Overly civilised people

[BlueOak]

@Reciprocality

1) You are inventing meanings for civility it doesn't have. 

Carefree implies a level of the opposite of civility. To be civil you have to have a certain restraint in how you interact.
Absentminded in no way implies civility. Again civility implies a certain awareness of your actions, in an attempt to be civil.

They do not correlate. Carefree is enough.

I think the reason it bothers me enough to talk on it, is the constant barrage of pressure against good manners, against 'the nice guy', against being civil with people. People make their living off of saying its a bad thing, and have done for years, so I don't think respectful behavior needs any more unrelated things attached to it.

2) Here is the quote:
 

4 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

"As for happening to them, if someone is going to rob or attack you, how civil you are is likely not going to make a difference one way or the other." To be clear: this statement means that if every other variable were equal in a statistical distribution you would think that men and women who comes from the country who visits big cities and are naturally inclined to be more suspicious against people in their surroundings and display a proportionate body-language would be robbed and attacked to a diminishingly differing extent to those who, born and raised in big cities, portrays a carefree attitude. 

Then:

1 hour ago, Reciprocality said:

@BlueOak Now this is different, now you introduce variables that first confuses the matter and then you assert something about these variables that has no bearing on the connection of those I listed.

In relation to your reply: it is very possible for it to be more dangerous for country people to travel to big cities than city people to do stay there per day at the same time as the countrypeople have less risk of being robbed or attacked etc in the situation i listed. And beyond the reply: it is also plausible, given the next sentence in your reply: "I think growing up in a city can make you a lot more streetwise"

You just told me all things being equal the danger is LESS in that first quote. I am replying to that statement.

Your point you keep saying is a carefree attitude leads to being robbed or assaulted, and that people coming to the city haven't got comfortable enough to exhibit it. Which is true for some. There are plenty of people in either scenario who are going to walk into situations with blinders on.

1 hour ago, Reciprocality said:

And beyond the reply: it is also plausible, given the next sentence in your reply: "I think growing up in a city can make you a lot more streetwise"

"I think if I had been there all my life i'd be a lot more suited to city life.", yes indeed, and I find it self evident that the variables "better suited for city life", "more civilised", "carefree to ones surroundings" and "more prone to experience assaults in an idle state" are each correlated to the others.

No. Being streetwise does not mean you are at a higher risk in your environment, it means the opposite. It means you are aware of the dangers of where you live and not easily surprised by them. The more I live in an area the more I am aware of how it operates, such as the dangers and how to avoid them, not the other way around.

*Though agreed not everyone is streetwise, far from it, there are a lot of very unconscious people in the world, so perhaps my bias is showing too much here to be a good reflection of the middle ground.

Edited March 7 by BlueOak

[bebotalk]

4 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

@bebotalk All real thinking is based on very subjective perceptions, when we get through the hurdle of language we end up in the land of plausibilities and statistical relationships.

If you wish to reduce (as opposed to criticise) what I am saying to being subjective perceptions then the ground of your assertion is that these relationships have a somewhat random distribution, and then you are affirming the last reply I made above concerning the difference between people from the country and people from the city.

Yes, and subjective perceptions don't translate to absolute realities. Your opinions or perceptions are unique to you, and don't and shouldn't translate to all others.  How I perceive things is unique to me, and nobody else needs to care. Your points don't make sense, that's all. I don't see the relevance of statistics in this case, since you've used words that have no meaning and are just attempts to sound erudite without really saying much. What is civilised conduct? Why is it bad? I read your OP, and it seemed jumbled. 

I'm entitled to express if I don't comprehend something, or think something is badly-expressed. You've had several people express similar sentiments. And yes, I am reducing it, since the OP didn't make any sense and had badly stated points, terms, and rationale. 

