An actual argument I recently saw:
Person B: “Any site which contains slurs against trans people in its sign up process is unreliable” (was referring to k!wifarms)
Person A: “Slurs aren’t considered bad in most countries”
Person B: “That doesn’t justify their usage. For example, conversion therapy isn’t considered bad or banned in most countries, that doesn’t mean conversion therapy is justified or good.”
Person A: “What are you talking about? Conversion therapy is banned in most countries”
Person B: “Shows a diagram showing that conversion therapy is only banned in a handful of countries”
Person A: “I mean in most civilized countries”
I’ve seen lots of other people refer to countries as civilized or uncivilized in similar contexts. Is this generally considered to be racist?
Less racist in the modern sense, more profoundly stupid and racist in the archaic sense.
Civilized coutry is a redundant phrase if taken literally. A country is a territory and the associated state. You can’t have a state (political structure) without being ‘civilized.’ (participating in some kind of civic process) They are using civilized in a manner akin to how people used ‘white’ many years ago, referring to acceptability rather than color. e.g. The oft noted ‘Irish and jews weren’t white.’ In that context it seems more of a sign of lack of critical thinking than colorism or essentialism.
I would say ‘chauvinistic’ rather than racist.
The word “civilized” essentially just means “people who act in a way I deem morally good.” What ‘morally good’ means is 100% subjective to the individual saying it. Since personal morals are so heavily influenced by the culture and society one was raised in, the term ‘civilized’ is almost necessarily going to be used to justify why one’s own culture is necessarily better than another.
This isn’t necessarily racist, but since modern western society is so heavily based on white supremacy, it’s inherently going to be racist when used by someone supporting western society. But it can also be used in other contexts in a non-racist way. But it’s always going to be chauvinistic.
It’s not racist. People accuse others of that term too flippantly. It is ignorant though.
Language changes a great deal over time, and slurs are no exception. What is a completely inoffensive label at some point can be a slur later on. What is a mild insult in one area can be much more severe somewhere else. Sometimes what was a slur can be reclaimed and become acceptable, even positive. But that can also depend on who is saying it and other contextual details. I don’t know anything about “k!wifarms” but I wouldn’t assume malicious intent without more information.
That example looks much like the No True Scotsman fallacy, since a word is redefined later to exclude what would be exceptions to their claim based on an added qualification. Person A also made Person B get the evidence to refute their claim rather than fulfilling the burden of proof themselves. I know it’s not a formal debate or anything, but even so, bad faith arguments are just rude. Just own the mistake and say “you’re right, I was only thinking of first world countries/liberal democracies/developed nations/whatever”.
No
I refer to the country I live in as uncivilized
My wife still has a book from when she studied Archaeology at uni called “From Savagery to Civilization” by Grahame Clark.
Civilization is what we make it to be, and is usually measured by the norms and standards of the country doing the judging.
The book is from the 40s. By the standards of the day, a lot of what we do now would probably be considered uncivilised. We work from home, eat meals on our own, and rely on a court of opinion more than a court of law. Homelessness is endemic and many people are working around the clock for subsistence wages. Classical definitions of civilisations - community, care for the vulnerable, improved quality of life - are all being stripped away.
I don’t think the term “uncivilised” can really be taken as a slur, at least no more than the word “bad” can be, because it’s just a reflection of what the speaker values.
Designating a country as “uncivilised” is gravely offensive, and immensely arrogant. No country would refer to itself as uncivilised. There are a few which may be lawless, or ungovernable, but uncivilised has connotations that just don’t apply.
Edit: I’m kind of astonished at the comments ITT. I must have an odd idea of what “uncivilised” means. It’s not simply a lower standard of living. Living in poverty does not make someone uncivilised. If a group of people have a culture and laws then they’re civilised. In this context, suggesting that a group of people is uncivilised is to suggest that their culture is so pathetic as to be non-existent. A common error in the colonial era, but I’m genuinely surprised so many comments here are making the same mistake.
What you’re seeing is western privilege and ignorance. What people aren’t realizing is that “civilized” has often meant “western-white culture”.
Native American weren uncivilized, they were not-white and not-western, and so on.
Yes, caling another culture “uncivilized” is offensive and racist.
I don’t know about strictly racist, but it’s definitely got colonial overtones. Europe has used “they are uncivilized” as an excuse for the way they brutalized their colonies, erased cultures and enslaved people for centuries
I don’t think we’re doing that anymore. For the most part, at least.
No
“Developed” Countries and “Developing” Countries are the terms I would use in this context.
