Debates on Race and Language: Frantz Fanon

Debates on Race and Language: Frantz Fanon In no way should I dedicate myself to the revival of an unjustly unrecognised Negro civilisation Explain and assess this statement by Fanon at the end of Black Skin, White Masks Introduction We understand the world, ourselves, and other people through language (Foucault, 1977). For Foucault everything in life is determined by what he calls discourse, that is to say what we say about a subject. Thus, the language that we use defines how we see the world and how we view other people. Foucault (1977) further maintains that language is controlled by those who hold power in society. This means that everyone else’s use of language is determined by what those I power have to say about a subject. Nowadays many writers maintain that the social and linguistic construct of race has had a powerful effect on the consciousness of both black and white people. Language is real because it is inevitable acted upon (what Bordieu describes as a speech act) the language that spoke of one race as inferior to another became a justification for enslaving those people designated as inferior. Discourses of race and inferiority were central to the success of the modernist project as black p eople were seen as treacherous to the central narrative of Western personhood, that is to say they were different from what was elevated as the white norm (Fanon 1986). Frantz Fanon was a French essayist and author whose main concern was decolonisation and what he, and many other thinkers have seen as the psychopathology of colonialism. He died in 1961 at the age of 36 yet his work continues to be highly influential, particularly in the fields of cultural studies and race and ethnicity. He wrote most of his work while he lived in North Africa, by contrast, Black Skin, White Masks was written while he was still living in France. For many he is seen as the intellectual thinker on decolonisation in the twentieth century. His work has had far reaching implications over the years on a number of liberationist movements which has led some people to regard him as an advocate of violence.[1] Beginning with an introduction to modernity this assignment will discuss Fanon’s work and his statement in the context of this debate about language and the debate about black experience and black identities which, Gilroy (1993) maintains can only be understood in terms of the history of slavery. Fanon (1986) would however, dispute this notion, he believes that if it were at all possible, then colonialism should be done away with and wiped from the history books, even though he recognises that this is not possible. The period of colonialism where countries were made great on the backs of slavery separated white from black as though they were two completely different civilizations. The western world became that of the oppressor and the oppressed and Fanon sees the world in terms of this almost pathological relationship. Fanon’s work in Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon, 1986 ed.) encapsulates the sense of division that is felt by both oppressed and oppressors, black and white. Such divisions are rooted in the period that sociologists and cultural theorists now speak of as modernity. Modernity The onset of what is known as Modernity can be traced back to the Enlightenment in the late 17th to early 19th century. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement and its primary concerns were the powers of human reason, the inevitability of human progress, and the ability of science to provide humanity with answers. Philosophers of this period were also interested in how knowledge was transmitted and how we came to know what we know. This period is renowned for the immense technological and social changes that were taking place and which eventually led to a break with traditional view of the social, of society, and of a person’s place within that society. During this period there was an intense concentration on the individual, which prompted the philosopher Hegel to develop his idea of the historical subject. This is the idea that people’s actions are what have made history what it is. In recent years many theorists have argued that the subject referred only to the white, western, middle class male (see Abbott and Wallace, 1997) and that women, children and other races were excluded from the whole project. This idea of modern society, coupled with the Enlightenment notion of human progress has been problematic for a number of reasons, not least because, as we are well aware, human beings do not always act rationally, and in this sense modernity brought out the darker side of our human nature. The events of the twentieth century have done nothing to dispel this notion, in fact there are those who would argue that modern society is now at its most irrational. Modernity gave the world the nation state, the spread of capitalism and as we shall see, western cultural imperialism and colonization. Modernity produced the conditions for slavery and its success was built upon the enslavement of people who were regarded as different from, and thus inferior to, white western males. Fanon’s Concerns Western history is not just a history of colonial oppression but it is also a history of the struggles against such oppression. Western history is about the oppression of colonialism and the struggles against that oppression, which calls into question Enlightenment notions of the subject. These problems are examined by Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (1986) where he concentrates on black subjectivity and experience and with the problematic concept of western modernity. He was also concerned with the refutation of dualism, that philosophy apparent in the Enlightenment period which separated things into binary opposites such as male/female, white/black. Binary divisions not only separate genders and races, they objectify them because that which is other is defined only by the oppressor. Fanon’s other major concern was the dislocation that occurs when people are taken from their homelands and forced into a diasporic existence.