[extropy-chat] Re: CULTURE: Did Romans ruin Greek Culture?

[Damien Broderick]

At 06:12 PM 3/10/2004 -0500, Dan wrote:

>one point about culture and civilization.  The
>dyad with "culture" would seem to be "nature" -- using the latter in the
>restricted conventional sense that most people use it.  By this
>reckoning, all human societies have a culture.  Civilization is
>something different.  Human societies can have culture and yet be
>uncivilized or more civilized vs. less civilized.  The dyad with
>"civilized" is "savage" and the general thrust seems to be how is force
>used in society.

Yes; and the source of this is that `civilization' connotes city life (see 
the etymology, asfter all): settled aggregations with a specialized and 
diverse work force (and regulatory meta-structures alienated and formalized 
from their simpler clan templates).

Spengler, of course, wrote a very long time ago by the standards of current 
scholarship.

Damien Broderick