AFIAK, there is no negative connotation with the term “Developing Country”, to me it just means they haven’t been given the opportunity to develop, possibly due to external factors like colonialism.
But as for Conversion therapy, even “Banned in most Developed Countries” would be inaccurate since South Korea and Japan hasn’t banned it, so perhaps “Western Democracies” would fit your conversation about the ban on Conversion therapy.
“Banned in most Developed Countries” would be inaccurate since South Korea and Japan hasn’t banned it
Do we agree there’s a difference between ‘most’ and ‘all’?
These days I see it used in a derogatory way to describe countries and their culture more than the genetics of the people living in them.
E.g. even though I am genetically identical to white Texans, I’d happily call Texas uncivilized because it lets assholes with guns override government.
Context matters. Always. One person can use a word and it will be not racist, another can use the same term and it will be racist. You should ask the person what they define as “civilized”. Their reasoning is your answer.
Exactly! I’m sick of people being labelled as racist because they’ve said some keyword that someone has decided makes them racist, even when their intents and opinions are clearly not racist.
Saying it’s “uncivilised” to publicly beat someone to death because they <insert whatever>, cannot be racist, because you’re not concerned with “race” in any way. Going further and saying that a country that allows such practices is uncivilised is, again, inherently not racist, because the reason for calling them uncivilised has nothing to do with the “race” of the people involved.
Debatable what “civilized” is, but I imagine most westerns consider themselves “civilized” and developing countries to be “uncivilized”. It has colonialist vibes and is not necessarily racist, but can be quite ignorant and prejudiced.
Christians invaded many countries and pretend to make them “civilized” but instead enslaved their people and treated them like animals. Pretty far from civil if you ask me. The US considers itself civilized yet it has a death penalty, just like Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and a bunch of other countries. Greece introduced a 6-day work-week which hasn’t been a thing in Europe since the industrial revolution, a time we would now consider quite uncivilized. Israel is currently committing genocide under the guise of self-protection and will not listen to reason, yet they probably consider themselves quite civilized.
It seems to me like “civilized” is a form elitism that can be quite close to racism, depending on who you talk to.
It comes off as very ignorant.
People typically used developed and developing as a result.
Depends on context. In the context of an informal conversation about a specific kind of law it’s fine IMO. It’s also fine if it’s obviously not that serious, like e.g. different styles of toilets that are both found in the ‘developed world’. When you’re talking about a topic where generally richer countries do it one way and poorer countries do it another way, that’s where calling the poorer countries ‘uncivilized’ starts sounding racist (or maybe just classist, considering countries like Belarus which are poor, authoritarian and underdeveloped but not inhabited by any brown people).
White on white can still be racism. There are subtle differences between nations.
“Jews” is actually a good example. Its both a religion and a race.
Its actually quite telling how when the less different looking people there are the more we start hating on even the smallest physical differences.
I don’t think that can accurately be described as “racism” though, if even the “racists” won’t say that the ethnicity they’re hating is a different race. More general terms like ‘chauvinism’ would fit better.
Jews are not a separate race. Separate religion and nation, but not race.
You can look this up easily. But the physical features of the Jewish population where well known and used in nazi-propaganda.
Wikipedia:
Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group
An ethnoreligious group is a group of people with a common religion and ethnic background
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes. … It is also used interchangeably with race.[7]
Ethnos and nationality isn’t a race. Completely different concepts.
Race is an American concept that is generally considered unscientific in Europe
It is unscientific, but let’s not pretend we here in Europe don’t sometimes do it anyway. Racism is still a thing in Europe, unfortunately. But also, it has been a thing in Europe for basically as long as humans have lived on a large enough scale to notice it. In the 19th century you had the “three great races” of “Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid”. Even way back in the time of the Roman Empire they were being weird about race, ascribing strength and aggression to the pale people to their north and intelligence and peacefulness to the darker people to their south and east.
We’re collectively getting a lot better about not doing it these days, but we’ve got to recognise that there’s still progress needing made
Ok, than now all we have to do is decide who’s civilized, Europe or America, and then we know which is right.
If we take the ancient Greek example of calling anyone whose language you can’t understand a barbarian, the US and UK are probably tied for peak civilisation
all we have to do is decide who’s civilized
Now that’s easy:
The ones who currently try so hard to destroy the planet.
I included an example of it being used in the context I refer to in the post description.
The difference between “civilized” and “uncivilized” countries is that “civilized” countries call their terrorists “counter-terrorists” and “civilized” countries are allowed to bomb “uncivilized” countries in the name of civility.
