What problems do you see with the word 'civilization'?

Question

Do you think that this term is always used correctly?

What about 'primitive'?

Answer 1

The term primitive has not been put to the best use but it could make more sense if people were  to use it to mean that people have a relation to Primates. You could say all people were primitive  if you were to explain to make clear what you meant so none would take offence or correct you.

Civilization is both actually primitive and civilized  .  There are more things to be done with Civilization  like add The Human Right To Peace to all constitutions, The Right for Humanity to own the planet and conserve natural resources.

Answer 2

Your question reminds me of a Gandhi quote.

A reporter had asked him what he thought of Western civilization.

He replied "THAT would be nice!" (Or words to that effect)

There's more than one sense of the word 'civilization' as there is of so many words, probably most.

Answer 3

The trouble is the worst wars were started by the most civilized nations.

With all of the crime and social problems in this world we are very uncivilized.

Answer 4

Words are wonderful things to think about.  If you remember you Latin numbers CIV is the number 104. Why that number I couldn't guess but as a symbol you might say that cities represented trade and that is where you found numbers to be important. Also, notice that VIL is there and that the word vile comes to mind.  Also think that DEVIL has the VIL. In French, DE means of, so DEVIL is "of vile" or D'evil of evil which also has VIL.  So, you can might think that the word has some bad past meaning to it.  Now, In ancient times there was some bad stuff (we think it anyway) going on in the cities.  You could purchase services of both men and women at temples, if you know what I mean. Just as today, country folk think that cities teach people some bad stuff and who is to say that they are not right.  

Primitive like prime numbers means "first" just like "prior" means earlier.  Private like priority is very important.  So, you might assume that primitive is very important and why you and I are here in this section of Yahoo Answers.

Answer 5

Society isn't exactly civil.

Answer 6

It being applied to non urban cultures. Some people seem to think culture and civilisation are the same thing.

Civilisation comes form Latin civis - people who live in settlements villages towns cities.

I dont think the word should be applied to non urban cultures!

Answer 7

The term often implies permanent cities.  Plains tribes, for example, were highly advanced in many ways and it would be inaccurate to consider them as primitive.  Anthropologists often ascribe many changes in humans arising when they began to use agriculture. If you look how similar the societies of many nomadic tribes are to "civilized" tribes, it makes me think we didn't really change that much just because we built permanent structures.

Answer 8

there is nothing "civil" about a civilization