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UK Riots: Have you been affected?

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rjbull:
@rjbull: Thanks for the link to Dan Jones' comment on the historical relevance of "The peasants' revolt of 1381".  [...]
Despite all the technological trimmings we surround ourselves with, the thin veneer of civilisation is still just that - a thin veneer. Tear it off, and it's not a very pretty sight.-IainB (August 12, 2011, 04:30 PM)
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I just remembered Lord of the Flies, a famous fictional account of that very thing.

I thought Dan Jones' remark about "disenfranchised young people who have never known discipline" was telling: kids failed both by their parents and by the rich and powerful who run the UK.

tomos:
I dont know. I find the idea dubious that without "civilisation", we'd be a bunch of savages. It is prevalent in all "modern" societies & religions that I know of. But that doesnt convince me. In fact I would suspect that the demonising of our "animal" nature is one our greatest problems as a society. The idea also helps society and religions to convince us that we need their ways of thinking, their morals, their beliefs, in order to be, or become, "civilised" - or whatever :p
The Lord of the Flies is about a group of kids without parental guidance. Not the same thing as our natural state (although I think that's what the author thought as well...)

iphigenie:
I dont know. I find the idea dubious that without "civilisation", we'd be a bunch of savages. It is prevalent in all "modern" societies & religions that I know of. But that doesnt convince me. In fact I would suspect that the demonising of our "animal" nature is one our greatest problems as a society. The idea also helps society and religions to convince us that we need their ways of thinking, their morals, their beliefs, in order to be, or become, "civilised" - or whatever :p
-tomos (August 14, 2011, 02:18 PM)
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Science certainly seems to indicate that early man was not a savage - they had long life expectancy and very little violence. Not the kind of wars and fighting that popular fiction seems to have liked to invent (based, probably, on the experience of seeing "primitive" tribes caught under the high societal stress of colonialism and european power wars, and extrapolating from that)...

This was mostly due to there being plenty of everything - food, space, resources - except people. We're kind of in the opposite situation now.

Stoic Joker:
I dont know. I find the idea dubious that without "civilisation", we'd be a bunch of savages. It is prevalent in all "modern" societies & religions that I know of. But that doesnt convince me. In fact I would suspect that the demonising of our "animal" nature is one our greatest problems as a society. The idea also helps society and religions to convince us that we need their ways of thinking, their morals, their beliefs, in order to be, or become, "civilised" - or whatever :p-tomos (August 14, 2011, 02:18 PM)
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Bingo! +100 We should all aspire to be as kind and loyal as our dogs.

IainB:
I dont know. I find the idea dubious that without "civilisation", we'd be a bunch of savages. [...]
-tomos (August 14, 2011, 02:18 PM)
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Good point. I'd suggest that it all depends on what we mean by "civilisation" or "civilised".
However, it can be shown that even with "civilisation" we are arguably a bunch of savages, though - understandably - we may not be proud to admit to this truth.
For example, what would be your working definitions of these terms - "civilisation" or "civilised"?

rjbull's reference (above) to "The Lord of the Flies" was apt, but that was a fictional work and proves nothing.

Recorded modern and ancient history, on the other hand, can provide us with hard facts to look for proof.
For example, and at random:
* According to your definitions (from above), was the London rioting and looting and associated criminal activity the action of a civilized people, or was it just "criminal"?
* Was  "The peasants' revolt of 1381" (referred to above) the action of a civilized people, or was it just "criminal"?
* Was the "rape of Nanking" by the Japanese the action of a civilized people?
* How about the use of "comfort women" (sex slaves) by the Japanese during the war?
* How about the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, with a deliberate act of war being the raping of the Kuwaiti women by Iraqi soldiers, so as to destabilise the Islamic society there? Was that civilised ("everything's fair in love and war") or "criminal"?
* And the looting of property in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the earthquakes there - was that civilised or just "criminal"? (The law in NZ judged it to be criminal, by the way.)
* Was it a civilized act by the US to drop those atom bobs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
* Was it a civilised thing for the Nazi Germans to practice eugenics and experiment on humans?
* Was it a civilised thing for the Nazi Germans to round up 6 million Jews and murder them in highly efficient death factories, confiscating property and valuables (including gold tooth fillings), incinerate them and even use their body products (ash from the bones to make roading material, rendered body fats to make soap)? (The Nuremberg trials deemed these to be "crimes against humanity", by the way.)
* Was Winston Churchill's suggestion (in Admiralty) that women in poverty be sterilised a civilised suggestion?
* Is the directive to exterminate Jews (as mandated in the Koran) a barbaric and uncivilised directive? (Muslim leaders justify it as being the infallible word of Allah, so it is acceptable religious dogma, by the way.)
* Was the torture and murder of hundreds (or was it thousands?) of people that was conducted by the Spanish Inquisition and carried out in the name of God the action of a civilised people? (It was done under the direction of the Pope/RC church, by the way.)
I would suggest that the majority of the above could be considered as barbaric and uncivilised in the eyes of an alien observing earth. We however, are observing our fellow humans, and may wish to ameliorate such labels to something less offensive - e.g., "legitimate acts of war" for war events, or "the acts of members of society who feel disenfranchised" for the London chav riots, or as many of the Nazis justified their actions by saying "I vas chust followink orders".

For "we" are civilised, are we not? It is always "they" who are uncivilised.

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