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主题:中华文明起源辨(上) -- 黄金狮子

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家园 civilization是什么意思?

现代汉语中的“文明”来自英文中的civilization一词,通常指人类社会的进步状态,与“野蛮”、“蒙昧”相对而言。

wikipedia

Civilization (Standard American) (Standard British, civilisation) is a kind of human society or culture; specifically, a civilization is usually understood to be a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in cities. Compared with less complex cultures, members of a civilization are organized into a diverse division of labour and an intricate social hierarchy. The term civilization is often used as a synonym for culture in both popular and academic circles.[1] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life".[2] Civilizations can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities.

The term civilization has been defined and understood in a number of ways different from the standard definition. Sometimes it is used synonymously with the broader term culture. Civilization can also refer to society as a whole. To nineteenth-century English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, for example, civilization was "the total social heredity of mankind;"[3] in other words, civilization was the totality of human knowledge and culture as represented by the most "advanced" society at a given time.[4] Civilization can be used in a normative sense as well: if complex and urban cultures are assumed to be superior to other "savage" or "barbarian" cultures, then "civilization" is used as a synonym for "superiority of certain groups." In a similar sense, civilization can mean "refinement of thought, manners, or taste".[5] However, in its most widely used definition, civilization is a descriptive term for a relatively complex agricultural and urban culture.

你说得,其实不是"文明"的标准的,运用最广泛的定义。

现在,在历史学,考古学,社会学上提到的"文明",完全不涉及价值判断,不是野蛮的反义词。

洋人,对他们当初的行为,早就有过反思,电影与狼共舞里面表述的就是:"野蛮"的印第安人,道德比美国"文明"人高多了。这点,我想,象老兄这么爱国的人不会否认吧!

那么,有着5000年的文明史的中国人,在5000年前就摆脱野蛮了吗?

嘿嘿,鲁迅说,他在史书上只看到吃人二字;

我们悠久完备的法律体系里,嫌疑犯不招供,一般要拖下去打个80大板,再问他招不招.......

老兄既然写的是学术文章,建议还是修改一下文明的定义。

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