“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Albert Einstein
“We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way” George Bernard Shaw.
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.” John Muir
“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” Simgunt Freud
“The tendency in modern civilization is to make the world uniform... Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed.”
Rabindranath TagoreNow my humble questions:
- do you think that we are trully civilized nations?
- is it good or bad for humans to live in a civilized society?
- what is, in your view, the biggest advantage/disadvantage of any civilization?
- is it really possible to die of civilization?
- would a return to an "uncivilized" way of life help people at all?
would a return to an "uncivilized" way of life help people at all?
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of this, the Dark Mountain Project, and the 'eight principles of Uncivilisation', Anachronist?
http://www.dark-mountain.net/about-2/principles/
Have you heard of this, the Dark Mountain Project, and the 'eight principles of Uncivilisation', Anachronist?
ReplyDeleteNo I haven't. I visited their site following your link and I suppose some of their principles do make sense. I especially liked this one:
We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.
I only hope this movement is a serious thing, not another environmental sect. We do need changes and we need them soon.
Thoreau - "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business."
ReplyDeleteNice one, thanks. Do you think that civilisation is something good or something bad?
ReplyDelete