Civilized, Barbarians, Savages, Part 1

By Antonio C. S. Rosa

Caricature of Darwin’s theory in the Punch almanac for 1882. In the public domain.

A civilization or culture is defined as a set of customs, traditions, ethics, values, language, music, dance, gastronomy, clothing, religion, and social and political organization of a people, ethnic group, tribe, or nation.

British scholars of the 19th century classified the peoples and races as Civilized, Barbarians and Savages, based on their respective “evolutions.” Such classification was based primarily on three factors:

  1. Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution;
  2. the Industrial Revolution in the beginning of industrial capitalism; and
  3. the Reformation of the Catholic Church, the schism from which Protestantism arose.

False premises that led to false conclusions.

Such a classification made the field fertile for the appearance of a Capitalist/Protestant ethic, which would produce today’s capitalist system.

The Theory of Evolution (not a science, but a theory) postulates that only the most capable, among the various species of living organisms, survives and evolves. Darwin labeled his theory Survival of the Fittest. This competition for survival and evolution would be in genetic, biological, adaptive and/or mutative terms, in relation to the environment from which they would have evolved and where they would live. Human beings have been labeled Homo Sapiens, representatives of the supposedly most evolved species–the most apt. The civilized, barbaric and savages represented an attempt to hierarchize Homo Sapiens.

To speak of capitalist ethics is to incur a contradiction in terms as capitalism does not have an ethic, but a single overriding value: profits. On the other hand, a Protestant ethics is based on the Old Testament of the Bible and on the doctrine of Martin Luther that God, a supposedly elderly, male, white entity, distributes His blessings in the form of material wealth, power, good life to those most deserving and for whom He feels greater affection. The subtext is that the poor are poor because they are sinners. And Jesus, the messiah son of that God, was a white Jew. The pieces fit together historically.

  • In the Civilized category would be the European, white and Christian colonial empires, with Anglo-Saxons being the civilized par excellence.
  • Labeled as Barbarians would be Asians (yellow skinned, in their classification), nomadic peoples, Arabs and North Africans, Eskimos, all non-Christians (pagans), as well as all dark-skinned races that were not in the category of savages, such as the Indians (from India).
  • Finally, the Savages would be the inhabitants of black Africa, the Indians of the American continent, the so-called primitives of the Pacific Islands: Aborigines, Maori, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, etc., and cannibals.

 The only two other civilizations respected by this novel Western Civilization were the Greek and the Roman, their progenitors–not very civilized to be sure, built and sustained by wars, conquests and slavery.

There were also the Slaves, captured like animals from the Savage group, who in the 19th century came predominantly from the native peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. Christians believed that these savages, like animals, did not have a soul. Hence the legality and morality of their objectification by Christians who sold them as merchandise. Arabs also exploited the slave trade, a major source of investment/profits.

A corollary of such doctrines and beliefs were attempts to ‘civilize’ barbarians and savages through Christian missions that would take European religious organizations to evangelize the African, American and Asian continents, as well as the Pacific Islands. Such missions gave rise to genocides and exterminations of nations and native peoples who refused to be ‘evangelized’ and ‘civilized’. Spain (Corona de Castilla) is an extreme example of this in South and Central America where its conquistadores decimated the Inca, Maya and Aztec civilizations among others. The religious missions exist and persist today, albeit in derisory numbers and without much influence and credibility.

Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa (Antonio C. S. Rosa), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s 2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice. He is on the Global Advisory Board of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and completed his B.A., M.A., and graduate Ph.D. work in the fields of Communication-Journalism and Political Science-Peace Studies/International Relations at the University of Hawai’i. Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe-India since 1994. Books: Transcender e Transformar: Uma Introdução ao Trabalho de Conflitos (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese, 2004); Peace Journalism: 80 Galtung Editorials on War and Peace (2010, editor); Cobertura de Conflitos: Jornalismo para a Paz (from Johan Galtung, Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick, translation to Portuguese, 2010). TMS articles by Mr. Rosa HERE. Videos HERE and HERE.