 

Edited March 7 by bebotalk

[bebotalk]

I'd further say that English perhaps isn't your first language. Your points seem very subjective (yes that word again...) and you're using standard terms in very idiosyncratic ways. What has civility got to do with a lack of awareness? Why should a person feel fearful in the middle of a city? And how does this denote a lack of awareness? There's a lot of bad correlations there, or at least points that don't logically follow from each other. 

There are several reasons why a person may be "civil" in public spaces.

It could be they are working a busy job with responsibility and use lunchtimes in a city park to chill.

They may be meeting friends and have no reason to feel tense.

The park may be relatively safe.

People may have a culture of respecting others' space and time in said environment.

Civil means pleasant, polite, or congenial. So then people in public city centre parks should shout, cuss, rant, rave, or punch people? 

I agree with Blueoak. I don't see the inherent connections you're trying to make. So yes, it is very subjective. It's like a person saying that they felt sick as a kid eating chocolate, but grew out of it as an adult. I never did as a kid. It's not something I can relate to directly, or comprehend since it's not an inherently toxic food. However, I can accept that others experience things differently to me. 

I didn't use "substance" in my points as you cite since it was oddly stated in fairness. You seem to very being learned, but then your terms and communication is very poor. "overly civilised" people don't offend me. Little does in life, in reality. I value being civil and decent to others, and expect others of me. Society works better if people aren't hostile to others. It's expected socially, in mycoutry at least, that people in large urban areas are generally civil. This means not harming others or being generally negative. If anything, crime is less likely in large public city centre spaces since it's harder to get away with and the mass of people are going about their lives and excess drama or trouble isn't good for people overall. 

 

Edited March 7 by bebotalk

[Consept]

It feels like op is using words they maybe don't understand or have a different meaning to than other people. This is a very confusing thread, when he said civil I assumed something like being very careful what you say and going along with how society wants you to be. But then his example is sitting carefree in a city lol. 

Op don't worry about sounding smart, try and communicate in a way that others would understand. I think a better lesson from this thread is how to communicate. 

[Reciprocality]

@BlueOak @bebotalk  @Consept  The change from "civilised" to "civil" in this thread were unfortunate I should have arrested those bringing up that conflation immediately, subtle differences can have big consequences, and as several of you suggested already we should be very clear about what we mean.

I will now bring up a dictionary definition of the word I referenced in the title not to show you why I were correct (which no dictionary could ever do except for in axiomatic systems) but to hopefully induce on your part a more healthy approach to people bringing up, from your point of view, original hypotheses.

From Dictionary.com: "Having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc. polite; well-bred; refined."

The way in which the concept of being civilised is different from its opposite does not contradict the tenants of that concept, the former approach to the concept is rationalistic, the latter is empirical, to make an analogy: you are adding 1+1 and get 2, and I am saying that every time you wish to add 1 with 1 you must divide 1 into 2. Or in the inverse direction: if you take a piece of a certain kind of cake you will identify the whole cake from that part, and if you take a piece from a different kind of cake you will not be able to identify the whole cake from that part, when you attempt to disagree with my assertion that people in general who are carefree and inattentive in the middle of sidewalks where thousands of strangers are walking past are so as a consequence of being overly civilised then it is as though you were to be unsure of whether something were a cheesecake or not despite the piece you are given being a cheesecake piece.

If you are a fan of Gura then this kind of rationalistic thinking is present at least 20 times in most episodes, and should not be unfamiliar, the meaning of things are thinkable because of them being distinct from their opposite.

 

The claim is, now refined due to the helpful criticisms in the thread, that if we consider humans on a spectrum of primitive to civilised, as we are bound to do and which all semantics concerned with politeness etc does necessarily (does not mean that one can not talk about the character of politeness without talking about that about politeness which does not pertain to the thing it shares with every other sub-set of "civilised"), then it will be a falsifiable (if statistical and inductive) assertion that can not possibly be undermined merely by semantic reevaluation, instead, if you want to wrestle with this topic, must be undermined by showing either that in primitive cultures there is a higher proclivity to be absent minded, or for the particular (non-inductive) version of the assertion you must show that such a person sitting on a bench carefree or absent minded did so while being indeed civilised in a modernised world while seperating that variable from the others that explains that behaviour, and this experiment you can not do. Which is why the nature of the assertion regarding the particular person on the bench is unfalsifiable and serves merely the purpose of being an example, is not our interest here.

