Primitive(s)
Working Definition:
This term was used as a marker of human development along hierarchies of civilization. According to Enlightenment Era philosophies that proliferated well into the twentieth century, humans developed in stages, with barbarity, primitivism, and savagery denoting the lowest rungs of development. Civility, in contrast, was deemed as the highest ideal of humanity. All of these considerations were intertwined with race, gender, class, and religion.
Related Terms:
Suggestions for Further Reading:
Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Vicente L. Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000); Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)