means the historical achivemnt of one given population at one stage of its history and life. As such civilisations look like living organisms, they are born, the develop, they reach maturity and a climax and they finally fall down into decadence and die, or if they do not die completely they develop slowly into something different, generally belonging to another civilisation (for example Roman over Greek, or Greek over Egyptian).

In this sense we may also speak about British civilisation, Italian civilisation or French civilisation, and we mean the study of the arts, history, language and culture of one population.

The civilisation paradox in Jean Jacques Rousseau.

A quite different idea of civilisation was developed by the Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He said that human society has gone too far from the original state of nature, freedom and happiness, so that the individual has been corrupted in its original spontaneity, goodness and brotherhood by the necessities of social life because of which man has lost its original human values becoming corrupt. The Swiss philospher made this statement comparing the simple direct spontaneous life of country people and that of the primitive populations discovered in the New World with the life of European sophisticated towns anc cities.

So,  was civilisaton a good ora  bad thing?

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD SAVAGE

On one hand Rousseau suggest that civilisation is the product of human society and it is a factor of corruption for the individual because the individuals must adapt to the laws, the rules, the social conventions of urbanity and town life losing their original spontaneity, authenticity and even their freedom. Rousseau thought that all men were born free and good (like the child is) but that the complications of social life – i.e. civilisation – turn him bad. In fact the drawbacks of urban social life are that most of us are obliged – in the name of peace and urbanity – to wear masks, conventional behaviour, conformism, submission to power, in a word our original freedom and goodness is spoiled, ruined, corrupted . This fact could be seen in the behaviour of the savages and primitves of the New World, who showed to be more similar to children in their goodness, spontaneity and good will much unlike the European colonisers who looked as greedy, violent, hypocrite creatures who do everything for personal interest, economic profit, thirst for power and money making.

Many people at those times could see how different the natives were from the civilised Europeans, how easily they could be cheated, spoiled, robbed of what they possessed. The myth of the good savage was born, a myth by which the savages were believed to be almost like children, because they are almost uncapable of hypocrisy and cheating and evil doing like most Europeans.

The fact was probably that for the primitives word was still a sacred thing.

If men were born good and free as those savages showed to be, then it is civilisation which corrupts men.

This idea was taken up by the Romantic poets. In England the poet William Blake thought that all social institutions are enemies to the individual, because they limit and corrupt his natural freedom. The state, the governments, political institutions, even the Church, or civil institutionas like marriage, cause unhappiness, injustice, suffering, moral decadence.

HUMAN RIGHTS ARE A NATURAL THING

At the same time the idea of an original Golden Age in which man was good, when he was like a child, a kind of good savage still uncorrupted by laws, conventions, rules and masks, had as an implication the complementary idea that all men were born free, not subject to any power, that they had freedom to express their ideas, to go around places without asking for permission, freedom to think and to believe in different Gods, or ideas, or ways of life.

The conscience of man’s rights was born: that man have got rights which cannot be sold or alienated – the inalienable rights  of man - and that those rights were natural, pertaining to all human beings, to all humanity. The idea of the natural rights of men had as an implication the fact the none  can  be king  or Queen by divine right, but that it is the people, the society of individual men belonging to a certain land and territory who freely decide who must govern and rule over them. Tyranny and despotism and absolute monarchies were going to meet revolutionary philosophical ideas which were bound to throw their absolutism and arbitrary power into the dust.

But these ideas of freedom, equality and brotherhood – liberté, egalité, fraternité – which were to inspire the American revolution and the French Revolution were still a product of progress, cvilisation and reason!

RETURN TO NATURE

Man must go back to their natural state, they mudt rediscover the Golden age, his original goodness and freedom.

Man have lost their original condition of happiness in a natural world and they must fight to get it back from those powers who have deprived them of their happiness and freedom. These are the same reasons which are written in declaration of independecne of the American colonists against the British tyranny.

ROMANTIC REBELLION AGAINST THE POLITICAL tyranny

This romantic and idealistic rebellion against political and social tyranny can be seen in poets like Byron, Shelley, and Blake, today it can be found in juvenile music and juvenile movements like the Beat generation, the Hyppie generation, the Freak, The Punk, the Rock culture, but even in philosophers like Hassel or artists like Pasolini.

Why does so much juvenile stuff and so many rock songs celebrate and exalt rebellion and wildness? I’m wild, I’m indian? May be because many young people in the western world do not recognise themesleves in the anti-values of money and profit. The institutions which preserve the capitalist economy and the capitalist exploitation of men in the name of meaterail consumerism are seen as accomplices in a mass crime, the crime of social inequality and injustice: th system, the establishment is seen by many as a horrible Moloch to whom we have to sacrifice our lives.

Why do so many young people look to the flower revolution, the beat generatoon, the hippies, the punk, the grunge, the heavy metal, the indiani metropolitani, the freak, tye piercing? Isn’t piercing or tatoos a form of ostentatious primitivism, tribal recognitivion and belonging?

The ring on the nose wastypical of much racist and colonialist iconography. Why is it a symbol of juvenile rebelllion? What about street music, hip hop, rap music, altenartive magazines and press?

What are young people communicating with peircing, tatoos, graffiti and rock rebellion if not an istinctive  refusal of economic and political conformism?

CIVILISATION AND PROMETHEUS

Prometheus , the Titan who stole the fire from the gods to give it to men, is the god of civilisation, because his myth represents the myth of knowledge, the fire he brings to men is the fire of knowledge and science. In this sense Prometheus is the god of the industrial revolution and all technological revolutions.