[2] Fanon (1986) contends that the biggest weapon the coloniser’s had was their representation of those who were colonised, as different. This was done in such a way that they were no longer recognisable even to themselves. For Fanon being colonised estranges human beings from themselves so that they are no longer connected to their own human nature. He is concerned with the history as it is relates to the black experience although his work is sometimes disorganised and not always easy to follow. He writes about the black/white, self/other experience, and how colonialism results in an alienation of the person. Fanon, is against ethnic and cultural absolutism, but could see no reconciliation between the races because the white colonisers will always be waiting for the black mask to slip and reveal the whiteness beneath. Syncretism Gilroy (1993) traces the mutual influence of black and white culture in both America and Britain in an attempt to challenge notions of national and cultural purity and reveal a syncretism of the cultures. Decades before this and in his earlier work The Wretched of the Earth (1963) Fanon writes about syncretism as oppression where the black person assimilates the culture of the coloniser whether they like it or not. He maintains that such syncretism is the colonisers way or reducing black people and thus he speaks of the settler’s creation of the ‘native’ a concept which is evident in the discourses of modernity and its rational subject. This subject could only exist by excluding difference and otherness. Fanon (1986) maintains that the ‘Negro’ is only acceptable on certain terms: What is often called the black soul is a white man’s artefact . . . there is a quest for the Negro, the Negro is in demand, one cannot get along without him, he is needed, but only if he is made palatable in a certain way. (Fanon 1986, p. 114) In saying this Fanon rejects both narcissistic myths of Negritude (and) the White Cultural Supremacy (Bhabha, H. 1986:ix) which is most obvious in linguistic terms. This cultural supremacy still operates today, in most countries in the world children will learn English in school, when the English go abroad many of them do not trouble to learn the language of the country they are visiting. People assume that English will be spoken because cultural hegemony has its base in language and this language signifies power. Thus the language carries with it the power and knowledge of the nation. Hall (1992) argues that nationalism and the nation state are a direct result of capitalism. When people promote these things in a multi-cultural society it can result in people having a confused sense of national identity. Hall further maintains that identity and culture are closely linked. The cultural diaspora that was brought about by slavery has resulted in what Hall (1992) terms ‘hybrid identities’- an expression which in some ways is expressed in Fanon’s idea of black skin and white masks. Fanon (1986) argues that race has been objectified through discourses of superiority and inferiority and has thus become a fixed category which he decries. What these discourses have done is to make of the black person a divided self, a person with a ‘double consciousness.’ This is a term first used by W De Bois, who defined double consciousness as a twoness-an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unrecognised strivings, two warring ideals in one da rk body, who dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder (Dubois 2003 quoted in Sawyer, M 2005:86). This double consciousness is demonstrated in the relationships involved in slavery. Slavery was an integral part of this double consiousness of which Du Bois wrote because it consciousness was central to Hegel’s master/slave idea, where the slave remains a slave because they are dominated by a slave mentality. Following on from this line of thought was Richard Wright who believed that the Negro was a symbol in the psychological, social and political systems of the West. The Negro spoken of in modernist discourse was once an African, along with the experiences of slavery this led black people to experience a sense of dislocation where they experienced what the philosopher Nietzsche once described as a frog’s perspective because they looked up from beneath the chains of their oppressors (Wright, 1956). The frog’s perspective lay behind Wright’s understanding of double consciousness. Wright’s work had a strong influence on the writings of Frantz Fanon. In Fanon’s work this‘double consciousness’ or divided self is not restricted to the colonised, Fanon maintains that it is also a property of the coloniser because colonialism affects the self-understanding of both the oppressed and their oppresors. In this he demonstrates the influence that Wright (1956) had on his work because Wright