Getting it right

People protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline march past San Francisco City Hall. 15 November 2016. Author: Pax Ahimsa Gethen. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

by Kathleen Malley-Morrison

Now is the winter of our discontent, this woeful election year. Unhappiness with the government, frustrations over corruption of democratic processes, fears regarding increasing economic inequality, anger at the multiplying restrictions on prospects and possibilities, and rage at the unfairness of it all have been rife. But today, on this Thanksgiving Day, Americans (most of whom are descendants of  immigrants from other lands) have a chance to get things right.

And many people are doing just that. I give particular thanks to all the Americans, of all hues, who are standing by the Native protestors and their supporters at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota.

The nonviolent resistance of the Standing Rock protestors to the planned Dakota Access pipeline, slated to pass through sources of drinking water and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is a noteworthy and admirable example of nonviolently standing up against greed, unbridled capitalism, the militarization of civil society agencies, the unwarranted exercise of power by fossil fuel goliaths within the military industrial complex, the rape of the land, racist disregard for human lives, disrespect for laws (including in this case, yet another violation of a treaty), and violation of human rights including the rights of indigenous peoples . Moreover, the protestors are praiseworthy not only for standing up for clean drinking water and human rights but also for promoting the viability of this continent and the planet on which the survival of all peoples is dependent.

Among the groups to which we should be thankful for getting things right and taking risks to do so are:

Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, People Demanding Action, Ecowatch, and Code Pink.

I will be thanking all these groups at my dinner today.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, Part 1

American military intervention since 1950. Author: Andrew0921. In the public domain.

by Stefan Schindler

America has the largest empire in world history, guarded by a thousand military bases around the world; yet most Americans don’t know there is such a thing as the American empire, even though they’re paying for it.  Most Americans don’t know that dismantling the empire would be the single most important step toward world peace and the solving of our ever deepening federal deficit and domestic financial crisis.

Gore Vidal coined the phrase “The United States of Amnesia.”  Of course, citizens can’t forget what they never knew.  Here are some facts to compensate for the American system of compulsory miseducation, political disinformation, and mainstream news media distortion:

1 – If U.S. naval commander Commodore Perry had not sailed his warships into Tokyo harbor in 1853, forcing Japan to end two centuries of international isolation, Japan could not have industrialized so quickly as to invade China in 1936, bomb Pearl Harbor a few years later, and launch the Second World War in the Pacific.

2 – Mark Twain, witnessing America’s eight-year terror campaign against the people of the Philippines in the so-called “Spanish-American War,” declared: “America’s flag should be a skull and crossbones.”  During the Spanish-American war, America never went to war with Spain, but simply took for its own the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

3 – American troops invaded Russian in 1918 in an effort to reverse the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew centuries of Tsarist dictatorship and economic apartheid.  American soldiers were ordered to side with the remnants of the Tsar’s army, thereby helping create and sustain a devastating Russian civil war, preventing Lenin from instituting democratic reforms, and giving rise to Stalin’s dictatorship.  Woodrow Wilson’s invasion of Russia sought to prevent the rise of “social democracy” as a political, egalitarian alternative to capitalism.  This agenda was furthered by Harry Truman, who, after WWII, demonized Russia to frighten the American people into paying for a monstrous and unnecessary war machine.

4 – President Truman created an unaccountable national security state in 1947, when he sanctioned a secret government in the form of the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Co-founder of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a recipient of The Boston Baha’i Peace Award, and a Trustee of The Life Experience School and Peace Abbey Foundation, Dr. Schindler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College, worked one summer in a nature preserve, lived in a Zen temple for a year, did the pilot’s voice in a claymation video of St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, acted in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and performed as a musical poet in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City.  He also wrote The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Awards for Howard Zinn and John Lennon.  He is now semi-retired and living in Salem, Massachusetts.

The Epic Ideological Struggle of Our Global Era: Part 2. Multiculturalism versus Homogenization

By Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

Multiculturalism: A Competing Ideology

Statue titled, Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Pirelli, in front of Union Station, Toronto, Ontario
Statue titled, Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Pirelli, in front of Union Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: paul (dex) from Toronto.

