[diggers350] Re: land ownership

[Brendan Boal]

Hi Hengist,
Here are a few definitions of civilisation:

ORWELL, George {Eric Blair} (1903-50), English author
"To accept civilisation as it is practically means accepting decay."
[Inside the Whale and Other Essays, (1940) ‘Inside the Whale’]

MILLER, Henry (1891-1980) - U.S. author
"Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines
and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons,
reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports,
suicides, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts,
revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines,
sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse
racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, condoms,
pessaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc., etc."
[The Cosmological Eye, (1939) ‘An Open Letter to Surrealists
Everywhere’]

MILLER, Henry (1891-1980) - U.S. author
"The word "civilization" to my mind is coupled with death.  When I use
the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a
stultifying thing.  For me it was always so.  I don't believe in the
golden ages, you see. . . . Civilization is the arteriosclerosis of
culture."
[Writers at Work, (Interview, 1963) Second Series, edited by George
Plimpton]

MILLER, Henry (1891-1980) - U.S. author
"Topographically the country is magnificent-and terrifying. Why
terrifying?  Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between
man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull,
monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its
peak."
[The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, (1945) Preface]

GAUGUIN, Paul (1848-1903) - French artist
"Civilisation is paralysis."
[Cournos, Modern Plutarch]

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) - US poet, essayist, transcendentalist
and teacher
"The end of the human race is that it will eventually die of
civilisation."

BATES, Daisy May (1863-1951) - Irish-born journalist, anthropologist
and reformer 
"The Australian native can withstand all the reverses of nature,
fiendish droughts and sweeping floods, horrors of thirst and enforced
starvation - but he cannot withstand civilisation."
[The Passing of the Aboriginies... (1938)]

MILL, John Stuart (1806-1873) - English philosopher, economist and
reformer
"I am not aware that any community has the right to force another to be
civilised."
[On Liberty (1859)]

Anonymous Muscovite.
"It’s like the coming of civilisation." 
[comment on the opening of the first Russian McDonald’s Restaurant in
Moscow (1990)]




--- "mcstone.ancientmod." <mcstone.ancientmod. at breathemail.net> wrote:
>   
> Hi,
> 
> I'm kind of jumping into the middle of this debate
> so excuse me if I've missed a point. The question is
> I think 'should private land ownership be abolished
> ?'
> 
> My basic position is that all land is sacred  (but
> some portions of land are more sacred than others).
> Land ownership must somehow be connected or equated
> with what we call civilization. 
> 
> The point that I'm trying to make is that the
> assumption that private land ownership is somehow
> the beast we should be excising could well be wrong.
> Public land ownership is often a far worse thing.
> That is because the will of the public is corrupted
> by the powerful. The millenium dome , or new roads
> are salient examples. Near me, (and you if in the
> UK) is an RAF base where nuclear missiles are kept
> to wage war on unidentifiable foreign enemies. To
> all intents and purposes the land where this goes on
> is in 'public ownership' . 
>  
> Surely ownership of land means a duty of care for
> that land. Not altogether a bad thing, so long as
> that caveat is observed. Sadly it's widely abused by
> that very same thing 'civilization' in my opinion.
> 
> Yours
> 
> Hengist McStone
> 
> Ps if anybody has any definition of civilization I'd
> like to hear it.
> 
> 
>
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