thought that mental illness could result from the relationship between master and slave, between the oppressed and the oppressor. Fanon believed that racial subjectivity was determined from outside of the individual and so he sees neither a unitary black experience nor a unitary white experience. Fanon sees experience as contextual rather than historical, that is to say that the experience of the black person who remained in Africa would be very different from the black person who was made a slave – white experience is affected in a similar way. Thus Fanon says that I do not have the right to allow myself to be mired in what the past has determined. I am not the slave of the slavery that dehumanised my ancestors (Fanon, 1986:230). Conclusion When Fanon says at the end of Black Skin, White Masks that In no way should I dedicate myself to the revival of an unjustly unrecognised Negro civilisation. He is arguing against the objectification of race and the language of inferiority and superiority that are associated with the term ‘negro’. His life’s work was dedicated to decolonisation of those areas that were still part of what had been called the British Empire. The negro was a function of the coloniser’s differentiation of the slave from the white owner. Thus Fanon’s statement acts as a repudiation fo slavery and colonisation. Furthermore Fanon’s argument is important to cultural analysis and to society at large. Talking about a separate negro civilization puts us in the position of being stuck in the binary categories of a black/white cultural analysis that is the heritage of modernity and its failures. What Fanon (1986) appears to be saying is that society and its analysis needs t o go beyond ideas of nationalism and ethnic absolutism – because these things paved the way for colonialism and slavery. Fanon (1986) recognises that we have to live with the inheritance of colonialism and that things are not changed overnight. If we dispense with many of its ideas as Fanon appears to suggest then this raises the question of how we analyse race, nationalism, gender and ethnicity without the use of those categories? We have to have some way of speaking about the things that trouble our society and the best ways of dealing with them. Whatever we choose to say or feel about this as individuals the fact of the matter is that these categories are part of our consciousness and so are integral to our discourses on these subjects. Having said that, things are perhaps only this way because those who are not white, western, middle class males, will always be other – because most of the power in the world is in the hands of this group their definitions of concepts still holds. Bibliography Abbott and Wallace 1997 A Feminist Introduction to Sociology London, Routledge. Bhabha, H. 1986 â€Å"Foreward† in Fanon, F. 1986 (1967) Black Skin, White Masks London, Pluto Press Bourdieu, P. 1991 .Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. Fanon, F 1963 The Wretched of the Earth New York: Grove Press Fanon, F. 1986 (1967) Black Skin, White Masks London, Pluto Press Foucault, M. 1977 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison London, Allen Lane Gilroy, P 1993 The Black Atlantic London, Verso Hall, S. 1992 â€Å"Our Mongrel Selves† New Statesman and Society, 19th June 1992 Sawyer, M 2005 â€Å"DuBois’ double consciousness versus Latin American exceptionalism: Joe Wright, R 1956 The Colour Curtain Dobson. London . Wright, R. 1979 Native Son Harmondsworth, Penguin 1 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon#Work [2] The spread of groups of people (often against their wishes, and specifically black people and Jews) across different parts of the globe.

Sri lanka agriculture development and rural economy

Dependency theory was really popular during 1960s and 1970s as a direct challenge to the free market theory which was popular during the post-war season. The theory was formulated in 1950s and it is drawn on Marxian analysis of planetary economic system. The theory explains the relationship between economically developed states ( Advanced states ) and developing states of the universe. Harmonizing to the theory, the developed states consider as the nucleus of the system and the developing states as the fringe of the system. When the system is working, resources flow from fringe developing states to the developed nucleus states. It is a cardinal contention of dependence theory that hapless provinces are impoverished and rich 1s enriched by the manner hapless provinces are integrated into the â€Å" universe system. † The dependence theory is applicable to most of the developing states in the universe except few illustrations like India and Taiwan. Harmonizing to my cognition the theory is applicable to all most all states in the south Asia including Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was besides colonized by British Empire during 1815 – 1948 where it made a terrible harm to the Local civilization, Social life, independence every bit good as Economy. Even though the state has been ruled by local leaders from 1948, United Kingdom and other developed states have been created negative consequence on the development of the state. However, presently Sri Lanka is in a right tract toward the development, where the service sector and the fabrication sector shows a fast growing while the Agriculture sector shows a relatively slow growing. Tourism and other service subsectors have been well contributed to the economic