T Fast wrote:
>
>
> > But the question of civilisation is far too loaded of a term and is almost
> always deployed by those at the centre of empire to rank those in the
> periphery. And I might add that much of the war on terror has been cast in
> civilisational terms. If the pictures and stories coming out of Iraq have
> any impact I hope it will be simply to muddy the civilisational waters. My
> fear is that such tales of torture will be about as effective as glass balls
> thrown in stone houses.
>
> Travis
I wrote my post on "progress" before seeing this post. I agree with Travis on "civilization," but I think, for reasons given in my other post, that "progress" is equally loaded. (I believe the WSJ comics page regularly uses "progressive" to refer to supply-side economics.) The wide availability of better (though still not quite satisfactory) bread is something to appreciate but hardly represents either progress or growth of civilization.
Carrol