Civilization, Madness and Little Birds

What does it mean to be civilized or noble?

When does nobility, doing what is right for civilization, mean changing others into a mirror image of ourselves?

The difference between how things ought to be done versus how they ought not to be done is a blurry line. The ideas of right and wrong and good and evil simplify what we should and shouldn’t stand for. But these ideas also appear to cause conflict, hatred and madness towards our neighbor (who we should love like we love ourselves). All in an effort to insure that our own ideas of what civilization should look like is the model for right and wrong.

For example, in early Europe, kings and other noblemen would have a hawk on their armor or robe. This was supposed to symbolize their position at the head of the rest of the community. A hawk swoops down and picks off any little bird for consumption. The symbol of the hawk portrays what they thought of themselves: they had the right to do what they wanted with whom they wanted (those working the fields not nobility). Basically they deserved to live a lush life because of their birthright and because they have the resources; therefore, they have the right to control those who don’t reflect their own image.

Through my research the need to maintain a position above the lower classes or the need to force other cultures to reflect what social norms we deem right or civilized had robbed the world of culture and created unnecessary conflict between good people who refuse to see things from a perspective other than their own or attempted to change a culture that we do not understand. This has led to rebellion and resistance; many kings have been overthrown by the little birds they felt as if they had the right to control, losing their heads as a result of their arrogance.

Because all my writings are surf/ skateboard-based, I will give you an example from my own sub-culture.

The marginalization of surfing can be traced to the earliest encounters with European voyagers throughout the nineteenth century.[1] Calvinist missionaries deemed many Hawaiian practices such as surfing to be barbaric.[2] Though the Calvinist missionary’s attempted to vilify and eliminate Native ocean traditions like surfing, the people rebelled against the colonialist and surfing continued. Walker states that surfing remains a source of pride for Hawaiians today.[3] Because surfing looked unnatural or perhaps because they couldn’t see themselves surfing they tried to eliminate it or vilify those who did it. This is madness and only one example of conflict for the sole reason of mass predicting one form of the ideal civilization.

Walker claims that today’s Hawaiian surfers are shaped by the colonial violence that preceded them. The act of surfing inherited the version of nineteenth-century colonial resistance in the waves.[4] It is interesting to note that the sign of surfing changed from a social norm to a defiant act of rebellion when the European voyagers arrived and deemed the board sport “uncivilized”. The new definition of surfing became counter culture, although its origins were based heavily in native community values.[5]

It would appear that the need to control how the surfers explore space because of a lack of understanding of the culture can be shown in today’s struggle between skate culture and industrial culture. Skateboarding, like surfing, is unique among “traditional” sports in that it uses a free form structure, if it can be said that there is any structure at all. Skateboarding takes an artistic approach to physical activity, meaning no manmade boundaries. Skaters are only limited to imagination and physical ability. Unlike football, baseball, soccer, (which are accepted with dominant values) or any other organized sport, skateboarding has no out of bounds, no time outs, and no team captain. The concept of no boundaries can be problematic when met with dominant culture, which for the most part is driven by rules and boundaries shown in the illegalization of skateboarding in Tacoma in 1992, due to perceived lack of control of personal property and danger to the community.[6]

That being said, I am suggesting that the need to control or conform others as if we have a right to tell others how to live has and will result in conflict and creating a culture of angry little birds. The need to conform everyone into the ideal civilization is madness and I am guilty of attempting to homogenize the environment around me, we are all indanger of attempting to force others to act how we want them too. This in fact can create a rebellious sub-culture from peaceful little birds.

[1] Walker, Isaiah  Waves of Resistance; Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai’i, University of Hawai’i Press(2011)43

[2] I-bid 5

[3] I-bid 15

[4] I-bid42

[5] I-bid 43

[6] City of Tacoma, Ordinance No.25237