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by low_roar1
2566 days ago
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> I would be careful of the use of the word 'civilized' in this context. You're implying DRC and/or other African countries are uncivilized. Which is just not true. No, I stand by what I said and by the following definitions of the word "civilized", and never talked about "other African countries": > easy to manage or control; well organized or ordered: > having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc. Given the tragedy that has been going on for more than half a century in that part of the world, I couldn't care less about euphemisms and political correctness, they have not solved anything. The culture absolutely needs to evolve if locals want to survive Ebola, there is absolutely no way around it, I'm not a cultural relativist. It's a matter of life and death. |
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So the US meets these characteristics by your logic but DRC does not? Have you traveled much in rural/poor US? Have you been to puerto rico? Are those areas equally uncivilized? Would you characterize south chicago as uncivilized as well?
In anthropology (maybe specifically american anthropology), the descriptor 'civilized' was pretty much thrown out during their reformation (I think it was 1970s?). At best, today it's pretty much considered a coded term for 'not conforming to my view of what a society should look like'(aka it's ethnocentrically viewed as inferior). At worst, you can tie the usages of the descriptors 'barbaric' and 'civilized' back to the biological determinism and eugenics movements.
>Given the tragedy that has been going on for more than half a century in that part of the world, I couldn't care less about euphemisms and political correctness, they have not solved anything.
What tragedy? and which part of the world? DRC is not near Liberia or Guinea where the other more recent highly publicized Ebola outbreaks have been. Are you referring to the civil war in DRC? It's really complicated and at the end of the day has root causes that tie back to neocolonialism and colonialism constructs created by so-called civilized societies.
I'm not trying to be politically correct. I wasn't even being all that critical of your original statement. I was trying to point out that word choice matters. While most of what you wrote originally is valid, my family (which is Cameroonian) would not listen to anything you had to say because you used the term 'civilized.' It would immediately shut down discourse.