In my last post, I discussed homogenization, a dangerous ideology.  Today I discuss a competing ideology, Multiculturalism. An ideology is a systematic set of beliefs that  define a preferred or favored vision of a way-of-life or governance or social formation. In many known ideologies, specific assumptions, premises, and historical foundations and arguments are advanced to promote and defend the ideology’s adoption or empowerment. Uses are often made of symbols, myths, and historical events and forces to enhance the appeal of ideologies, sometimes bringing them to mythic proportions. Scores of ideologies exist, especially within the economic, social, and political areas of thought and action.

Examples of ideologies shaping individual and nation behavior include capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, feminism, Zionism, Marxism, militarism, libertarianism, state-ism, and anarchism. These examples embody different disciplinary (e.g., philosophy, economic, history, theology) and societal sectors (e.g., government, judicial, military, education, religion/faith-based) areas.

Often times, ideologies co-opt religious/faith based, moral, and media resources to further favored goals and ambitions. Nothing is as powerful as beliefs rooted in self-righteous justification in the cause of god or a supreme being. The use of force, violence, vilification, valorization, and legal advantages to promote “causes” is not uncommon. The concentration of power in an ideology’s movement can lead to excessive control and domination, gathering force as they become “crusaders” buoyed by good intentions and purpose.

The ideology of Multiculturalism is based on an appreciation and promotion of diversity among various cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. Multiculturalism considers diversity an essential resource for survival because it adds the virtues of resiliency derived from variation, alternatives, and choices in belief, behavior, and world views. It keeps options open.

When Octavio Paz, Mexican Noble Prize winner in Literature, claimed, “Life is diversity, death is uniformity,” Paz was calling attention to the fact that diversity is the very nature of life — an expression and revelation of life’s abundant manifestations and displays. I share this view, and have written of Lifeism, an ideology positioning “humans” as a part of life, rather than life’s dominant and preferred expression.

Multiculturalism as an ideology evolved in response to the events, forces, and personalities of the turbulent years and tears of change and social upheaval between 1950 and 1980. The post WWII years witnessed major socio-political changes and upheavals in the United States and the world, converging and consummating in new awareness and appreciation of the importance of diversity, justice, inclusion, political correctness, and the politics of identity. All found support in a multicultural ideology respecting human rights, equality, and dignity.

Multiple and Varied Cultures

These years experienced major cultural changes and massive social movements. There was a rising awareness — consciousness — that “culture” was a critical concept, and a major force in shaping individual and collective behavior. It became clear that “culture” was too critical to be reserved for esoteric studies of exotic tribes by anthropologists. Culture was present in the lives of all human beings, both internally and externally.

Table 1 lists some major social, economic, and political events, forces, and people shaping the emergence of contemporary Multiculturalism as an ideology.

Table 1:

Examples of Forces, Events, and People Associated with Multiculturalism

(Circa Post WW II Period – alphabetical order)

  • Assassinations and Overthrows
  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Consciousness of Ideologies
  • Counter-Culture Movements
  • Developments in Information and Communication Technologies
  • Drug Subcultures (e.g., Marijuana, Cocaine, Hallucinogens)
  • Ethno-Cultural Conflicts/Ethnic Cleansing
  • Fall of Berlin Wall
  • Feminist Revolution
  • Globalization
  • Liberation Psychologies
  • Massive International Migrations Waves
  • New Political Alliances and Unions (e.g., EU, NATO)
  • New World Order Efforts
  • Post Modernism
  • Racial Protests and Riots
  • Post WWII Colonial Wars and Liberations (Africa, India, Indonesia)
  • Refugee and IDP Problems
  • Vietnam War, Balkan Wars,
  • Wars and Conflicts in Middle-East and West Asia
  • War on Poverty (Johnson Era)

Understanding Culture

Although culture had long been a topic of study, especially in anthropology and history, social upheavals of the 1950-1980s brought an acute awareness of the socio-political contexts of culture. Colonialism was revealed not as an inevitable unfolding of change as “civilized” progress but as invasive and exploitive abuses to control and suppress mind, behavior, and social position formations. Minority populations, conquered people, and occupied nations understood the cultural relativism, and the possibilities of release and escape from the chains of dominant social, political, and economic orders.

