In the Spherical Model, I use the word savage as the negative, southern hemisphere quality of the social sphere. There are a number of examples in the news these days: i.e., the
beheadings of journalists, the execution of non-Muslims who refuse to convert.
Sometimes the news stories and commentary use the word barbaric, and sometimes savage. So I’m spending a day quibbling
over word choice while horrendous things are happening—in hopes that greater
understanding will help move the world in the right direction.
The words savage
and barbaric are essentially
synonyms. In my thesaurus, the first synonym for savage is barbarous. And
under barbarous/barbaric, savage is listed in the mix. There may
be differences, but they’re somewhat subtle. Still, I chose one over the other.
The word barbaric
is a word that historically meant, in the ancient world, someone from some
culture other than Greek, Roman, or Christian. It could mean less civilized,
less technologically advanced, less developed—because much of the world beyond
the empires was often backward, or primitive, in those ways. But not always;
sometimes it just referred to something foreign or strange, not the way of the
culture doing the naming.
Sometimes (often today) the word barbaric is used to refer to behavior: crude, uncouth,
boorish, unmannerly, wild, unrestrained—but also brutal or cruel.
The word savage can
also refer to a culture that is primitive: lacking in technology and education,
possibly lacking in writing. In some circles there’s the idea of the “noble savage,”
someone from a primitive culture who is nevertheless more “civilized,” more
wise about nature and living a good
life, than the supposedly civilized person. But this is pretty much a myth.
There may be people within primitive societies who live in a civilized way;
they are, then, by definition, civilized, not savage. The mythologized ones are
more likely to be looked at through a lens focused on a specific thing, with much else left purposely out of focus.
This is part of an agenda to equate all cultures as equally
valid. It’s a lie. You can have a lot of differences between cultures that may
be equally valid—food, music, dance, language. But you still only get
civilization when you have a religious people, who recognize that their rights
come from God, who live a code of behavior essentially equivalent to the Ten
Commandments—valuing God, family, life, honesty, and doing good to others.
I chose the word savage, in the Spherical Model, because the
behavior description is more accurate. Also, there’s no confusion with the
Barbary Coast, an area known for piracy—definitely a barbaric, or savage,
behavior—where the word is not actually related to barbarian, but to Berbers,
the north African peoples.
So, while barbaric is also the antipathy of civilization,
the important contrast is between the bad behavior and our goal: civilization.
I’ve been reading a novel in which the comparison between
civilization and barbarians keeps coming up. I’m not sure whether to recommend
this book/series—The Kingkiller
Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss. I read the first one for book club last month, The Name of the Wind. It was an
interesting read, a slightly magical world something like our Middle Ages
Europe, but not really that. It’s a quest story, with a young man coming of
age. But in the near 700 pages of book one, he makes almost no progress on the
stated quest. I am now almost 800 pages into the second book, The Wise Man’s Fear, and other than a
sentence or two, there’s still been no progress toward the stated quest. [I don’t
think book 3 is written yet, so who knows if the quest will be completed, or
whether how Kvothe got where he is will be explained.] Nevertheless, some
interesting stuff happens.
I had been warned about book two, because there are some
rather ridiculous prurient parts with a fairy—going on for at least a hundred
pages. Not too explicit, fortunately, but still evidence that the author doesn’t
really understand civilization.
But I am tuned in to pick up little conversations about
civilization. And this second book has some of that. At one point the main
character, Kvothe, is sent on a quest by the Maer (minor king) to get rid of
thieves who have been making the roads dangerous, interfering with trade, and
confiscating tax money that has to be replaced. One of the mercenaries sent
with him is from a different culture, the Adem. The descriptions of the look of
the people is what we’d consider northern European—all seem to have sandy
colored hair and gray eyes. But their culture seems to be a pretty good
replication of some Asian cultures.
Tempi is mostly silent, but dangerous in a fight. Like a
ninja. He has trouble with the language, foreign to him. But eventually Kvothe
begins to communicate better with him, and learn from him. Chapter 82 (starting
on page 545) is called “Barbarians,” referring to those outside of Tempi’s
native culture. The differences include how they speak. Tempi’s people, use
fewer words and more subtle hand signals And they try to follow some
inexplicable guidance from within called Lethani. They also have many layers of
meaning, like you might find in Korean, and tonality, like you might find in
Mandarin. So it’s not a direct correlation with something specific in the nonfictional world.