And to those who find my style of writing triggering or pretentious, whatever flavour of projection your subconscious hides, prose is integral to the efficiency of thinking itself, hard-earned and will be there to stay if you were like me and put in the hours.

[Reciprocality]

In other words, since my interests are rarely like those of people who has something very interesting to say, specialists and scientists, I am merely saying what once it has been understood were obvious all along, the following paragraph will distill that to its essence:

When in an urban area you see signs of people imagining strangers as something which does not present any type of danger whatsoever you are in fact observing the not-so-good consequences that happens to a non-primitive human mind.

Check your subliminal reactions next time someone is trying to hint to you that you have been living too comfortable for a long time, life is once, your body fragile and one stranger is all it takes.

[Yimpa]

On 3/6/2024 at 4:24 AM, Reciprocality said:

There is something about overly civilised people that repulse me, have you ever felt the same

I find that people who are so wrapped up in groupthink and ideology to be cringe. I still identify with certain groups, but I do my best to think for myself.

[Consept]

3 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

 "Having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc. polite; well-bred; refined."

Everyone would agree with this definition. Even if you used the word civil they would have a similar understanding. 

2 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

When in an urban area you see signs of people imagining strangers as something which does not present any type of danger whatsoever you are in fact observing the not-so-good consequences that happens to a non-primitive human mind.

This is where you are very confusing. So just I'm clear you're saying a civilised or civil person would be around strangers in a public area and see them as a threat, so using the definition you've researched, this attitude toward strangers is one of a member of an advanced society who is polite and refined. This is categorically not true it doesn't work with your definition. A member of an advanced society would definitely not see other random people as an arbitrary threat. If they were in a deprived area that they were not familiar with, then maybe they would see people as a threat, but even if they didn't it doesn't make them uncivilised, it just makes them naieve and ignorant to danger. 

On the contrary someone who sees danger where there isn't is going to be more likely to be uncivilised. 

I don't know man, maybe I'm missing something, maybe you're really smart and everyone else is dumb, but this just seems like a lot of words for absolutely no substance. I could be wrong and also I don't mean to be harsh esp if English is not your first language 

[Reciprocality]

@Yimpa  It takes courage for most people to not do groupthink, and it takes a lot of effort.

The cringe gets me too sometimes, its only sensible that you still identify with certain groups, and to some extent I think we will always do so even if against our will.

And interestingly: when the means by which you think for yourself is not itself something you have thought for yourself then to some extent you will actually not do so, to my awareness it takes scientists many, many years to actually contribute new insight, originate concepts and draw unseen relationships.

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

46 minutes ago, Consept said:

Everyone would agree with this definition. Even if you used the word civil they would have a similar understanding. 

This is where you are very confusing. So just I'm clear you're saying a civilised or civil person would be around strangers in a public area and see them as a threat, so using the definition you've researched, this attitude toward strangers is one of a member of an advanced society who is polite and refined. This is categorically not true it doesn't work with your definition. A member of an advanced society would definitely not see other random people as an arbitrary threat. If they were in a deprived area that they were not familiar with, then maybe they would see people as a threat, but even if they didn't it doesn't make them uncivilised, it just makes them naieve and ignorant to danger. 

On the contrary someone who sees danger where there isn't is going to be more likely to be uncivilised. 

I don't know man, maybe I'm missing something, maybe you're really smart and everyone else is dumb, but this just seems like a lot of words for absolutely no substance. I could be wrong and also I don't mean to be harsh esp if English is not your first language 

@Consept I am saying the opposite of the bolded, that tribal people in Africa for instance would look at strangers as a threat and be suspicious of them, certainly pay attention to them, and incredibly rarely sit on a bench in a city, were they somehow located that way, absently minded. I think this clarifies the confusion.

