From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: World Culture and Western Culture
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 27 Sep 92 17:34:36

The following is a response to the idea that Western Culture courses
should be replaced by multiculturalism.

I'll bet that some of the responses will be to accuse me of saying
things I don't say.

\title{WESTERN TECHNOLOGY---WORLD TECHNOLOOGY, WESTERN CIVILIZATION---WORLD CIVILIZATION}

	Today we have a world technology that is a descendant of
Western technology.  Before 1500 non-Western countries contributed a
lot to the technological base of Western technology, and today many
non-Western countries are very good at world technology.  However, for
about 500 years, say between 1450 and 1950, almost all significant
technological advances were made in the West.  It isn't very
controversial that the reason Western technology won out is because it
was better.  The ships carried more goods faster and more safely, the
guns worked better, fewer babies died, literacy became universal.  It
is also non-controversial that today this technology is no longer the
property of Western countries.

	The same is true of culture and the institutions of
civilization though not to the same extent as in the case of
technology.  There is a world culture today that is mostly a
descendant of Western culture.  Moreover, the superiority of Western
culture and civilization contributed to Western political pre-eminence
almost as much as did the superiority of Western technology.  The use
of the word ``superiority'' rather than something softer is
intentional; this debate has a tradition of vigorous language.

	Today the inheritance of Western culture and civilization is
not the property of Western countries.  In many of its aspects it is
the basis of a world culture, and this needs to be evaluated in each
area separately.  Thus the Western music presently dominates the world
except for India, while Western cooking traditions don't.  Chinese
cooking has penetrated the West to a greater extent than any Western
cuisine has penetrated China.  Indian cooking penetrated Britain more
than British cooking penetrated India.  The purpose of these examples
is advance the idea that Western culture is winning where it is better
and not winning where it isn't.

	Most important is the fact political electoral democracy
has turned out to just as much of a necessity for a decent life
in China, Russia and Burma as it is in the West.

	An early example of a cultural superiority contributing
to political domination is the conquest of Mexico by Cortez with
500 men.  The decisive battles were fought when the
Conquistadores were out of ammunition for their firearms and
using Aztec cotton armor that had proved superior to their metal
armor.  Sixteenth century Spanish Catholicism had many faults
and has long been intellectually and morally obsolete.  It was
intolerant as shown by the Inquisition, and moreover, its
adherents often violated its moral precepts.

	Nevertheless, the Spanish victory was substantially a
consequence of Spanish Catholicism's intellectual and moral
superiority to Aztec religion and ideology.  In the first place, it
proclaimed universal religious and moral principles.  These principles
were asserted to be applicable to Mexican Indians just as well as to
whites.  In particular, it proclaimed that human sacrifice was
universally wrong, not merely that it wasn't the Spanish custom.
These principles and the religious organizations that promulgated them
enabled the Spanish to gain allies and to gain converts.  (I don't
suppose that I would avoid charges of being pro-imperialist even
without saying anything about the results of the Spanish conquest, one
way or the other.  Actually, I think that both the establishment of
the Spanish empire and its overthrow after 300 years were both
advances for the Latin American peoples.)

	The superiority of Western civilization over traditional Asian
civilizations seems to be real though not so overwhelming.  The idea
of democracy is Western, but its application to non-Western countries
only began in the late nineteenth century, so that can't account for
the earlier Western cultural superiority.

	An early example of generally exploitative colonialism doing
good might be the British suppression of {\it sati} in 1829.  {\it
Sati} is the Hindu custom of a widow throwing herself on her husband's
funeral pyre.  Its suppression was triggered by Indian widows fleeing
to the British to avoid the enforced suicide.  This illustrates that
the British already had a reputation in India as people to whom one
could flee to avoid some kinds of injustice.  Before suppressing {\it
sati} the British argued among themselves about whether the evil of
the custom justified interfering with Indian religion.

	Here are some of the items which the West has contributed
to world culture and civilization.  With each of the following, the
reader should consider (a) whether it developed primarily in the
West and (b) whether today it is a part of world culture and civilization
and not just a phenomenon in Western countries.

	1. In politics.  The rule of law rather than the rule of
autocrats or conspiratorial political parties.  The idea of democracy
and many ideas about human rights.  The idea of national rights and of
international law.  The idea of political struggle for social goals
rather than just the oriental ideas of how rulers can be virtuous.

	The idea that slavery was immoral was followed by
the suppression of the slave trade and then of slavery itself.
This required a civil war in the United States.  Perhaps the
American Civil War was the first war that was even partially
about the rights of third parties, i.e. the northern whites
fought the southern whites at least partially about the rights of
southern blacks.

	The idea of a written constitution is American in origin
but owes much to the British tradition that began with the
Magna Carta in 1215.

	2. Harmony and counterpoint in music.  This has
penetrated all countries, and Seiji Ozawa is just as much an heir
of Beethoven as any Austrian.  Whether the Western musical
advances have any necessary relation to other cultural advances,
I have no idea.

	3. The novel as a form of literature.

	4. Analytic philosophy.  All other important philosophies
reached dead ends in which they are still stuck.

	5. The business corporation, the free market and
limitation of government power.

	6. The idea of progress in science, technology and
human affairs.

	7. Of course, the West has contributed its share of bad ideas
and regrettable cultural phenomena.  These include Marxism, various
forms of racism, Fascism, the balance of nature, Heavy Metal and
multiculturalism.

	The multiculturalism idea, that all cultural traditions are
equally valuable is today being overcome at great cost in the former
colonial countries.  Arbitrarily trying to invent alternatives to
democracy and capitalism are just as unlikely to succeed as trying to
invent alternatives to the airplane.

	As you see, I find great virtues in Western culture
and civilization.  Since Western culture and civilization form the
basis of present world culture and civilization, it make senses
to emphasize their study.  Of course, it doesn't follow that requiring
the study of these subjects will instill corresponding virtues in
college students.  It doesn't even seem to instill them in the people
who teach the courses.  If these ideas are correct, we
should add to the study of Western Culture the history of
its world-wide application.  This could include the study of
writers like Sun Yat-sen and Kemal Attaturk and the politics
of Westernizers like Peter the Great.  Opponents of Westerization
also need consideration.

	I have used rather provocative examples in this essay, and
perhaps I should change them.  Lest you think I haven't read any
contrary opinions, let me finish by quoting the writer Susan Sontag,
who may have changed her mind since she wrote the following.  After
all, what's an essay without a little racism.

     ``The white race is the cancer of history.  It is the white
     race and it alone---its ideologies and inventions--- which
     eradicates autonomous civilizations whereever it spreads,
     which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which
     now threatens the very existence of life itself.''
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: soc.history