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The "Scrap" Audience | Brain and Civilization at Work | David Noir | Photo © Karine Lhémon | The Generator

Self civilization: the brain is the anvil

Civilisation is better than culture

It is less of a pretext for the obscurantism of peoples centred on the folklore of their cultural achievements. In my opinion, any culture will never be more than a poor folklore in the face of the civilisation of self-elaboration.

Such an assertion seems to make one shudder today, and it seems that one can only be labelled as a dangerous right-winger by asserting it. I feel, however, that I am at the opposite end of the spectrum from the definitions that seem to be cautiously given by anthropologists who attribute to the term "civilisation" the ability to fan the hateful embers of racial contempt of peoples towards each other.

Fearing the use of a word is surely the worst kind of pseudo diplomacy. The fear of irritating the other only results in the most viscous pandering to various sensitivities. Caution in all circumstances ends up freezing relations. It is then very difficult to turn back towards free speech. Thus was born political correctness and its hypocritical atrocities.

Civilising oneself does not depend on one's own culture, and it is to reduce its impact to apply it only to historical contexts. The civilisation of the individual is a personal act that leads him to question his own situation between his atavistic savagery and his state as a 'product' of his own culture. What makes a culture proud is also what makes it narrow-minded and intolerant of others.

Beautiful examples of this are the microcosms constituted by many families or couples throughout the world, all cultures combined, who swear by their own clan ethics and the value of legacies handed down from generation to generation. The sublime "transmission" that makes the parental educator proud of his beautiful mission, is also the one that carries the mental AIDS the most terrifying of all, because of the psychic sclerosis it imposes. Only the real and active perpetual, daily and unceasing questioning of oneself can calm the fury of the brutal animal instinct or of formatting under influence, in favour of a thoughtful, personal and unique temperance. The fruit of this is the singular creativity of each individual.

For an individual who aspires to be civilised in this sense, in other words, a true artist, the true creator of his own civilisation, self-invention It is not a culture or an education that is to be expected, but its own conception of the human being, thus forged and reshaped day after day. It is certainly not from a culture or an education that one must expect it, but from one's own conception of the human being, thus forged and reforged day after day.

The brain is the anvil on which ideas are hammered. The most astonishing pieces are not created there from the acquis of traditions, be they civil, civic or religious.

Related article: What is the point of war?

Nudity and culture

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My animal part | My sperm dripping from my acorn | Capture d'screen © David Noir 2012
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My animal part | My sperm dripping from my acorn | Capture d'screen © David Noir 2012
fearless
The "Scrap" Audience | Brain and Civilization at Work | David Noir | Photo © Karine Lhémon | The Generator
The "Scrap" Audience | Brain and Civilization at Work | David Noir | Photo © Karine Lhémon | The Generator

David Noir

David Noir, performer, actor, author, director, singer, visual artist, video maker, sound designer, teacher... carries his polymorphous nudity and his costumed childhood under the eyes and ears of anyone who wants to see and hear.

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