When someones body reacts to a situation as though it were dangerous when instead the healthy behaviour would be a light form of suspicion (which you will see i would say about 60% of the time) such as in the middle of a sidewalk then that as you suggest would also be an indicator of being less civilised.

 

And also, in some ways I am smart and in other ways I am not, if you had familiarised yourself with the language I am using beforehand, which obviously you are not expected to have done, then some of the ideas I express will be easier to decode, on the other hand when I were in my early twenties nothing engaged me more than the language that helped me learn the quickest (on my better days at least) and the nature of some of my ideas are such that it is these people (with a similar attitude) that I hope my sentences to actually land on, and thirdly I will be writing for the rest of my life and I intend to make it as compact and efficient as I can in part because writing a lot is taxing on my mind and abstruse word do trick, fourthly these concepts are actually a part of the english canon, contain a lot of value and are far too underutilised.

Edit: you are correct that there is almost no substance here, a philosophically inclined writer who wishes to install substance in his readers is delusional.

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

It should benefit if I clarifies the last sentence above.

The substance must already exist there in your mind (otherwise there is no hope) in how you relate to your surroundings, how you analyse concrete information and your ability to have ongoing access to concrete memories from lived experience, it is these things the abstractions are supposed to represent. 

And also, I am actually avoiding as many isms as I can, if all I did were list those in the relevant situations, as people more knowledgable than me has a disturbing nag of doing then the possible world that could open up for you were you to read the definitions of certain concepts that I use and compute the context in which they are used would be too steep a mountain to climb.

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[Consept]

@Reciprocality

So wait I'm still confused, in your example who is it that repulses you (as per the topic title) is it the African tribe or the healthy suspicion people?

[Reciprocality]

1 hour ago, Consept said:

@Reciprocality

So wait I'm still confused, in your example who is it that repulses you (as per the topic title) is it the African tribe or the healthy suspicion people?

@Consept Neither, when I see people who do not have a healthy sense of alertness to chaotic, indeterminate or unidentifiable situations such as in the bench-example I see people who are very far removed from their natural instincts, this is in part what on occasions feels repulsive to me, adults should not only have the proclivity for alertness as instinctual however, they should and I believe most often do have a sense of why the alertness is important.

That most people in this thread do not even seem to agree to the relatively chaotic, indeterminate and unidentifiable nature of these situations raises my suspicion against it even more, in that it perhaps is prone to rationalise or justify itself.

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[BlueOak]

1 hour ago, Reciprocality said:

@Consept That most people in this thread do not even seem to agree to the chaotic, indeterminate and unidentifiable nature of these situations raises my suspicion against it even more, in that it perhaps tries to rationalise or justify itself.

Generally, because a busy public place with many eyes on you, not to mention cameras, and a police officer or private security patrolling every few minutes, is one of safest places to be. This could be down to location or cultural differences, the city centers I frequented feel like this, and the UK is notorious for its many CCTV cameras. I do avoid the places that don't feel safe, I'll try getting into personal experience more.

I noticed Leeds was exceptionally safe, the shops hired private security patrols to complement the police when I lived there. There was crime, a gang raided our apartment block car park, a professional job sealing the entrances off to steal the cars, but it wasn't in the center or in a park. Also, the police station wasn't far away, they walked over to talk to us and already knew the gang.

It's the quieter parts away from the city center, maybe out of shots of the cameras where you can get people looking for easy marks, or cheap apartments like I am used to living in. Parks at night too. I've been to a few towns and cities, where they just say to avoid the parks or the routes through them, but again these kinds of things you learn, you are not instinctively born with the knowledge of where to not go, when to not go there, 

For example in Leeds when I was younger, I used to avoid the nights when Leeds football team lost. It was just a bad vibe to the place, and if we were going out, I'd definitely avoid sports bars and probably stick to my local-friendly pub. Conversely, if the Leeds football team won, the nights would be amazing. In Nottingham, there was hardly the same reaction to a sports event but there were certainly bad spots to avoid. There is one area of Nottingham we called gangland UK for how many shootings there used to be, that's not a place you visit casually or pass through, somewhere between the meadows and st anns. If I wasn't from the area chances are I might not know about it.