Civilisation is certainly knowledge, conscience, the passage from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge and reason, but knowledge in itself does not mean more wisdom.

As T. S. Eliot put it, “where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge where is the knwoledge we have lost in information?”

If the XVIII Enlightenment has brought man on the verge of collapse and the destruction of the planet, his house, there must be something wrong in the idea of Enlightenment and progress itself. Where is the mistake?

We may think that material progress does not mean moral progress, that the market canot be the measure of man’s life, that material wealth means exploitation, and consumerism does not bring happiness, that if everybody was paid according to his work there would be no capitalism. So capitalism is based on exploitation and suffering and social injustice. The market is a market of legal exploitation.

THE XIX CENTURY’S HYPOCRISY

During the XIX century the idea of civilisation vecame synonimous of the light of progress as opposed to the darkness of wild and primitive costumes, the ignorance of the “true religion” and knowledge of the colonial white man. So it was the duty [that is, the moral justification] of the European Christian culture to bring the light of progress and democracy and technology to those who lived in darkness. It was the white man’s duty since he was the more fortunate and civilised to bring the torch of peace (?), freedom (?), tolerance (?) democracy (?), justice (???) to the savage and the primitive.

It was, in Rudyard Kipling’s words, “the white man’s burden.

But in the same years new philosophical ideas, scientific discoveries and new disciplines were mining the certainties and pride of Western civlised pre-eminence: Marxism first , Darwinism after, psychoanalyis and cultural anthropology were going to disturb the illusion created by the technological supremacy, the imposition of colonialism and the ruthless brutality of western imperialism.

EUROPEAN COLONIALISM AND  IMPERIALISM, THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN OR THE MERRY DANCE OF DEATH AND TRADE?

There were writers like Rudyard Kipling who seriously believed that the white men were bringing peace, democracy and progress to the populations of Asia, India and Africa who – in their opinion – lived in darkness, the darkness of ignorance and primitive life. Kipling even came to write a poem addreessed to the new imperial power, America, entitled The white man’s burden, as if truly the white men’s only interest was to bring the torch of civilisation, knowledge and progress to the unfortunate savage of the jungle.

Another writer, Mark Twain, suggested that Kipling’s vision  was not realistic, and that the white man’s interest was only  to shake the torch of light and progress only to attract the wild and the primitive out from the bush to better imprison them with false illusions and grab their riches, raw materials and resources.

Still another writer, Jospeh Conrad, in Heart of Darkness (from which the Vietnam movie Apocalypse Now took inspiration) , suggests that the history of civilisation is only a long story of massacre, violence and human exploitation, he calls European colonisation and imperialism of Africa “the merry dance of death and trade”.

CIVILISATION AS CULTURE: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

When we say civilisation we also mean culture, the technology, skills and economic, social and political condition of a given poipulation. At the end of the century anthropological studies began to have a close look at the populations of the world and their culturas, so that it became quite clear that there not one stages of civilisation but many different ones. And it was not easy to say who lived in a happy condition, the peaceful populations of Polinesia and Amazionia forests or the busy, unhappy, exploited workers, sailors, soldiers, traders and merchants of Europe? A famous French painter Paul Gaugain thought primitive life was much better than a post in a Bank and left Europe for good.

Many people started to think that there are no superior or inferior civilisations but only different cultures. So may be the European have no right at all to colonise, oppress, conquer, “civilise” other populations.

FOLKLORE AND POPULAR TRADITIONS, WAYS OF LIFE QUITE DIFFERENT FROM MODERNITY

Moreover, anthropological studies, that is the study of myths, religions, floklore and popular traditions and customs, has shown that even in the more civilised countries there are different levels of social life. Folklore and local traditions, for example, could be regarded as remains of ancient cultures which coexist with modernity. These customs and traditions often refer to magic and have little to do with modern civilisation as we intend it. In many countries people still believe in supertstions like “the evil eye” and they ask old women to make a “ a medicine” to cure it. These can be considered as remains of primitive thought and culture.

Famous scholars like Frazer, De Martino, Mircea Eliade have studied popular folklore, which is mainly oral not written down, and linked to the natural cycles of the sun and the moon, a form of culture which is more present in the country than in the city, but which is not totally isolated from the learned traditions.

Popular culture is strongly conservative, keeps its traditions jelously and does not like change. Urban culture is mainly exposed to change and progress. Today we can distinguish more or less technologicl cultures, urban cultures and tribal ones, western culture and third world cultures, local cultures and national ones, or global ones.

MORAL DILEMMAS OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

Man’s reasoning is sometimes driven to draw false conclusions from authentic facts: one evident example is that we may think that  moral ethics and morals are connected with technological progress or with the simple passing of time. As a matter of fact, moral progress doen not have any relationship with time or progress. History is there to show that terrible tragedies are behind the corner because man does not learn the lessons of the past.

We seem to be condemned to repeat the same errors of our fathers, for reasons which may be conncted with man’s more primitive brain, the violent and aggressive nature of survival in a hostile world.

Does technological or political progress mean that man is any better? That men has become morally better than his fathers?

FOLLOW UP SUGGESTIONS

Clash of civilisation (Conrad, Kipling, Twain)

Civilised/barbarous (Golding)

Old and new generations, Baricco, I barbari.

Civilisation as the repression of the individual instincts (Freud, Marcuse, Hilman)

Vonnegut

Man and nature (Romantic, Walden))

Western and non western (TAO OF PHILOSPHY)

Cultural Relativism

Moral dilemma

Technè vs nature (Galimberti)

Moral philosophy

Habermas and ethical communication

Pasolini and the anthropological catastrophe