核心畫面

Picture civilized as people who have agreed how to live together: small agreements about how you treat the person next to you, and large ones like law, government and schools. Uncivilized is the un- of that picture — standing outside the agreement. Zoom the camera in and it is one person ignoring the rules of the room. Zoom it out and it is a whole society described, from outside, as having none of those systems at all.

可以想成:civilized 是一群人講好了要怎麼一起生活。小的約定是怎麼對待旁邊那個人,大的約定是法律、政府、學校更多收起可以想成:civilized 是一群人講好了要怎麼一起生活。小的約定是怎麼對待旁邊那個人,大的約定是法律、政府、學校。uncivilized 就是這張圖的 un-:站在那份約定的外面。鏡頭拉近,是一個人不管房間裡的規矩。鏡頭拉遠,就變成有人從外面說整個社會沒有那些制度。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary gives the word as un- + civilized, so it is built as the plain negative of the civilized picture; the prefix adds nothing else.

Wiktionary 記的來源就是 un- + civilized。所以這個字是 civilized 的直接反面,前綴沒有另外加進別的意思。

Wiktionary entry 'uncivilized' (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:745653973): 'From un- + civilized.'

Two branches

行為:不照大家講好的規矩來

這是鏡頭拉近的那一半。約定不是抽象的東西,它就落在圖書館要安靜、碗盤自己洗、隊伍要排這些小事上。有人不照做的時候,就是站到了約定外面。

adjective · B2

Behaving in a rude, unpleasant way that breaks the basic rules people follow when they share a space, so that most people around would call it unacceptable.

沒教養的;不文明的

社會:舊書裡的「未開化」

這是鏡頭拉遠的那一半。同樣是「在約定外面」,只是約定變成了法律、政府、貨幣這些制度,被放到外面的也從一個人變成一整個社會。

adjective · C1

Used about a group of people or a society to say that they live in a very simple way and have not built up systems such as laws, government, money or schools.

未開化的