6. How would you characterize a "savage"?


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A person with no conscience or sense of respect for the rights of other humans. Someone who justifies oppression of others on the basis of different language, culture, skin pigmentation.

- Sunday, September 21, 1997 at 15:51:50 (CST)

A government official that creates laws to deny specific people certain rights is a savage.
<s33ther ethno-vagabond-yuppie-saurus>
- Monday, September 22, 1997 at 18:28:28 (CST)

I knew a mellow yellow blond woman whose last name was Savage. She married a politician she met while interviewing him for her master's thesis. At the end of the interview, she said she was stangely compelled to kiss this near-stranger, rather than simply shake his hand, as was expected. It was all complicated chemistry and custom. Typically Savage? I didn't know her well enough to say.

- Monday, September 22, 1997 at 22:19:31 (CST)

i guess a "savage" would be some neo-nazi bonehead or other equally ignoarant person like hugh owens.
<daryl>
- Wednesday, October 08, 1997 at 19:53:04 (CST)

Interesting that no one has answered this. Are we not supposed to acknowledge that "savage" is really a constructed identity still alive in our minds? I must turn the connotation of the word back on itself. I consider a savage to be a person or group of people who believe themselves to be superior to another and to assert that dominance, whether it be mental or actual. Savages of colonialism and the slave trade were the ones who performed and controlled these acts.
<bf20415@binghamton.edu>
- Thursday, October 16, 1997 at 09:39:33 (CST)

Someone who flosses their teeth while walking around your home rather than in private.

- Friday, October 17, 1997 at 13:41:44 (CST)

Someone who flosses their teeth while walking around your home rather than in private.
<adeptula@facstaff.wisc.edu>
- Friday, October 17, 1997 at 13:43:44 (CST)

A savage would be a serial killer/ cannibal. I cannot imagine all natives resembling jeffery dahmer.
<Stephy Acoose>
- Tuesday, October 28, 1997 at 14:44:21 (CST)

an animal
<sgtgarcia@hotmail.com>
- Wednesday, November 19, 1997 at 20:21:00 (CST)

What the europeans have done to or have tried to do indeginous cultures and indiginous peoples around the world. throughout history. and how todays government still tries to hold on to that praternal mentality, that they have to "take care of us"
<Shawn E.Shawn>
- Wednesday, January 21, 1998 at 17:02:25 (CST)

Anybody who would:a) vote for Wilson, Gingrich, or Buchanon; b)call Reagan a hero; c) support war in the name of God because Pat Robertson said so.
<wylam@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
- Saturday, February 07, 1998 at 23:39:20 (CST)

As anal or not-to-the-point as this might seem to some, I have to consider this one linguistically. This word (and presumably the other European equivalents) comes from Latin for 'of the woods'. The primary definition refers to something wild; 'animal-like' if you want to stretch it. Presumably it was originally (and for a damn long time afterwards) applied to pretty much anything not inside a settlement of buildings. And then, as with any other English noun or adjective, and presumably any other language's nouns or adjectives, the meaning became looser and looser. Now it meant anything looking like what those last few generations referred to as savage. Now it referred to anyone acting violent, since hey, why would anyone inside a walled fortification have any need to act violent? except of course to defend themselves from the 'savages'. Now it referred to people who don't eat with "proper utensils". The later dictionary definitions include 'cruel' and 'uncivilized'. Obviously it's silly to assume someone can mean all of these at the same time unless they are phenomenally close-minded, as we know quite well most people who use this word derogatively are. I'd say the world is woefully short of true 'savages', going by the original, more geographical distinction. There are of course a number of non-related definitions for 'civilized' as well. Going with the idea of civilization as an essence of betterment, I think its primary function is the exchange of ideas and sharing of resources. For example, the only part of a city that I think symbolizes civilization is that there are always people and things going in and out of it, which for one thing keep it from becoming isolationist or any of the other things that such huge, confined populations might easily be subject to without refreshment... so, right, blahblahblah. seeing as how savage is now pretty much a negative term, especially as far as usage by white folks who are missing critical clues... someone I'd call a savage in a dismissive way would be someone who wouldn't attempt to communicate with me. And there again, what do I know? if I wandered into the wilderness (if, for example, there MIGHT BE SOME LEFT SOME DAY) and encounter an 'exotically dressed' or even non-dressed fellow, who upon seeing me turned and ran, who am I to say, 'Ah, it's a Savage!'? How do I know he couldn't see residual energies or spirits of the slaves who built the foundations of the city I came from plastered to my clothes? Believe me, folks, we've got dozens, even hundreds of much more appropriate words to refer to disguised-colonial-rhetoric-spouting fucks; we don't need to fight their misuse of language by misusing it back at them. Then again, I just called them 'fucks', didn't I? what does that mean?...
<ianus@elwha.evergreen.edu>
- Friday, April 03, 1998 at 04:14:49 (CST)

White, Male Anglo Saxon Capitalists.
<bfundak@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
- Thursday, April 09, 1998 at 21:55:07 (CST)

A person who acts without thinking of the consequences to their actions.
<mileen@earthlink.net>
- Wednesday, April 22, 1998 at 00:07:27 (CST)

someone who rapes, robs, cannibalizes for fun and acts like and ass without using the brain to think things out. a beast, a savage who has no moral values in relation to the majority of their fellow humans
<ml>
- Monday, June 08, 1998 at 14:54:20 (CST)

Captain McBain from Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Marrow of Tradition" is the image that pops into my mind when I hear the word "savage." Unbridled, furious racial hatred, expressed with violence. That's savage. (and Fred Savage)
<Lucas Grzybowski - ltg8986@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
- Thursday, July 16, 1998 at 13:59:35 (CST)

savages walk the streets night and day, living off the respect and material possessions afforded to them by all the other savages. they hide behind these things and pretend that everyone else,myself included, are beneath them and their small minded toys. In general and in my experience, White Middleclass&up Suburban Balding Men . Most often seen sexually abusing children in their business suits.
<Sailor Halfbreed>
- Tuesday, July 21, 1998 at 18:37:46 (CST)

Don't know. African?

- Wednesday, August 05, 1998 at 00:46:40 (CST)

Someone who thinks the world is an animal that they have an unquestionable right to kill and exploit. Not even cockroaches think like this!
<v.hart@qut.edu.au>
- Sunday, August 16, 1998 at 00:02:12 (CST)

A savage is a person who has no culture. Since all human beings have culture, a savage is a mythical character.
<jimmy>
- Friday, September 11, 1998 at 23:09:43 (CST)

I would characterize a savage as having no respect and manners. Going out with the intent to abuse someone else mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually and/or spiritually.
<Amber LeMouel [alemouel@internorth.com]>
- Wednesday, December 23, 1998 at 15:08:04 (CST)

someone caught up in survival and consumption...someone ruled by fear...someone who refuses to expand and change...someone who thinks truth and reality are fixed concepts.........................like the christian conservative right.
<meesken@earthlink.net>
- Wednesday, December 23, 1998 at 16:27:00 (CST)