system of the state. However the economic system of the state was opened to the universe market in 1977 and the state has been experienced both positive and negative impacts on the development positions. On the one manus most of the local baby industries were collapsed during the period as a negative consequence of the unfastened economic system. On the other manus most of the international investors and multinational carbon monoxide operations came to the state with their new engineerings which was utile to look in the universe market as a bring forthing state. Most of the developing states specially in south Asiatic states, including Sri Lanka have been depend on the IMF, World Bank, ADB and other multinational carbon monoxide operations to carry through their budget shortage through loans or grants under legion regulations and ordinances which severely consequence on the internal development. As consequence of that influence, most of those regional leaders every bit good as people of those states have a dependence outlook which was identified as the major constrain for the development. However, Sri Lanka was able to come in the in-between income state degree and presently the dependence outlook remains merely in some portion of rural countries of the state. In that scenario, Sri Lanka is no longer stray state in the universe, but still in the disadvantaged and developing side which needs particular protection and nutriment for local baby industries to protect them from the international competition. Consequently, Sri Lanka has to utilize different theoretical account which can pull strings the international competition within the state while absorbing the maximal public-service corporation form the international market. Harmonizing to my cognition and experience no any pure theory will helpful to utilize as it is for development in any state. Therefore, the state must hold their ain manner for development which has to critically see their ain resources and restrictions. â€Å" Poor but efficient Agriculture usage of developing state Traditional system † proposed by T.W. Schultz. This is one of a theory which tries to explicate the efficient usage of limited resources by hapless or developing husbandmans in developing states. The theory was foremost found in the T.W. Schultz ‘s book of Transforming Traditional Agriculture which was published in 1960s and the theory was really popular during that period. During 1950s and 1960s, Most of the economic experts and Policy shapers believed that the productiveness of Agriculture sector in developing states as really low. Therefore they argued that the fringy productiveness of the labor in those states as nothing. Hence those agribusiness labors could be transferred from the agribusiness sector to the industrialisation sector without holding any harm to the agribusiness sector. Therefore, it was besides widely accepted that husbandmans in developing states were guided by tradition or civilization. On the other manus they are non responded to the economic inducements. But Schultz argued that the husbandmans in developing states have really limited resources but most of the husbandmans use that limited resources expeditiously. However those husbandmans are hapless because of the other assorted grounds like cultural features such as deficiency of a work moral principle, deficiency of an apprehension of the thought of salvaging, or general ignorance of how to do best usage of their resources. Schultz argued that low income degrees in developing states agribusiness are a consequence of the low productiveness of the available factors of production, but non inefficiencies in their resource allotment. Subsequently, most of the researches have been conducted and accordingly the theory was through empirical observation proved utilizing the research conducted in several developing states. In Sri Lanka, there are plentifulness of little graduated table husbandmans who live under the poorness line but they use their limited resources expeditiously for their harvest cultivation. Water and fertiliser is the most scare resources in the dry zone of Sri Lankan husbandmans. They use particular agriculture pattern which is called as â€Å" Chena cultivation † . Even though that agriculture pattern is non recommended by most of the agriculturalist in the state, Chena cultivation is one of the largely adoptable patterns to utilize H2O and fertiliser. In this method husbandmans ever use new piece of land and they move to new a land in the following season. Farmers use all the vegetive parts as green manure and fire all the difficult parts of workss and mix with dirt as fertilisers. That organic manure covers all the alimentary demand of the new harvests. Farmers cultivate drought immune harvest varsities and cultivate as a mix harvest form. The system lowers the hazard of plague and disease incidence and good as maximise the use of wet. Farmers normally use household labors and utilize some excess labor merely in peak seasons. However, most of those husbandmans are hapless and the life base is besides low. There are many grounds behind the narrative and some of them are low salvaging rate, hapless cost direction, selling jobs, low substructure etc. In that sense, even today, the theory is applicable in most of the developing states and it is utile to understand their agriculture manner, populating manner of the husbandmans. On the other manus, it is utile to propose them to rectify their failings.

