Are humans getting more pathetic in the western world?

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I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. I was only quoting "Two-gun Bob" Howard, not agreeing with him.
As Howard almost certainly had Asperger's himself, he'd probably find actual Barbarian life a death sentence. That, or he'd be the guy who painted animals for hunting on the cave walls, after eating cereals covered with ergot, causing him to hallucinate like a son-of-a-bitch!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

We were forced.

How so?

'Civilisation' is a perfectly natural state. As I said, there's plenty of 'barbarism' running through civilisation anyway. Humans are not 'naturally' any more barbaric than they appear at any moment. Desperate circumstances reduce us to desperate behaviour. We are not 'savages' under civilisation - 'savages' themselves are not 'savage'.

Why the "Western World"?

The African world is way more pathetic and squalid than the Western World

ruveyn

There are two forces acting on human society - tribalism and barbarism. The former is about us banding together and working together - usually under a tribal leader. Modern tribes have grown a lot bigger, of course. Barbarism is the urge for personal glory and honour - we challenge those that oppress us, fight back against those that enslave us.

(One quirk of tribalism is that it works on an exclusivity basis. That is, you define "us" and "them". Either you're one of us, or you're one of them. No neutrality. This is true in all forms of tribe - military forces, nations, religions, sports fans, political parties...)

Civilisation is a combination of these two forces. The tribe offers security and efficiency - agriculture would have been impossible without it, for instance - but barbarians strive to challenge and to change. Understand that few people are entirely tribal or barbarian. Mostly we're a mix of the two.

If technology collapsed one morning, civilisation as we know it would change very quickly. But tribal instincts are strong and humans would band together. Families, friends, neighbours would gather together - not because they want to be together so much as to work together against the rest of the world.

To be what we term as "civilized" takes a lot of training in early life. If we didn't send our children to school, teach them social ettequite, bring them up with manners and consideration, then we would lose our civilization. If civilization was a natural state we wouldn't have to force our children through this training/education.

Then civilisation here is essentially being 'grown up'.

I'm not sure. My OP said nothing about civilization.

All human children are born savages. We have about a fifteen year window to convert a natural born barbarian savage into some sort of civilized human being.

ruveyn