Kvothe is telling the story here:
I nodded slowly, trying to imagine what
it must be like for Tempi, constantly assaulted by people too rude to keep
their expressions to themselves. People whose hands constantly made gestures
that were nonsense. “It must be very hard for you, out here.”
“Not so hard.” Understatement. “When I leave Ademre, I know this. Not
civilization. Barbarians are rude.”
“Barbarians?’
He made a wide gesture, encompassing our clearing, the forest, all of
Vintas. “Everyone here like dogs.” He made a grotesquely exaggerated expression
of rage showing all his teeth, snarling and rolling his eyes madly. “That is
all you know.” He shrugged nonchalant acceptance, as if to say he didn’t hold
it against us.
“What of children?” I asked. “Children smile before they talk. Is that
wrong?”
Tempi shook his head. “All children barbarians. All smile with face. All
children rude. But they go old. Watch. Learn.” He paused thoughtfully. Choosing
his words. “Barbarians have no woman to teach them civilization. Barbarians
cannot learn.”
That detail, of women needed to teach civilization, caught
my attention.
Later in the book, Kvothe
travels with Tempi to his home town of Haert, and begins to learn from the
people there. Their school teaches “Lethani,” which is unknowable, maybe like chi, and fighting skills—very much like
Asian martial arts, including patterns of practice called Ketan, which sound a
lot like katas, or my Tai Chi routine (but performed perfectly, at the slow
pace of honey spilled on a table, which I have not accomplished).
Women do the teaching, and are considered the better
fighters. Kvothe is surprised by that:
Vashet [his teacher] nodded, pleased [at what he had noticed in a spar
between two young boys]. “They fight like puppies. They are young, and boys.
They are full of anger and impatience. Women have less trouble with these
things. It’s part of what makes us better fighters.”
I
was more than slightly surprised to hear her say that. “Women are better
fighters?” I asked carefully, not wanting to contradict her.
“Generally
speaking,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are exceptions, of course, but as
a whole women are better.”
“But
men are stronger,” I said. “Taller. They have better reach.”
She
turned to look at me, slightly amused. “Are you stronger and taller than me
then?”
I
smiled. “Obviously not. But as a whole, you have to admit, men are bigger and
stronger.”
Vashet
shrugged. “And that would matter if fighting were the same as splitting wood or
hauling hay. That is like saying a sword is better the longer and heavier it
is. Foolishness. Perhaps for thugs this is true. But after taking the red [refers
to the uniform color, becoming a traveling guardian, called mercenary for lack of a better
translation], the key is knowing when
to fight. Men are full of anger, so they have trouble with this. Women less so” [p. 763].
It’s an interesting view. In our culture, I think it is
assumed emotion is female, and logic is male—even though that is stereotypical
and right only about 50% of the time for either sex. It’s probably right
only about as often in their fictional world as well.
Unless you assume, not emotions, but specific emotions. Females
are less likely to fly to anger, to enjoy harming physically in retaliation for
offense; females are more likely to care for and nurture others. Females are
less likely to seek to conquer, and more likely to seek reconciliation and
collaboration. Some emotions are more civilized than others. And, in general,
women tend toward those emotions more than men do.
Maybe that is why God designed the family to have women in the position to civilize the next generation. Men are needed too—to teach hard
work, honesty, honor, courage, and being gentle even when you have the strength
to be coercive. Those are important in civilization too. But men are more
likely to exhibit those characteristics if they were raised by a good woman and
have committed in marriage to a good woman.
Children benefit from the civilizing nurturing of mothers as
well as the example of a civilized father. Both. In the family, the microcosm of civilization. Parents, “Raise up a child in the way he should go: and when
he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
There is so much ugly savagery in today’s world. There is
news that we can’t even bear to view—because you can’t unview such things. But
in the sacred family home, there can be civilization. And from there it can
spread.