Crooks and Curley’s wife experience loneliness and isolation Essay

In this essay I intend to write about why Crooks and Curley’s wife experience loneliness and isolation and in what way they try to deal with these difficulties. Crooks is a nergro stable buck with a crooked spine. His eyes are described as the most noticeable feature on his face, brimming with knowledge of the injustice in life. ‘ His eyes lay deep in his head, and because of their depth seemed to glitter with intensity.’ He is also slim with a lean face, en-lined with wrinkles. His lips are also described vividly as very thin and pain-tightened. He covers up his intense eyes with large gold rimmed spectacles. Curley’s wife is, of course a complete contrast, and is extremely pretty, thought sometimes try too hard. ‘She had full, rouged lips and wide-spade eyes, heavily made up.’ She has done her nails carefully which doesn’t seem very suitable for life on a ranch. Her voice is another thing that is commented on, as have a nasal, brittle quality. Crook’s personality is somewhat of a mystery. His real personality is hidden by the racism of the time. He is hurt and shocked by people’s opinions towards him and so he feels the only way to get through life is to push back the same disgust to the other mean on the ranch. ‘This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here by me†¦I ain’t wanted in the bunk-house, and you ain’t wanted in my room. Crooks doesn’t see that all his is really doing is stopping to their level thought, he just continues to treat others in the way he has been treated, and if he has a choice he just stays away from them. His personality would have developed differently if he had been born white, because his true colours are stunted by the racism against him. He teases Lennie, and takes pleasure in it, as though at last he is being able to do to someone else what has been done to him for his whole life, ‘ Crooks face lights with pleasure in his torture.’ The basic word to describe the personality of Curley’s wife is a flirt, although as we get to know more and more about her we discover that this is not completely true. In this essay I will try to explain why she behaves like this, and whether in fact she behaves like this just for attention and is concealing something. The personality of these characters is perhaps one of the keys to the book. However different these character are they are linked through their loneliness and the fact they conceal their true personality. The are both considered quite low on the ‘social scale’ but deal with this in very different ways as I will explain. As I have said, Crooks is bitter about being made to live along above the stable. He expresses this bitterness, and tires to explain to Lennie how loneliness is so disturbed that it drives you mad † I’ll tell you a get guys too lonely and he gets sick†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you.† It must be a relief for Crooks to be able to share some of his problems with someone, and he must find it especially east with Lennie who probably will not understand, and will forget what he hears quickly. He is the only one who understands Lennie, besides George, and befriends him. He looks past Lennie’s mental handicap and Lennie looks past Crooks’ physical handicap. Curley’s wife also finds it easy to talk to Curley. She is so overwhelmed by her loneliness, she seeks friendship from other men. She seeks out the friendship of Lennie for all of the others fear Curley and will have nothing to do with her. â€Å"Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while?† It is when she talks to Lennie that we discover a great deal about her past. She tells Lennie that she still dreams of what might have been, seeing herself as a potential film-star. However, in my opinion she has no acting talent, men (one from a travelling show, one who claimed to be in the movies) make her offers as a chat-up line. Her naivetà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ shows in her belief that her mother has stolen a letter (from her â€Å"contact† in Hollywood) which was obviously never written; her immaturity appears in her instant reaction of marrying the loathsome Curley. It was a hasty marriage to Curley is just a failed attempt to escape from her own s piral of loneliness. When she chose to marry Curley it was all because of the wrong reasons and only to get away from her mother, one person who genuinely cared for her, † Well I wasn’t going to stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere.† Now she find herself very line and she has no-one to talk to, † I don’ like Curley.’ Desperate for companionship she does not find at home, she tries to find solace with the other men. They are uneasy about this, as they think her to be seriously promiscuous, and are fearful of Curley’s reaction. Her inappropriate dress on the ranch and her manner brand her as a â€Å"tart†. She can not escape from this image and so she uses it so that she is noticed and can talk to people. Although in my opinion instead of being the mature and flirtatious female that the men see, she is in fact like a little girl yearning for her home. She even talks to people who she considers to be ‘out of her league,’ but in a way this makes her a more tragic character, because unlike the others, even Lennie, she seems not to understand her limitations – or she refuses to admit them. She treats those below her in an unnecessarily disdainful way. There is one point in the book when Curley’s wife goes into Crook’s room. Crook, as I have said, pretends that he wishes no one to come into his room seeing as he isn’t allowed in the bunk house. However, when Lennie and then Candy come in we can tell that he was actually very pleased, â€Å"It was difficult for Crooks to conceal his pleasure with anger.