From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Date: 3 Oct 92 03:16:27 GMT
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <JMC.92Sep27173436@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>It is also non-controversial that today this technology is no longer the
>property of Western countries.

And that's the main reason to study non-Western cultures.  The genie
is out of the bottle, and techonology which made the West predomainant
is now in the hands of non-Western cultures.  In order to understand
how that technology will be used, and to be able to communicate with
those who use it, you have to have a broad base of understanding which
extends beyond the West.

>Moreover, the superiority of Western
>culture and civilization contributed to Western political pre-eminence
>almost as much as did the superiority of Western technology.  

That I'll debate.  The West has had a longer time to deal with the
social and cultural consequences of technology, and there's more
inside of Western culture that conforms with technology.  But I argue
that outside of this, Western culture is in no sense "superior."

>Thus the Western music presently dominates the world
>except for India, while Western cooking traditions don't. 

Define "Western music."  That spans everything from Bach to Billy
Idol.  

>	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.

I don't understand what you are asserting.  Please explain. 

>	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.  

In what sense is the idea of "universal religious and moral
principles" Western?  Muslims, buddhists, and Confucians believe in
universal religous and moral principles, while Western existentialists
and deconstructionists do not.  I don't see the
universal/non-universal distinction as being a West/East one.

>In particular, it proclaimed that human sacrifice was
>universally wrong, not merely that it wasn't the Spanish custom.

And Aztecs probably believed that it was universally right.

>	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.

The application of democracy to Western countries only began in the
early nineteeth century.  I don't think this "earlier Western cultural
superiority" exists.

>	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.

Again, most of those things did not establish themselves in the West
until post World War II.  Also the "right to rebel against an injust
government" existed (and was applied) in China long before the West
ever thought of the idea.

>       2. Music

Sorry, I don't know much about music.

>	3. The novel as a form of literature.

There are Japanese novels dating from the 1200's.  The novel was a
very popular literary form in China in the late-1700's were it arrised
without Western influence.

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

How does this apply to Confucianism?  The existence of Confucian
virtues such as hard work and respect for elders has been cited as one
of the factors for the phenonmenal economic growth in East Asia.  
Hardly a dead end.

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

The joint stock corporation may be a Western invention, but the free
market most certain is not.

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

That I'll grant you.

>	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.

So on the whole, how can you assert that Western culture is superior
than non-Western culture?  Also, why is the idea of "balance of
nature" regrettable?

>Arbitrarily trying to invent alternatives to
>democracy and capitalism are just as unlikely to succeed as trying to
>invent alternatives to the airplane.

But how are democracy and capitalism "Western"?  If you think
democracy and capitalism are the most suitable values for a industrial
society, then you might convince me to agree with you if you define
those terms more closely, but I don't see how they are particularly
"Western."

>Since Western culture and civilization form the
>basis of present world culture and civilization, it make senses
>to emphasize their study. 

Not to the exclusion of non-Western society.  Democracy and market
economies may be nice things to have, but there is more than one way
to run a democracy, and there is more than one way to structure a
market economy.  The politics of the Japanese Diet, for example, is
completely different from the politics of the New York legislature,
and to understand how they are different, you need to understand the
underlying culture.

It's only by knowing about non-Western cultures can one figure out
what is universal and what is not.

>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. 

Peter the Great pushed Russia one step forward and two steps backward.
In his drive to Westernize immediately, he strengthened the serf
system and set Russia back considerably.  Also, if you read Sun
Yat-Sen, he asserts that the values which he expounds also derive from
traditional Chinese sources. 

The is hardly surprising since virtually all Chinese believe in an
objective and universal moral order which can be derived using reason.
(There's considerable disagreement as to what that order is, but every
Chinese I know believes one exists.  The consensus though is that this
moral order involves altruism and a lot of other things that make Ayn
Rand devotees cringe.)

>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.''

It seems odd that after going on about how Western culture is
superior, you end with a Western writer that you seem to think is
inferior.

It is quite strange, you've spent the entire essay talking about the
superiority of Western cultural values when all you seem to be saying
is that cultural relativism is a bad thing and that the idea that
there is a universal moral order which can be derived using reason is
a good one.

There's hardly anything "Western" about that idea.  Confucius goes on
at great length about it.  

You'd know that if you studyed some non-Western cultures.





Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian