>If we could just get off the continuum of barbarity and civilisation as it
>applies to nations, races, ethnic groups etc., then perhaps we could move
>forward (dare I say progress) with a conversation about where progress (with
>a substantive normative position which underpins the definition) has taken
>place and where regression has set in.
This whole thread started in reaction to a claim by Noam Chomsky, with several specific components. It veered into an odd and irrelevant political etymology and lots of other oblique commentary. Let me re-quote the passage in question:
>NC: There's plenty of dissent and opposition and concern. Plenty of
>grounds for optimism for people who are trying to organize and work.
>It's certainly far easier now than 40 years ago when Kennedy was
>launched his attack on South Vietnam. Then you couldn't do a thing.
>In the 1980s, the situation was better; you could organize for the
>wars against Nicaragua, the wars against El Salvador and Guatemala.
>But it wasn't that easy. Now there's considerably more opportunity,
>though the war drums are beating and people are scared.
>
>DH: You've said the country is more civilized than it was 40 years
>ago. What do you mean by that?
>
>NC: Incomparably more civilized. Things we take for granted now
>didn't exist 40 years ago. So for example, take say aggression. When
>Kennedy announced publicly that the U.S. was bombing South Vietnam
>in 1962, began using chemical weapons to destroy food crops, began
>programs to drive millions people into what were essentially
>concentration camps, there was no protest. We didn't talk about it.
>In the 1960s, there was barely a feminist movement. No environmental
>movement. In the 1960s, there wasn't yet, after hundreds of years,
>even the beginning of recognition of the original sin, what happened
>to the millions of people used to live here. That's all changed. It
>changed not so much in the 60s, but in the 70s, 80s, and since.
>That's when the major popular movements developed. They haven't
>carried out institutional change, but they've changed the culture
>and the moral level of the society very significantly. Those are
>real achievements. They make things very different than they were in
>the past. Among the intellectuals, I don't think anything's changed,
>but it rarely does. But among the general population, it's correct
>to say that the level of civilization is much higher things that
>would have seemed perfectly appropriate then are outlandish now.
>
>DH: That's a good note to end on. Thank you, Noam Chomsky.
Is he wrong?
Doug