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

Technotranscendence neptune at superlink.net
Wed Mar 10 23:12:32 UTC 2004


Not much to add here, but 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.

Looked at in this way, I'm not sure I'd say the Ancient Greeks did not
have a civilization while the Romans did.  The Romans merely spread
theirs further -- mostly by conquest.  (Not that Ancient Greeks were to
a man all eager to use only friendly persuasion.:)

That said, it would appear that high culture and civilization go
together if only because the more civilized a society is usually more
productive and able to produce more culture, devote more time to its
consumption, and also is usually exposed to more cultures outside its
own in a beneficial way.  (I mean by the last that the savage who grows
up around a civilized culture but basically only learns the martial
techniques is not being civilized.  Notably, those types tend to grow
and come back years later to conquer the civilized society.)

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html




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