I'll give you another town I used to unfortunately know, Grantham, I would advise everyone to never go to Grantham, it has a bigger drug problem than a city has and exports it all to the surrounding areas, as well as some of the violence. They used to have a well-known drug dealer working out of a highstreet apartment for about 10 years and everyone knew it. It doesn't get much better as you go immediately east into Lincolnshire, sorry if you are from that area. Boston had the biggest Brexit vote there was, even the locals on camera will tell you the place is not doing well. Grimbsy to the northeast is doing even worse in terms of poverty, I can rip on Grimsby as I've a connection to that area I'd rather forget.

The point of me talking about these eastern UK areas that are not doing well is, If I were there right now i'd probably agree with you. The area matters a lot, in other cities or towns, knowing the city keeps you safer. In Leeds and Nottingham this example you've given makes no sense at all from my experience.

Edited March 9 by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

Maybe this will show my point better:

Grimsby

Leeds

Can you see which one has a happier energy, less crime, less danger, and less poverty? Talking about areas as well, not so much that you can't find rough areas in Leeds because you can, when you know the city.

[Reciprocality]

56 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Generally, because a busy public place with many eyes on you, not to mention cameras, and a police officer or private security patrolling every few minutes, is one of safest places to be. This could be down to location or cultural differences, the city centers I frequented feel like this, and the UK is notorious for its many CCTV cameras. I do avoid the places that don't feel safe, I'll try getting into personal experience more.

I noticed Leeds was exceptionally safe, the shops hired private security patrols to complement the police when I lived there. There was crime, a gang raided our apartment block car park, a professional job sealing the entrances off to steal the cars, but it wasn't in the center or in a park. Also, the police station wasn't far away, they walked over to talk to us and already knew the gang.

It's the quieter parts away from the city center, maybe out of shots of the cameras where you can get people looking for easy marks, or cheap apartments like I am used to living in. Parks at night too. I've been to a few towns and cities, where they just say to avoid the parks or the routes through them, but again these kinds of things you learn, you are not instinctively born with the knowledge of where to not go, when to not go there, 

For example in Leeds when I was younger, I used to avoid the nights when Leeds football team lost. It was just a bad vibe to the place, and if we were going out, I'd definitely avoid sports bars and probably stick to my local-friendly pub. Conversely, if the Leeds football team won, the nights would be amazing. In Nottingham, there was hardly the same reaction to a sports event but there were certainly bad spots to avoid. There is one area of Nottingham we called gangland UK for how many shootings there used to be, that's not a place you visit casually or pass through, somewhere between the meadows and st anns. If I wasn't from the area chances are I might not know about it.

I'll give you another town I used to unfortunately know, Grantham, I would advise everyone to never go to Grantham, it has a bigger drug problem than a city has and exports it all to the surrounding areas, as well as some of the violence. They used to have a well-known drug dealer working out of a highstreet apartment for about 10 years and everyone knew it. It doesn't get much better as you go immediately east into Lincolnshire, sorry if you are from that area. Boston had the biggest Brexit vote there was, even the locals on camera will tell you the place is not doing well. Grimbsy to the northeast is doing even worse in terms of poverty, I can rip on Grimsby as I've a connection to that city I'd rather forget.

The point of me talking about these eastern UK areas that are not doing well is, If I were there right now i'd probably agree with you. The area matters a lot, in other cities or towns, knowing the city keeps you safer. In Leeds and Nottingham this example you've given makes no sense at all from my experience.

