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.)
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| Su deus Mitra (chi assimizat meda a su Cristos) chi dominat sa forza brutale. |
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| 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 1st and 2nd
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
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