Is our civilization really civilized? In some societies they do things that they themselves consider to be civilized but in other civilizations may think that what they are doing is not civilized. What is civilized? In our cultures we consider weather or not a civilization is civilized by what we think civilized is, not what that culure thinks civilized is. Being civilized to a culture depends on their background, culture, location, and other variables that affect how they may act or socialize with others.
In literature being a civilized civilization is very important to the setting of the book, novel, or play we are looking at. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, we reflect that the society in which he is placed in is civilied. We believe this becuase they dress formally, they behave most the time as we would in public, and they interact much with others around them as we would today. The time period was a little off of our own but for the most part we are able to relate to this society very easily. Because we can relate to this society I think that we believe it is civilized. In a novel such as Things Fall Apart or A Thousand Splendid Suns the culture is extremely different from our own. Things occur in these societies that we may not think are very civilized. Things such as the worship of an own personal god, or the marrying to more than one woman occur and in some views may be considered as uncivilized to us but in reality the culture that has to live in these circumstances believe that it is civilized becuase it is simply a part of their culture.
In our society today many times people judge others by how "civilized" people think others are. If people dress differently from the way we do we think that their culture is very uncivilized and unproper. We should take time when we think of these things to think about what they are thinking of us. If we dress and behave differently from them and their culture they may believe that we, or our culture in general, is uncivilized. Maybe the fact that we believe in One True God and they believe in many becomes an aspect in which they think that we are uncivilized. Instead of judging people so easily we should step back and think about things that may be determining how they are behawving or dressing such as their ethnic background or their cultre. This may relieve some of the issues that we have today with racism.
In my opinion people judge others too easily. We judge others based on our own background and culture. Im not saying that we should judge others when we know their culture but we should consider the fact that there will always be more than one culture and that people from different cultures maybe able to live together and respect eachother with an understanding their differences. I don't think we can truely judge someone from a different culture unless we ourselves live in and understand that culture and i don't think that we will be able to fully understand that culture unless we know no other or have not previously lived in another culture, which is rare to most people today.
