The

Civilization A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of state (polity), the state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyon ...

and Barbarism was a dichotomy used during the

Argentine Civil War The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of civil conflicts of varying intensity that took place in the territories of Argentina from 1814 to 1853. Beginning concurrently with the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818), the conflict prevente ...

by the

Unitarian Party The Unitarian Party was the political party who had proponents the concept of a unitary state (centralized government) in Buenos Aires during the Argentine Civil Wars, civil wars that shortly followed the Declaration of Independence of Argenti ...

. The dichotomy can be found in books such as ''

Facundo ''Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism'' (original Spanish title: ''Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie'') is a book written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a writer and journalist who became the seventh president of Argentina. It is a corne ...

'', by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, or ''The New Troy'' by the contemporary French Alexandre Dumas, who wrote it based on reports by the Unitarian Melchor Pacheco. In this dichotomy, "civilization" makes reference to the values and ideas of Europe, and "barbarism" to the rejection of them. Unitarians thought that Buenos Aires should impose those values to the other regions of the country. The Federal party thought instead that the country should follow its own traditions and develop their own political systems, allowing autonomy to each region.

See also