What is the definition of civilised society?

Question

Is civilised society measured by how we treat children, the disabled, or infirm, or old .Or is it decided on wether corporal punishment is part of society. the islamic world is seen as medevil because the hang people in public but wasnt this country still hanging people in the 50s ? women have only had a voice in society for over a hundred years. within civilised society we are still raped beaten ,stalked and murdered by various sickos. how can we call ourselves civilised when our children are at risk from pedophiles when they are asleep in there beds, on a list of importance theres children then dogs, quite apart from the fact these poor babies,that suffer abuse in any form, their human potential is not brought into the equasion we have no idea who these abused and murdered children could have grown up to be,what potential they had to offer our society. It seems to me there is a much harsher punishment for stealing goverment money than for abusing and killing a child.

Answer 1

Civilized society means the way people live and bread their children. How they go for their livelihood and how properly they are dressed.

Answer 2

It's where Tesco and Sainsbury's decide to sell all party food and wines at wholesale price for a month!!! It's party time, folks. Enjoy!!

Answer 3

The definition of a civilized society:

A society that has the literacy to spell the word "civilized."

Answer 4

You are questioning Islam.....15 days in jail for you!!!!

Answer 5

I don't think there is such a thing.

Answer 6

Ok, first off I just have to say this....as someone who's survived and witnessed a fair bit of domestic violence and abuse, I hear you. I agree about the kids. These politicians can ramble all day, half asleep, about "protecting the children" from music lyrics or from video games or from That Evil Internet....but when it comes to protecting children from *so-called Adults*, from their parents, teachers, priests...these same "authorities" fall curiously and *Tragically* silent, as if *they too* were accomplices. >_< Not good at all.

So....having said that....now I'm answering your face-value question:

--Basically I define "civilised" in two distinct ways. One is more conservative, the other more idealist.

--The conservative way simply states: wherever there is Rule of Law, and it's respected, civilization is *possible*. It can *happen* when a culture has Rule of Law and sticks to it, and doesn't, strictly speaking, abide by Rule of Force or Rule of Cliques (In-Groups) instead. For example....many of the medieval, feudal kingdoms of Europe, pre-Magna Carta, abided by Rule of Force as encoded into faith...the "divine right" of kings, lords and ladies to rule vassals. Essentially this wasn't a civilization so much as it was a use of a religion to *rubber stamp* feudal contracts and arrangements that were *forced* on unarmed peasant farmers by *armed strongmen*. One of the few exceptions to this was the Moorish/African Muslim conquest of Spain, which set the standard of the day in terms of achievement in sciences and religious tolerance (this also being *centuries* before Wahabbi's influence on modern Islam). They set this standard by way of imposing something *closer* to an actual Rule of Law, versus the "might makes right" method. Things wouldn't improve elsewhere in Europe until the Magna Carta was enacted in England, creating Rule of Law there, and a prototype for Constitutional governance to come.

And Rule of Cliques? This simply describes what passes for governance by an elite oligarchy, be it of a military coup'd'etat or of a "single political party" that manages to always appoint it's own successors, as the PRI did in Mexico, and as the current Russian government seems to do. The In-Group takes power, and if you don't "have connections" you're screwed.

Rule of Law simply means that the cult of personality is *removed* a little from the process of Law and Order. This makes things a little more consistent and at least offers *some hope* of fairness and justice.

--The more idealist definition of civilization comes from the "Four Freedoms" concept floated around in a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The idea is that *everyone* on the face of this earth has, or should have: Freedom of Speech & Expression, Freedom of Faith & Worship, Freedom *from* Economic Want & Poverty, and Freedom *from* the Fear & Threat of Warfare.

So far, it's been a struggle for Developed Nations to even *maintain* the grasp they have on the *first two* of those Freedoms. Some would say global prosperity--the Freedom from Want--is being pursued, but that is *highly* debatable, as it appears to be pursued *entirely* at the economic expense of non-company, middle and lower class citizens of Developed Nations, while the Companies themselves don't have to pay *one red cent*. In short, Companies aren't *creating* new wealth or jobs....so much as they are playing a shell game, of taking union-protected and environmentally safer jobs *out* of the Developed World, and making a multitude of cheaper, non-protected, unsafe jobs out of them elsewhere, and damn the social consequences all around.

And Freedom from Fear of Warfare has *never* been pursued. The whole *entire* Cold War was about exploiting Fear of Warfare. The whole *entire* modern era of terrorism and the "war on terror" is *about* exploiting Fear of Warfare for profit.

So in the more idealistic sense...nobody is civilized.

--Then there's the question of defining "Society". This is more in line with what you're talking about. Not so much the issue of Rule of Law--we *have* a Constitution here in the States, and have more laws than what we know what to do with and enforce. The Question is: What kind of Society do we have here, that lets children be abused, that lets school shootings happen, that protects pets before kids, and so on?

I'd humbly submit that we don't *have* a Society right now, and that this is a serious problem. In other parts of the world, people are still *encouraged* to have a place in the larger system, to be a part of the larger culture, to be a proper, law-abiding *Citizen*.

In the United States, at least for the past 26 years, our politicians and media, and the companies who *own them*, have encouraged an anti-social, greedy, cutthroat mutation of Teddy Roosevelt's "rugged individualism". They have openly attacked and derided *anyone* who thinks about society and social consequences as being "politically correct" or "unproductive" or "not profitable", or just plain "too liberal". The humiliation and abuse of those who disagree with the Greed Agenda has been open and flagrant for *decades* now.

And the consequence of this is as simple as it is appalling: citizenship as concept is Dead in the United States. We no longer *have* a Society....if we had a Society, we might run the risk of *thinking about* other people and their *place* in that Society. And rather than argue fairly about that issue and *lose*, the Companies who own the Media and Politicians have simply decided to foreclose the debate by wiping out the *idea* of a single, unitary American Society.

We no longer have a single legal standard, a single standard of workplace conduct, a single standard for public schools, for bridge maintenance, a single standard for disaster relief....

We no longer have a single *Language*, ok? We no longer have a singular *respect* for Rule of Law, as expressed in our Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

We no longer respect our neighbors, because we aren't allowed to, the Media keeps pumping up the fear and loathing until we feel we *have to* be anti-social to be safe. We no longer care enough about "other people's children" to maintain a functional public school system, or to maintain a functional *public health* system.

We don't have a Society, strictly speaking, anymore. Citizenship *as concept* is dead.

What we have instead is a plurality of Rule by Cliques. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to *suck up* somewhere and cater to *some sort* of In-Group, at the expense of all others, and at the expense of your fellow human beings. And yes, we get plenty of these In-Groups to choose from, but that's not the point.

The point is that Rule by Cliques, by those who "have connections", is implicitly unfair. It screws over those who *don't know* someone on the inside of a Group or Clique. Not to mention it's implicitly inconsistent since it is a Rule by a Cult of (Collective) Personality. It's the kind of dictatorship we in the former Colonies *fought against* when we rebelled against Mother England in 1776. It's the kind of oligarchy we fought against in World War II against the Nazis, and *again* in the Cold War against the former Soviets and their Communist regime.

And now we've become little better than the enemies we've fought.

For shame. Thanks for your time, and God Help Us, because we *don't*, by and large, help one another.