@BlueOak Appreciate the long format expositions of lived experience, they bring in the importance of not taking abstract depictions as not always pertaining to all situations, in the sense that being less attentive in certain neighbourhoods or cultures than others is less of a problem and far less a consequence of something excessive such as in the hypothesis of the overly civilised.

If I were to try to reply to the above in the discursive way it probably deserves that comment would fall rather short so Ill avoid it, in general though it appears that you have had a lot of experience of different situations and can be critical of theories that don't fit observations thereof, this will almost always be ideal knowledge, far surpassing what can be known through logic.

I don't think it is implied by my assertion that alertness to strangers is natural that people are born alert to the same thing, that would be a reduction ad absurdum.

You raise the point of when crimes are likely to occur, that it is unlikely to happen on busy sidewalks or where there is busy in general, I agree to that.

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

14 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Maybe this will show my point better:

Grimsby

Leeds

Can you see which one has a happier energy, less crime, less danger, and less poverty? Talking about areas as well, not so much that you can't find rough areas in Leeds because you can, when you know the city.

Pretty place this Leeds, yes got a decent energy about it too, probably didn't hurt that it were sunny that day either, the Grimsby looked awful, precisely how I imagine England, sorry : P

Edited March 9 by Reciprocality

[BlueOak]

6 minutes ago, Reciprocality said:

Pretty place this Leeds, yes got a decent energy about it too, probably didn't hurt that it were sunny that day either, the Grimsby looked awful, precisely how I imagine England, sorry : P

True. Both videos shot on the correct days. Near Leeds York is even nicer to visit so I am told, never got out that way.

I think people have forgotten the east of England exists some days, Hull was named as the worst place to live not long ago. 

Stick to the south, north, and maybe west if you are ever here, that's where the investment and money go.

[bebotalk]

Being scared of others needlessly is being clinically paranoid. 

 

[Danioover9000]

@Reciprocality

On 2024-03-07 at 6:45 AM, Reciprocality said:

@Danioover9000 This branch of people that you brought up, particularly victorians, were excessive in a way that has to do with being different from another contemporary group, where they idealised certain behaviour and attempted to internalise it and become that behaviour while judging others who did not successfully do so.

Civility in general however can be excessive without the causes for a certain form of civility having to be excessive like above, if u know what I mean, we can all conceive of the distinction between pretentiousness/pompousness and normality, what I attempted to induce in your mind were the possibility of an overly civilised version of the latter, normality.

And to your comment on moral degradation, yes the force is strong in that shit, I do think it is a separate topic though and that there are plenty of different causes.

   So in my post here:

On 2024-03-06 at 10:39 PM, Danioover9000 said:

@Reciprocality

   I think that when I look at 'overly civilized' peoples, which may include Victorian era people, pious religious people for instance Amish, and so forth I feel they are an uncommon sight nowadays. I do feel like there's been moral degradation to today's society especially in westernized countries by Neo-capitalism and liberalism run amok, and decrease in human decency and nudity almost everywhere I go, all thanks to Tik Tok and predatory social media platforms perverting the youth and the baby generation.

   I stated that it MAY INCLUDE, not an absolute claim, just a probably example, like Amish or Victorian people, into my opinion to say that it's an uncommon sight nowadays as a feeling IMO. The other part, on moral degradation, lack of human decency encouraged by social media sites like Tik Tok for instance, in westernized countries that have Neo Liberalism run amok, that's a fact. Just look at the last 20 years or more if you want. There's been a decline in morals and human decency that's hard to deny here, and all that can be traced back to Feminism, multiculturalism, egalitarianism, and the rise of secularism in some countries. Just look at what happened to Russia, first country to legalize abortion, and first country to have a reproduction problem for it's citizens. Similarly look at Japan and South Korea.

   Generally speaking, this is what happens when Stage green demonizes and has a shadow of stage orange/blue valuing groups. This is what happens when those very stage green people want to destroy nationalism, patriotism, and conservative/traditional values. You just invite more stage red people into destroying and taking advantage of stage green people.