Usually, people are broken down into three categories. For the mainstream economists, they usually break people down to Rich, Poor, and Middle-class. For the Objectivists, people are either Looters, Producers, or Moochers.
I propose a new class of people be created: Civilized, Degenerate, and Barbaric.
Civilized
The civilized are a group that is stereotyped as always liking classical music, dress very formally, and tend to be non-violent.
The truth is, the civilized are the main producers of a civilization. They tend to think long-term, have low time-preference, and are very mature as a group. They live, work, and often has strong ties to the community they live in.
A civilized man does not default to violence when resolving conflicts but isn’t necessarily above it. He will try to use dialectic to convince others of his position on disputed issues. He will resort to rhetoric if necessary but it always leaves a slight distaste in his mouth after employing such methods.
A civilized man has a strong moral worldview but, again, does not resort to violence to engage in enforcing it. Other means are often employed like public shaming in order reign in the offenders.
This moral worldview is often shared by others in the community and it provides a kind of glue to keep people together.
Generally, the civilized work for the betterment of their communities and try and secure a better society for their children and their future children.
The drawback of the civilized man is that he doesn’t know when violence or rhetoric should be employed and when. In the face of one of the other two group, neither of which adhere to the same standards or methods of the civilized, he will engage in his primary tactics to address.
Unfortunately, this can lead to disaster and ruin and so it is important for the civilized man to properly discern if the opponent he is dealing with is another civilized man or a barbarian or degenerate. Once identified, the tactics need to be shifted properly in order to properly engage his opponent.
Another drawback that is common amongst civilized men is that they like to apply their moral worldview’s tactics to the non-civilized. An example of this is the near universal reaction in the West to Uganda’s passage of the death penalty for homosexuals who rape children and disabled people as one of derision, despite that fact that Uganda is not a nation of civilized men.
Barbarian
The stereotypical barbarian is portrayed as strong, moderately intelligent, and often as a kind of romantic figure. Tarzan or Conan are typical examples of this. Truthfully, barbarians are merely man at his most primitive social state.
Sure, a barbarian can have modern technologies which were created by the civilized. They tend to use guns in modern times rather than spears and swords. They know how cell phones work and use them as much as the civilized do.
But socially, they are primarily tribal and have a distinct loyalty only to their tribe. Within their tribes, they have a moral code which holds them together and that moral code is often enforced by brutal means.
Honor killings and stoning of rape victims are some of the more extreme examples of this enforcement. In truth, they tend to not take the time to empathize with criminals and law-breakers and are quick to issue out punishment.
Those who exist outside the tribe, however, are viewed as fair game. We see this kind of behavior in Europe as the various refugees have little to no regard for sexual abstinence when it comes to European women.
On top of that, barbarians have no qualms about brutally enforcing their own laws people who visit their lands. If you’ve ever been to a Muslim nation during Ramadan, don’t chew gum in public during the day is all I say to this effect.
Barbarians tend to focus on long-term planning as well, but this usually is restricted to their own tribe. Usually, they do not focus on making things better for their children, but securing what they have and ensuring their children can at least have that.
Barbarians have often lived amongst the civilized in some form or another. While they do live in their own lands, when in civilized parts of the world, they tend to cluster into sections of societies where they are least likely to have outside interference. It could be ghettos, it could be trailer parks, it could be any number of places segregated from the civilized.
Barbarians tend to flaunt the laws of the civilized countries they live in though. This takes on many forms, from as small a thing as drug use to living as their barbarian counterparts do in the uncivilized sections of the world where murder of the “other” is common.
They also are prone to living in the poorest standards of living amongst the civilized. They possess a high time-preference and little maturity, preferring to engage in pleasurable acts now rather than later. This does not mean they are prone to them, as they still can retain their moral code and live alongside the civilized with little conflict.
The trouble with this is that eventually, the civilized grow weary of them and take decisive action, usually in the form of calculated brutality. In Rome, for example, this took the form of crucifixions, where those deemed less-civilized were treated much more harshly than barbarians ever could treat them. And while it is repulsive, such actions keep barbarians in check when they live within a civilized country.
Barbarians are also prone to conquest and expansion and don’t maximize their existing resources. Nomadic warrior tribes will often times conquer neighboring lands in an effort to gain more wealth, power, and prestige. They aren’t very intelligent from an IQ-standpoint, but they are very cunning in many ways which can surprise civilized men, which sometimes merits an extreme response from the civilized.
The civilized, you see, can engage in brutality just like the barbarian, but it can be measurably much more devastating and horrifying when employed. This is the barbarian’s downfall, in that they usually view the civilized as soft and weak, when in fact they are merely holding back.
Degenerate
The degenerate is merely the group within either a barbarian tribe or a civilized society who actively engages in behavior that will lead to its ruin. They are usually found within the civilized societies more often than within barbarian tribes because barbarian tribes have a more tight-knit relationship and very low tolerance for degenerate behavior.
In a civilized world, there are always degenerates. They tend to be the groups of people who engage in outright selfish acts, think nothing of anyone else, and destroy their livelihoods in the process.
Usually, we see the civilized become degenerates when they get too comfortable with their lives and begin to engage in their suppressed hedonistic urges. Once engaged in hedonism, they begin a campaign to validate their selfish and destructive desires with the civilized, who are usually overwhelmed by them at first because they fail to recognize the degenerates for what they truly are.
Barbarians too can become degenerates and that is usually when they migrate to civilized societies and engage in their own forms of hedonism rather than adhering to their tribal moral codes. They are disconnected with their roots and thus become degenerates because it is far easier than to become civilized.
There is probably nothing pleasant that can be said about a degenerate. They lack any sort of wisdom or foresight, despite some being above average in intelligence, and they attribute all their problems in life to external causes. They seek to destroy everything around them that makes them feel bad and will often infiltrate various organizations and institutions to achieve this end.
The trouble is, once a civilization becomes wealthy and prosperous, the degenerates increase in proportion as well. And once they reach critical mass, the civilization that they benefitted from and allowed them to engage in their selfish actions ultimately collapses. Their societies revert to barbarism and the degenerate is killed off.
That is the real drawback of the degenerate. They are the force that destroys civilizations, even if they don’t recognize it, which many usually don’t.
The one positive thing I can say about the degenerate is that he is very good at being deceptive, especially the more intelligent ones. Often times, he will engage in pseudo-dialectic debates with the civilized which leaves most onlookers confused and sometimes sympathizing with him. He will talk in a manner which disguises his true self, one of absolute abomination, with one of pity. Think of a serial killer talking about his “urges” or a child rapist talking about his “attractions”. In both cases, does it really matter what their attractions and urges are?
Conclusion
I think this sums up the various groups of humanity very well. Sure, there is no equality between the various groups, but I think it perfectly breaks them down. Of course, the degenerate is the worst of the bunch, with the barbarian and the civilized having a mix of positives and negatives.
I think it is important to recognize what kind of people you are dealing with when addressing certain groups. If you are engaging college protestors, you are probably dealing with degenerates. If you are dealing with immigrates, you are probably dealing with barbarians. If you are dealing with fellow church-goers, you are dealing the civilized.
That’s an example of the different ways in which you can recognize what people group a person belongs to.
It is also important to recognize the realities of each group. Barbarians will have little regard for people outside of their own tribe, the civilized will have trouble dealing with the other two group appropriately, and the degenerates are abominations seeking to destroy everything around them.