Essay about Primitive vs.Civilized in the Movie the Gods Must Be Crazy

I have chosen to evaluate a scene from Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana and Sallah uncover the Well of Soles where the lost ark is hidden. We open the scene at 57:03 with Indiana leading a team of diggers up a hill to the spot where they will dig for the ark. As the scene opens we hear the diegetic sounds of the diggers and commotion taking place in the background. We also hear non-diegetic music that will be referred to as the “ark theme” playing as Indiana climbs the hill and has his men start to dig for the ark. The slow and sort of creepy tone that makes up the ark theme reminds us of the continuing quest for the ark and

Europeans lived a much more modern way of life than the primitive lifestyle of Native Americans. Europeans referred to themselves as “civilized” and regarded Native Americans as “savage,” “heathen,” or “barbarian.” Their interaction provoked by multiple differences led to misunderstanding and sometimes conflict. These two cultures, having been isolated from one another, exhibited an extensive variation in their ideals. Europeans and Native Americans maintained contradictory social, economic, and spiritual practices.

The Ibo people have a civilized community because they have an organized structure to their society with rules and laws. A society that employs morals, ethics, and accountability for peoples’ actions is not uncivilized. The importance of religion and communication, showing through art and music, shows their advanced mindset as a whole society. The Nigerian country also shows these qualifications, despite many beliefs that African countries are uncivilized, they are civilized as well. Family must play a large part in the "civilized" culture. This shows civilization by explaining how each member in a society is watched after and taken care of. Religion also must be taken seriously, and there must be a majority of one religion in a society, or else the culture is too diverse. This separates them from each other, halting any possible growing as a civilization.

The film O brother, where art thou? is set in the Great Depression of the 1930’s and emphasizes the struggle between the upper and lower classes by using a variety of cinematic devices. Through the use of these cinematic devices and comedic relief the realities of the Depression are viewed without creating a stark, melancholy, documentary-styled film. Examples in this film of these cinematic devices used to show these realities include:

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.

2. The Ibo people are in no way savages because they have an organized structure to their society with rules and laws. A society that employs morals, ethics, and accountability for peoples’ actions cannot be considered savage. The Ibo are highly religious; the base of most of their daily life revolves around religion, whether it is how they raise their families or how they grow their crops. “The Feast of the New Yam was held every year before the harvest began, to honor the earth goddess” (36). Yams control the Ibo economy, and if a person farmed well, success tended to follow. The Ibo village created a very stable economy due to this. The society itself is organized mostly by a person’s title, which states their place in a sort of government. The Egwugwu act much like “judges” and the people themselves try to settle things peacefully between each other.

In the novella Heart of Darkness, and the film Apocalypse Now, both Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola question the supposed dichotomy between civilized society and uncivil savagery. Although both the novella and the film differ in setting, Africa and Vietnam respectively, both [uncover] man’s primeval nature, as their protagonists journey down the respective rivers, and descend into the heart of darkness. Perhaps the most significant aspect in the journeys of both Marlow and Willard, is witnessing the psychological breakdown of “civilized” men as their removal from society and exposure to the primitive practices of the “savages” living in the jungle, unleashes their own primordial instincts. This frightening observation effectively conveys

The relationship between the gods and humanity in The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey are the same. In each saga, the gods seem to live nearby and are always present. Both epic poems portray humans as simply at the mercy of the gods. The gods feel that it is their duty to intervene if they feel that man is traveling off course from his destiny. However, the gods are not all powerful.

This description displays the natives as "shadows" not as dying men. The Africans are not individuals, they are degradingly categorised as shapes with no characteristic to determine one man from another. None of the men are shown

Philosophers Sigmund Freud and Eric Hobsbawm present two explanations of the origins of civilization in their books Civilization and its Discontent and Nations and Nationalism since 1780, respectively. In doing so, each philosopher establish a distinct, and somewhat similar, definition of civilization. According to Freud, “’civilization’ describes the whole sum of the achievements and the regulations which distinguish our lives from those of our animal ancestors.” (Freud, 63) There are distinct features of a civilization, such as beauty, the “encouragement of man’s higher mental activities – his intellectual, scientific and artistic achievements” (Freud, 69) and the social relations between men. While Freud refers to this union of a group

In the story, “The Most Dangerous Game” it portrays how enlightened individuals will turn uncouth if life relies upon it. First off, civilized is being educated more and being a good person who understands and respects others and themselves. Individuals in the story begin civilized, at that point end up plainly savage, particularly if life relies upon it. But being savage doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t civilized. Not all civilized people are nice, kind, and you know, civil. They have a bad side. Everyone does. Some people just may not notice it.Rainsford thinks of himself as civilized because he doesn’t murder he hunts and I agree with him.

In “Primitive,” Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten argue that in various topics, “primitive” can either have positive or negative connotations. They also specify that the term is not a classification but rather a comparison to its inverse: “civilized.” Antliff and Leighten explicitly discuss its use in the fields of time and space, gender, race and class to support their argument.

Into the Wild is a documentary film by Sean Penn that follows the life of Christopher Johnson McCandless, a vagabond who tramped across the United States for two years before his journey led him to Alaska, where he lived in the wilderness, sheltered by an abandoned transportation bus, preceding his death. McCandless grew up with all the privileges of being raised in the suburbs by a middle class family, he later went on to graduate from Emory University in Georgia, and seemed to have his whole life stretched out in front of him. However, he did the exact opposite of what was expected, severed all ties with his family, and adopted a life of chosen homelessness, where his travels led him on wild adventures across the country. Many speculate that McCandless was pushed to do this in order to spite his overbearing and abusive parents who verbally and physically assaulted each other in front of their children, demanding they pick a side. Some say it was McCandless’s desire to free himself from all material constraints and the burden of societal pressures. Taking a psychological approach, McCandless

4 Our current society being examined is one of bare necessities. If comparing a primordial society and civilized society, ours would currently be the former. Glaucon believed our primordial society resembled one that would be appropriate for a “community of pigs”.13 When asked by Socrates how he would construct it differently, he stated he would make