† Candy and Crooks reacts to Curley’s wife primarily disgusted. On their faces they scowl at her and appear to wish that she wasn’t there. However as Curley’s wife points out it is doubtful whether they really feel this, for they would not doubt have acted very different if they were alone, â€Å"If I catch one man alone, I get along fine with him. But just le two guys get together and you just wont talk†¦you’re all scared of each other. Curley’s wife is very rude to Crooks and says, † I’m standing here talking to a nigger.† I think her reaction is like this because she feels very powerful to be talking to someone as sad and lonely as herself, but who is looked down upon by others. She likes to use this rare power and so when Crooks finally cracks and stands up to her she does everything with her capable possibility to make him feel small and unnecessary. â€Å"Listen, Nigger,’ she said. ‘ You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?’ This immediately makes Crooks turn into a no one. Every trace of a personality disappears, and he just answers in a monotonous voice. After she leave Candy says,’ That bitch didn’t ought to of said that to you.’ And Crooks replies by saying ,’ It wasn’t nothing, you guys coming in an’ setting made me forget.’ Crooks obviously was so happy by having the company of some men that he forgets his place (in those times) and stood up to her. He then realised what he had done and remembered how he should have behaved. For that one small part of the story we saw the real Crooks, the one who is not concerned with racism, because for that very small amount of time he believe himself to be normal. Curley’s wife though doesn’t have a very suprising reaction to Candy (the old-swamper) and Crooks. I believe that she is angry because she just realised how messy her life is. She tries to stay calm and talk to them as thought they are beneath her, but all the time she realises that she is just as sad and lonely as them. She sees that they are the only people she can have a proper conversation with are, as she describes them ‘ a nigger, an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep.† At one point in the conversation she says, † Whatt ya think I am, a kid?† and then she continues to talk about how she was nearly in the pictures. Of course, she is just a kid, who doesn’t understand herself. He also wants to be part of George and Lennie’s dream. He said that he would work for free. He gives up on the farm dream when he realizes it isn’t going to work out. Talk about this. Also say that crooks was nasty to lennie then nice. I would describe Curley’s wife as a sympathetic figure. There is a very strong description towards the end of the book, just as she has been killed by Lennie, † And the meanness and the planning and the discontented and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Curley’s wife has had a very unfortunate life. She made some wrong decisions and has been punished for them, by dying unhappy at such as young age. To all the other people on the ranch she is only important because she is the wife of Curley, and that explains why she is given no other name. They are scared of getting involved with her because of what Curley might do to them. No-one is ever actually interesting in her. I feel sorry for her that someone who has the potential to be so sweet and calm has lives such as sad life and has died before anyone knows her true colours. Crook, like Curley’s wife has had a sad life for the later part of his life at least. Nothing will ever get better for him, because of his colour. The war Steinbeck talks about him is very controversial nowadays and would not be accepted. At the time that this book was written this language would have been more in use and so perhaps it would have been more acceptable, meaning that Steinbeck was not ware of its full impact. The fact that he portrays crooks as a unhappy and meaningful character must indicate that the author believes racism to be unfair, or else he would have been portrayed as evil, someone deserving what he got. Many upon reading this book may believe that the key issue is George and Lennie, but in fact this novel raises many questions about discrimination and loneliness.

Differences Between Mesopotamia And Egypt - 1337 Words

Although Mesopotamia and Egypt are similar in many ways, they also have many differences. This essay will point out the differences and similarities of how these civilizations were governed, how the geography affected the people of these civilizations and the outlook these people had. Geography helped to define both Mesopotamia and Egypt, but Egypt, without a doubt had an easier lifestyle and definitely not as difficult as Mesopotamia. Egypt was mostly cut off from the entire world by the environment on all sides and was safe and calm for many years. As a result of this they developed much differently politically, religiously, and socially compared to Mesopotamia. The geography of Mesopotamia affected the people in many ways. The people started their cities on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They did this, most likely because farming was only possible with good irrigation. Also because the rivers had a good supply of fish. However, even though the rivers provided all of this, they caused a great amount of destruction and death with unpredictable floods. The geography of Egypt affected the people their much differently. The Nile river was very fertile and easy to farm because the Nile flooded very predictably, unlike the rivers of Mesopotamia. The Nile made it easy to travel up and down the river, making it easier for Egypt to unite, much different from Mesopotamia. Egypt was also very isolated due to the deserts surrounding them. These characteristics resulted inShow MoreRelatedSimilarities And