What makes a culture civilized?

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Is it how kindly they treat others? How technologically advanced they are? The existence of written language? The presence of agriculture? The presence of fine art?

I think the development of technology and the advanced economic structures to use it probably is what we use to consider a society civilized. It's really just a squishy term though.

I would go by how other people are treated.

I think it's a little bit of both. Saudi Arabia for example, benefits from high technology and is quite affluent, but the human rights issue there is downright scary. I wouldn't really consider it civilized, more just barbaric but with nice stuff. Americans are the same way as well.

There's that famous line about judging a society by how it treats its prisoners. That one seems pretty good, IMO.

I completely agree actually. I wouldn't consider any country that still retains the death penalty in its law civilized. Aside from Japan, because I think they are advanced in other ways to the degree where I would say they deserve the honour despite having a death penalty, which they only use in extremely rare circumstances anyways.

I don't see how punishment makes a culture uncivilised.

I would say it's less civilised for the state to pay to keep convicted murderers alive rather than pay for the bullet.

I think it's uncivilized because revenge itself is uncivilized, and the death penalty is legalized revenge more than anything else. Again though, that's just my opinion. I think a society that is merciful is more civilized than a society that is not.

All punishment boils down to revenge. A society with no revenge is a society where there is no punishment for anything.

We should practice quarantine and rehabilitation, not retaliation. But anyway, don't answer that, because I wanna keep this on topic.

What do you guys think makes a culture a 'civilization'?

Should "civilized" mean "closest to my societal ideals whatever they may be" then? I mean, I can see no good argument that "civilized" refers to some standard that all people can agree with. I mean, ANY BEHAVIOR could probably be called "uncivilized". It really just relates to some notion of what is proper.

Some people you can't rehabilitate though and it is pointless and dangerous to suggest that you can.

This is true. Psychopaths often show no remorse for their crimes, and are at a very high risk to re-offend.

They would fall into my 'quarantine' category.

So you are a moral relativist?

Communication, especially the use of symbols, is probably most important to civilizations. Technology is a product of communication. Morals are used by the communicator authority over others. Fear of death and hope for rebirth are also important, both, again depend on communication, doesn't it? Art and the written language are a product of communication, using symbols of course. Technology is used to prevent death, or just limit our fears of it.

Where else could I go with this? I hope you get the idea.