What do you really think it means to be civilized?

I think America is civilized. Some of it’s citizens….not so much.
I think Sweden and Canada are civilized.

And Holland.

A country that cooperates together to accomplish some common goal. Like colonizing outer-space.

To treat all people in the country as worthy citizens. Equality. Guarantee a decent wage. Provide security and safety. Provide education. Care for those who cannot take care of themselves. An unwritten rule among citizens to realize they are part of a society and have a role in it being a good place.

Even civilized countries basically work on the ideal of being civilized, but we, they all fall short in one way or another. It’s all a work in progress.

No.

A culture is civilized when it has access and capabilities to share ideas with other cultures.

Do you really think a country is civilized when it justifies murder for territory expansion and as an extreme punishment for crimes?

Where is the civilization that has ended poverty and ignorance, that provides opportunities for everyone to do something others recognized as beneficial and is also satisfying to perform? Where is the culture that freely rejects fear and violence as a means to manipulate others? A society may evolve into such a civilization, but until it does it is not civilized.

@Bill1939 Possibly Denmark or Finland comes close.

I assume you’re referring to what the Europeans did when they came to North America. Becoming civilized is a process @Dan_Lyons. We do things now that people consider perfectly civilized, but that will change as ideas change and morals change and understanding changes.

Then apparently we are not yet civilized, @Dutchess_III if the process is still ongoing.

According to our current standards we are.

I was in the shower, shaving my legs. I thought about this question. Do we consider it “civilized” for women to shave their body hair? Why? Why don’t we expect men to get rid of all of their body hair, too, in the name of civilization?

Put another way…in the antebellum South it was considered the height of being civilized to have…..slaves. Especially house slaves.

And so they were not civilized, regardless of what it is considered at the time to be.

Well, “civilized” is, after all, just a concept, so I have to disagree. They thought they were civilized, so they were. I don’t think they were, but they did.