Civilization, War, and so on.

[Sir Moody]

The Romans were the most civlised nation of their timein europe correct? Their cilvilisation was born from conflict and continued to wage wars right up to their fall from grace - the waging of war did not make them any less civilised

A culture is not Civilised because it maintains the peace - this is a modern fallacy that actually rules most of us out of being civilised, there are very few modern nations that havent engadged in some warfare in the last decade

you seem to be operating under the opinion that Civilisation operates in some kind of progressive form where those who are going through "stages" that we have allready been through are less civilised - this isnt true
The Romans were Imperialistic nation as were the victorian british and both can be considered highly Civilised cultures but would you say the Victorians were no more civilised than the Romans? no they were clearly far more civilised despite sharing the same imperilistic mind set.

[Stig]

Civilisation has nothing to do with war imo (well a little bit, but that's too little)

Civilisation has to do with welfare, income, richness, all sorts of things
And when you look at that countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (countries that are pretty all alike) are high ranked. And most of the time above USA.

Look at the GDP and you'll see the European Union is above the USA

Not to speak of the Dutch Health Care system, if one thing is civilised that is.

[Pindar]

Bijo,

Are you equating being civilized with pacifism?

[Stig]

Bijo,

Are you equating being civilized with pacifism?

waging war is not really a civilised thing is it?

[Sir Moody]

waging war is not really a civilised thing is it?

isnt it? the Romans and the Greeks coined the phrase "civilised" and they engaged in centuries of warfare - Europe of the 17th to 19th century loved the "civilised" catch phrase (we are civilised those we are conquering arnt so its a good thing) and yet we all built massive empires and fought each other

war is an acceptable and "civlilsed" past time...

to judge a truely civilsed country you need to look at how they treat their citizens and how they influence other countries (enemies and allies alike)

[Bijo]

Bijo,

Are you equating being civilized with pacifism?

Hmmm. No. In my second post here I spoke of good and bad civilizations. A good one has not only progressed -- in what some of you have said like Stig, like treatment of their citizens, and so forth -- but also in the pursuit of peaceful international coexistences.

A "bad civilization" is one not pursuing peace and has low care activity for its citizens, etc., and even worse, is waging war.

So I guess what I'm saying is that a civilization can be high on the level of technological, financial, etc., progress, but civilization is also about a society it depicts, and aggression / war is the evil part, while peace is not. People don't use the words of 'clashing civilizations' for nothing. It is a language thing.
I must agree that the level of internal national activity is very important, as is international activity. So even if a civilization is advanced in the typical way (or not), they almost throw away their label of "being civil" by being aggressive and / or imperialistic, etc.

to judge a truely civilsed country you need to look at how they treat their citizens and how they influence other countries (enemies and allies alike)

If that's what we must consider, then let's have a look at the US. I give that country a big thumbs-down

And about the Romans and Greeks:
Even if they were highly "civilized", I refer to "good" and "bad" civilizations, and they are to be categorized in the bad one, for they simply waged war. And any other nation -- "civilization" -- in this case the US, being aggressive and imperialistic, is also to be categorized therein.




Bah, I'm tired. No posting for me anymore today :P

[Don Corleone]

Well, Bijo, all I have to say is that your views certainly make things like Srebenica easier to understand.

[Pindar]

delete

[Pindar]

waging war is not really a civilised thing is it?

Why?

[Pindar]

Are you equating being civilized with pacifism?

Hmmm. No. In my second post here I spoke of good and bad civilizations. A good one has not only progressed -- in what some of you have said like Stig, like treatment of their citizens, and so forth -- but also in the pursuit of peaceful international coexistences.

A "bad civilization" is one not pursuing peace and has low care activity for its citizens, etc., and even worse, is waging war.

So I guess what I'm saying is that a civilization can be high on the level of technological, financial, etc., progress, but civilization is also about a society it depicts, and aggression / war is the evil part, while peace is not.

It sounds like you conflate 'civilized' with 'civilization' and 'civilization' with 'nation'. This is not a normal approach.

So any nation engaged in war is a bad?

[Bijo]

It sounds like you conflate 'civilized' with 'civilization' and 'civilization' with 'nation'. This is not a normal approach.

So any nation engaged in war is a bad?

I don't like normal approaches

Anyway, I don't necessarily meant nation but more the general picture of it: a nation, or a country, or a state, a civilization, a people. Basically I still stand by what I said in the previous post(s) for now, though it might change.

To answer the question you asked... hmm, if I stand by what I meant, then the simple answer is probably that I must ask you about what exactly your question means. I was specifically referring to an aggressive "civilization" and being imperialist / expansionist, not just a nation / civilization / people etc. engaged in war.

But to quickly post as I fight my fatigue ....Legio kind of generally said what I mean. In that case my previous saying about "good" and "bad" could generally refer to englightened and not englightened.

[Stig]

i said wars CAN be good i didnt say they didnt come without a price and that they would always be good

Yes but is the price worth it.
What has WW1 brought us? Nothing more then WW2 I think, and millions of deaths.
What has WW2 brought us? Yeah Hitler is gone, but the price? 6 million Jews, Germany destroyed, loads of death soldiers.

Is the price worth it?

Vietnam brought us nothing, all Korea did was make sure that the small country we call South-Korea is communist as well. The First Gulf War did nothing at all. Somalia in the early nineties? nothing.

[Pindar]

I'm against the war in Iraq, but nothing more then that

So, this comment: "Well, war doesn't bring you anything good" should actually be read: "Well (the war in Iraq) doesn't bring you anything good"?

[Stig]

Why?

well war doesn't bring you anything good
Science brings you good things, health care brings you good things
War brings dead and violence, not really civilised

[Pindar]

well war doesn't bring you anything good

Are you a pacifist?

[Stig]

Are you a pacifist?

What's wrong with that?

If you want to wage war it's fine with me. I'm not going to protest against it. Actually I'm happy that we Dutch have soldiers in Afghanistan to help restore peace. However what I hate about it is the attention it gets in the media.
Today a Dutch soldier has been killed, as he stepped on a mine, and already it was headline, frontpage news. For gods sake it's only one dead, why are we bothered, yes mention it, but not as the main news, it's only one soldier. And what are soldiers for anyway, to sit at home and drink tea?