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I'm currently reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and I was just wondering what your opinions were on this: What does it mean to be 'savage' or 'civilised'?

Oh that's easy! To be civilized, you need to be white! Luckily us white folks are very kind and like to reach out to the savages of varying darker skin tones by sailing around the world, sticking flags in the ground and building shit all over the place. Then all those lucky barbarians get to look at us and see how civilized people live. We're just nice like that ^_^

You've made my day Briar XD
Realising all too late that this thread is now going to be full of satire...

If I can play White Devil's advocate, it's not like the natives of various areas were entirely peaceful. The Aztecs for example were doing a fine job of massacring surrounding Indian settlements and enslaving them.

White people just had the advantage of technology and unchecked ambition to be bigger dicks to everyone (Including each other).

You don't often see "white people" and "bigger dicks" in the same sentence.

Unless its an advertisement, I guess.

... That was impressive. Well done ^_^

I think people react to their surroundings and do what everyone else is doing. Of course it depends how you define savage and civilized. The French think they're very civilized but they also eat frogs, snails and horse meat so it depends on your perspective. Humans are the only species that kill each other and then don't eat them...

... No they're not. Loads of animals kill each other over territory.

And sometimes humans DO eat each other after killing one another.

Like Christian Bale.

Num num num ^_^

...Arabs and Asians did that stuff too, you know.

Oh lawdy dats raycist

Playing the leftist liberal role here: It depends on your point of view if you can call a person/group of people 'savage' or 'civilised'. In the general 'Western' policies, ideas like 'civilisation' (not so much used anymore) or 'development' are seen as the manner in which a country, etc. is 'western'. I.e. if a country has a capitalist system, if it has 'modern' healthcare, has Coca-Cola, and such. This means that attempts by governments, development agencies, and such, in their every-ongoing quest to bring civilisation to the Third World, try to make other countries as much 'western' as possible. By for example blasting them through two hundred years of industrialization in a couple of years. 

In my opinion, terms like 'savage' or 'civilised' (heck, even terms like 'development'), are some of the most meaningless words in the English vocabulary. There are so many definitions and views on what these words should mean that it is difficult even to debate them as everyone has a different opinion about it. Overly generalizing example, but go to China and the Chinese will probably say that China is the pinnacle of human civilization. Go to the US and they'll say that America is the greatest nation on Earth. Etc. etc. 

In short, the terms 'savage' and civilised' mean different things to different people, and imply that some people are better than others just because they have different practices, norms, values, etc. Though quite popular in Conrad's time (with Britain conquering the world and such) I don't think that anything meaningful can be said about being 'savage' or 'civilised', that has some universal relevance. 

Edit: Woops, this ended up a bit longer and complicateder than I wanted. Probably should procrastinate with CYS while writing essays and such... :P 

That really didn't come off as leftist liberal at all really. You sounded fairly moderate in your explanation actually.

'Civilised' is just a fancy word that elitists throw around when they try to get brown people in newly colonized areas to follow their rules and use their technology.

Other than that, there's really no fucking difference. I mean, sure the Aztecs can rip each other's hearts out, but the only thing that made them different from the spaniards was metal and guns. The "Civilized" folk had their own problems too. And I daresay, they were a lot uglier than heart-ripping festivals.

"only thing that made them different from the spaniards was metal"

This makes it sound like the conquistadors were arriving on ships listening to stuff like Slayer and Cannibal Corpse during their conquest of the Americas.

The way they steamrolled the Aztecs, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some Norweigian Black Metal screams and solos playing in the background.

Hmm... After reading the comments I had a think and figured I'd throw in a real answer... I think the main difference is that savages do fucked up shit and don't care who knows it... Civilized people also do fucked up shit, but go out of their way to either hide that they're doing it, or try to convince everybody that the shit they're doing isn't fucked up ^_^

"No one is the villain of their own story."

That reminds me of this skit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLJUocaDYw0

Lol! Poor little Nazis. Must've really sucked for anybody who was a Nazi after the war was finished.

^The Bellamy Salute, the original preferred method of pledging allegiance to the American Flag.

Hmm... Wondered why they changed it 

Well, years upon years ago, my history teacher (who I now realize is a white supremacist in disguise wow) had argued with me that being civilized was thes ame as going along a guy's quote, saying roughly that "if a man had his own land, a drink, and a bunch of other shit that apparently you savages don't have, he's civilized".  She went on about how Native Americans were uncivilized right before we went over the facts there was a thing called the fucking Aztec Empire.

Because ripping people's hearts out while they're still alive is civilized.

Punching each other until the other guy falls from trauma is a civilized career.

That expansion was great, but like all Paradox titles it still feels like a board game.

Anyone who isn't Greek is a barbarian. 

To be civilized is to be blinded by society into forgetting the true nature of humanity, and believing that we are anything more than a talking, highly intelligent animal.

Funny. I just started that today. 

Well thanks guys for your opinions, whether serious or mocking ^.^

To be civilized you conform to the basic notions of society. A savage doesn't.

They conform to the basic notions of a different society; a "savage'" just follows different tenets. 

True dat. Still a savage to the other society.

Google has your answer:

*Civilized: polite and well-mannered.

Savage: Me a member of a people regarded as primitive and uncivilized.