Civilisation EP1#2

[VeritasEngine]

I'm playing 'Civ IV' at the same time as watching this and having a fucking good time doing it thank you very much.

[DrZenith]

In 1969 I was too young to appreciate this series; now I find Kenneth Clark's masterly account of Western Civilization fascinating and instructive. Thank you very much for posting this.

[SHMUJEW]

@TwoMunchuTwo How come youre a barbaric animal?

[lindmusik]

@doctorpapaya Well, if there had been no genocide of Native Americans in Columbus' times not as many people would speak english as today but that doesn't justify it in any way.

[TwoMunchuTwo]

Just as well there are so many unbiased people in the world today who can see clearly for the rest of us.

[lindmusik]

One can ask oneself this: If the christian western world was so civilized, how come we had imperialism, how come they murdered indians and africans, how come they enslaved the world? It was the greeks who once thought they were the civilized ones and called their neighbours barbarians, but that was a simplified view and it is dangerous. I'm just saying that one should be careful in painting the world in black and white, that's all.

[TwoMunchuTwo]

I assume you believe your last statement is true, not false. This makes that statement a black or white statement. There's nothing wrong with that, it's called logic. The problem we have is arrogance and unwillingness to listen to other ideas. The "christian western world" still remains destination number 1 for emigrants. Civilisation and Barbarism are relative words.

[lindmusik]

I don't call that logic. Your logic says: "To say that the world is not all black and white is in itself a black and white statement." This does not make sense to me. And the reason the christian western world is the number one resident for emigrants is because the christian western world enslaved pretty much the whole world and caused problems that exist still today. The british wanted to bring christianity and british values to Africa, but we all know today that this was plain imperialism.

[faraz1729]

@TwoMunchuTwo

That the "Christian Western World" is the #1 destination for immigrants has nothing to do with Christianity. Democracy, scientific progress, and ideas of equality were asserted AGAINST Christianity if anything.

[zedro1000]

You're putting a moral slant on the definition of "civilised". Making the assumption that it implies "being nice to each other". Here it has more to do with an advanced development of society and a civic structure to society and how it expressed itself through its art.

[lindmusik]

@zedro1000 Yes but it is also the winners who write the history. If one of the nation that they call "barbaric" had conquered most of Europe, it is not unlikely that their art would have developed rapidly. I believe that the existence of such a clear dichotomy between barbarism and society. An extreme example of viewing the world through these binary opposites is when the US army destroyed Iraqi temples and Bill O'Reilly's response to criticism is like: "Destroyed culture? What culture!?"

[zedro1000]

@lindmusik

Who's Bill O'Reilly?

[Malaka57]

@zedro1000 It's a synonym for ignorant asshole... ;-)

[marcelagae]

@lindmusik Odd, you warn against painting things in black and white, yet you yourself paint the Christian western world in black and white moralizing in your comment. Usually people who warn against making judgements or painting things in "black or white really" only dislike having ideologies they agree with judged or painted. They usually are quite content to judge and paint ideologies they disagree with themselves.

[lindmusik]

@marcelagae I'm making a judgment and with that I am not painting things black and white. If every judgment were of that kind, it would be impossible to argue. I'm not saying the Christians were worse, I'm just saying that they were not the good guys and all the other religions were the bad guys. That's not painting things in black and white, that's putting things in perspective.

[marcelagae]

@lindmusik Fair enough. Perhaps you could point point out exactly where the program describes other religions as "The bad guys" as you put it, and the Christians as "the good guys". I must have missed that part. There is a focus on Christianity because the program is about the development of western civilization in the post roman period.

[ezelite]

@lindmusik I think you have confused Civilisation with Civilised Nation....it even said so in part one. And could it not also be said of Islam that it enslaved great regions? All civilisations were built on the backs of the weak and downtrodden, i cant think of a genuine civilisation that wasnt.

[wanttoseethemdead]

@lindmusik

because imperialism, slavery and supremacy like Competition, Science, religion Property rights, Medicine, The consumer society, The work ethics were (and if were I guess still ARE) part of our western civilisation.

The question is wether you like it or not!

[DrZenith]

@lindmusik Your questions about Imperialism etc are absurd. It's stupid to complain that people in the past didn't behave in a modern Politically Correct way. But Western civilization was progressive - it corrected itself over time. Take slavery. Most Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries thought slavery acceptable. But gradually, beginning in Britain with the anti-slavery movement of the 1780s, people's opinions evolved and slavery was later banned. Civilization = Progress.

[lindmusik]

Yes he is very biased, and in a bad way. Christian is not the same as civilized, just look at the trials against Galileo and the crusades. Barbarous to say the least.

[RPenta]

@lindmusik

Christian-means to follow the teachings of Jesus and to be regenerated into a state of grace--in the gospels, Jesus and his disciples were the humble, the poor in spirit--the kind of people who were scorned in their own time by the powerful and self-righteous whether Jew, Greek, or Roman. Christianity made a pact with civilization in the 4th century which is generically called Constantinism--that was a bad mistake--you often cannot serve God and Caesar.

[anonymouscrank]

You write as if 'bias' were a bad word.

[Eldel15]

It appears to me that Clark is very biased against other ways of life in saying that the barbarians did not care about human life.

[Counterrevolutionite]

Relativism is a lie.

[JJGMTS]

Relativism is certainly a lie.

[Aughiris]

They cared less, yes.