The term “culture” became applied with accuracy and regularity as a noun/adjective: the culture of poverty, the culture of racism, the culture of violence, the culture of oppression, the culture of colonialism, the culture of war. Culture was no longer confined to an ethnic tradition or identity; it was recognized as a complex clustering of self-perpetuating historical, societal, and moral forces, shaping and being shaped, by hidden ethoses, institutions, and definitions of personhood (e.g., “institutional racism”).

Culture was now to be studied, understood, and scrutinized as an explanation for understanding past, present, and future. Social, political, and economic leaders with insights into the abuses of history maintained in dominant cultures challenged sources of domination and control. Leaders became lightning rods for social change – voices crystallizing protests, and illuminating abuses and violence inherent in power asymmetries. It was a time for change in the social fabric and the moral order.

The tolls of raising consciousness regarding marginalized people brought violence and death to many leaders. Consider the examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Black Panthers, Ignacio Martin-Baro, as well as elected national leaders considered threats to existing Western social orders, including Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Mandela in South Africa, Zapata in Mexico, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Here William Blum’s (2004) book, Killing Hope, Stephen Kinzer’s (2006) book, Overthrow, and Chalmers Johnson (2010), book, Dismantling the Empire, become essential reading – harbingers of our future, by acknowledging past crimes and offenses. The social, economic, and political roots of “culture” became the path to for understanding injustice and resisting oppression. Multiculturalism became an ideology for correcting for history’s abuses. Colonization is always colonization of mind (Goodman & Gorski, 2014).

Multiculturalism in Counseling, Psychology, and Psychiatry

It was only a matter of time before revolutionary thinkers–including Paulo Friere (1997) in his volumes on pedagogies and Ignacio Martin-Baro (1994), in his volume Writings for a Liberation Psychology– recognized the inherent abuses associated within Western psychologies of political domination, repression, and control. Tod Sloan (1997) acknowledged this reality when he concluded Western psychology was a source for perpetuating “Westernization” as an ideology, replete with its ill-suited values and methods for a changing world.

Multiculturalism acknowledges and emphasizes the role of the distribution of “power” in every domain of human activity. All relations are ultimately about power and its distribution. Even those areas claiming immunity from political interference and power distribution are, in fact, subject to it by guiding thought and practices according to the preferences, wishes, and concerns of those in power.

The term “inclusive” became popular to describe to the importance of “including” people – giving them access and acceptance – because they had been ignored or denied a spectrum of opportunities and services. The playing field was being expanded, but it did not guarantee those in power would yield their largesse. We know that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and this was the case in our nation and around the world as Western political and economic dominance pursued hegemony.

With hegemony came abuses of invading and occupying another nation — often a third- world nation — by imposing and infusing cultural values and traditions. It was a new way to conquer and control using American popular culture as the strategy for control and domination (e.g., individualism, consumerism, commodification, competition, materialism, celebritization, corruption, technology). This was now the pathway for forcing a “homogenization” of world cultures. Differences existed, but efforts were made to deny them because they challenged the hegemony of those in power. The task for the government/corporate system was invasion by “cultural” conquest, and “colonization of mind” (e.g., Goodman & Gorski, 2014).

Amidst an ocean of ideological struggles in a global era, it is clear “Multiculturalism” was, and is, the essential ideology for a global era! Accepting and implementing this ideology among individuals, groups, and nations remains the task of our times. In contrast to homogenization, the preferred ideology of those in power and position seeking control and domination, Multiculturalism embraces the reality of life’s diversity and differences – the beauty of variation. All other ideologies “pale” in complexion, complexity, and comparison.

Author:  Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. He is the author and editor of twenty books, and more than 300 publications noted for challenging the ethnocentricity and biases of Western psychology and psychiatry, and for advocating peace and social justice.