Differences Between Ancient Egypt And Mesopotamia1125 Words   |  5 Pagesago there existed two main civilizations: Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and Ancient Egypt along the Nile. Even though Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt were both advanced civilizations they had many differences such as their government, religion, as well as their trade and society. Mesopotamian culture thought negatively about its gods, and had conflict, cultural diffusion, and a decentralized government while Ancient Egypt thought high ly of its gods, had a centralizedRead MoreCompare and COntarst1518 Words   |  7 Pages Egypt and Mesopotamia have both similarities and differences, throughout both of these civilizations from back to 3,500 B.C. The political and social structures in these civilizations were different and the same in their own way. The political differences between Egypt and Mesopotamia included hierarchy power, land control, and centralized government. The similarities between both civilizations are social class, male patriarchy, and kings. Egypt and Mesopotamia both had differences of their politicalRead MoreEgypt Mesopotamia Comparison961 Words   |  4 PagesEgypt and Mesopotamia Comparison In order to completely understand the relationship between two events, comparing and contrasting is necessary. Through comparing similarities and differences it is easier to analyze why things developed and occurred the way they did. For example, in comparing Egypt and Mesopotamia it will be easier to achieve understanding of major aspects of their culture, the way other cultures impacted them, and their influence on the future. InRead MoreEssay on Compare and Contrast Egypt and Mesopotamia901 Words   |  4 PagesEgypt developed around the Nile River, while Mesopotamia developed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Egypt and Mesopotamia grew into complex civilizations. Politically, both Egypt and Mesopotamia had a government with one main ruler, but Egypt had a centralized government with a pharaoh, while Mesopotamia had a decentralized government with a king. Socially, both civilizations were patriarchal, but Egypt was more lenient towards women while Mesopotamia was stric ter. The political and socialRead MoreSimilarities Between Ancient Egypt And Mesopotamia951 Words   |  4 PagesAncient Egypt and Mesopotamia. However, because of the different geography, exposure to outside invasion, influence, and beliefs, Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia came to not only contrast in political and social structures but also share similarities in them as well. When it came to the development of Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations politics played a prominent role in structuring the very foundation of each respective civilization. For instance, when it came to Ancient Egypt there existedRead MoreEgypt And Mesopotamia Similarities751 Words   |  4 Pages Mesopotamia and Egypt were both part of the creation of the worlds first civilizations. These countries shared many similarities and differences within their society, political structure, and their religions. Mesopotamian and Egypt both flourished near rivers in which enabled them to become an agricultural enriched society. While both civilizations had the advantage of the rivers, Egypt did not have the fertile hinterland that allowed Mesopotamia to excel in agriculture. Through a political standpointRead MoreSimilarities Between Ancient Mesopotamia And Egypt1101 Words   |  5 PagesCultural Differences and Similarities While describing the cultural among the people of Mesopotamia and Egypt, I learned the differences and similarities in culture. The birth of Mesopotamian Civilization began in c. 3000 B.C.E., in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Southwest Asia. Mesopotamia is a Greek word and it means ‘between the rivers.’ In contrast, the birth of Egyptian Civilization began in c. 3100 B.C.E., in a valley of the Nile River in Northeastern Africa. Egypt is a GreekRead MoreA Comparison of Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian Societies701 Words   |  3 PagesAlthough Egypt and Mesopotamia were both early agricultural societies built upon the water provided by the major rivers which sustained them, they exhibited important differences as a consequence of the different physical environments in which they developed. In this paper I will first focus on what I consider to be the major aspects of these differences in environment and then explore the consequences of these differen ces in their religious beliefs, political organization and commercial practicesRead MoreThe Rise Of Civilizations On Egypt And Mesopotamia1530 Words   |  7 PagesThe rise of civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia occurred around the same time and the environment and natural forces affected the similarities and differences in social, political, and economic stability. There were many similarities and differences between both of these countries as well. In both cases, it was the river valley and geography that affected the agriculture, religious views, and government structures. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization developed in the Middle East and wereRead MoreAncient Empires1235 Words   |  5 Pagesstarted out at the same time and evolved into empires of great similarities, yet compelling differences lie between them. The two countries represent societies beginnings with their impressive work and there astonishing achievements with such little technology at their disposal,  nevertheless brilliant minds found ways to design massive buildings and a new form of language at their time. Mesopotamia and Egypt show there similarities in the aspects of economic, political, and social elements with amazing