From: josh@aris.ss.uci.edu (Josh Stern)
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Newsgroups: soc.history
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:52:54 GMT



>Jim Mann writes:
>In article <2AC6FD8B.15497@news.service.uci.edu> josh@aris.ss.uci.edu  
>>(Josh Stern) writes:
>>>John McCarthy writes:

I wrote in response to an opinion piece by John McCarthy which was
cross-posted to soc.history and soc.culture.indian.  As your response
to my response was only posted to soc.history, and I was following 
this thread on soc.culture.indian, I was not immediately aware of it.  
Similarly, Chris Brewster posted a response to McCarthy which appeared 
here and on soc.culture.indian, while your response to his response 
appeared only here.  In the future, it would be helpful to readers of 
both newsgroups if you would please try to maintain the distribution 
status of a given thread.

>I agree with a number of the points that you make, but I think
>you tend to overstate your case, dismissing some of the places
>where Western Culture did lead the world or at least act
>reasonably.

The "case" which I was trying to make was simply a refutation of
McCarthy's case.  Most of my responses to your points below will
reflect a sense in which you take my statements as stand alone
diatribe rather than responses to McCarthy.  Obviously, if my
statements contain factual errors then they are errors nonetheless.
But, again, in the future please try to determine whether the context
of an `re:' post is relevant to its contents and include that context
where it is so.

>> I mainly leave comment on the `sati question' to other posters, but
>> my understanding is that sati was not widespread enough in Colonial
>> times so that it should appear as a significant point in a discussion
>> of Western vs. non-Western civilization.  It would take an awful lot
>> of sati suppression to make up for the Crusades, 400 years of African
>> slavery, much genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and
>> Australia, and the A-bomb detonation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to 
>> mention a few highlights of Western interaction with non-Western 
>> cultures. 

>All cultures have such in their background, ranging from 
>the various invasions of Europe by Mongols and Turks, to the
>Japanese atrocities in China and the Phillipines.  This is
>not something Western Culture has a monopoly on.

I don't know about "All" but I agree with your general point here.
Once again, please remember that my statement was made in the
context of a response to an argument that Western culture is
``superior'' to others.  I was not trying to argue that Western
culture was morally ``inferior''.  Part of McCarthy's argument is
that, independently of ethical intentions, Western culture has
brought a beneficial boon to non-Western cultures.  Sati supression
was presented as an example of this.  Clearly, relative to McCarthy's
entire argument, it is relevant to list the negatives as well as the
positives when making an overall accounting.  I actually think that
one can find a lot better examples of important positives, with 
importance measured by gross effect, than sati supression.

>> Also, I don't know how much of sati suppression was motivated 
>> by compassion for "the heathen" and how much was motivated by the same 
>> sort of attitudes which made the British feel a need to supress semi-nudity 
>> wherever they encountered that ``evil'' practice.

>This is a case where you seem to be going out of your way to
>belittle the British.  Whatever their faults, the British 
>generally wanted to help the colonial peoples. They may have
>been condescending about it, but they did look at improving the
>lots of other countries to be their duties.  Kipling's "White
>Man's Burden,"  as imperialistic and condescending as it sounds to
>today's ears, was stating that it was the duty of the British to
>send out their best and brightest to help those who were less
>fortunate.

Two points, first, a general one:
It is notoriously difficult to determine motivations on the basis
of behavior even in contemporary contexts, let alone historical
ones.  Regardless of what one thinks about Marxism as a political
or economic philosophy, one should be ready to admit that it has
taught historians to look for ever-present correlations between
the actions of certain groups and the material advantages they
stand to gain by those actions.  Once identified, such material 
advantages are, in general, statistically more reliable explanatory
variables for predicting the actions of a given group than the
publicly stated ethical motivations of that group.  I would argue,
for example, that contemporary U.S. foreign policy towards Third
World nations is much more effectively understood by identifying
where the material interests of the U.S. lie, than it is by
identifying how principles like `Democracy and Freedom are good' 
bear on particular situations (I realize this isn't a novel point).
So I don't acknowledge accounts of what various Britains thought 
of as their global maxims of duty to be the end of the story about 
why they did what they did in specific cases.

Second, again, the context:
What is relevant to the argument McCarthy was trying to make and which
I was trying to counter with the above, is not what the motivations
or intentions of INDIVIDUAL Britains in India, but rather the question
of "In what way does the proposition `sati, as practiced by Indians,
is evil' follow from other ideological and ethical convictions widely
held by British culture at that time?"  The issue is a complex one and
I was not trying to claim that I had a complete answer.  Rather I was
trying to point out with the above that there are many alternatives
to the idea that it was a British belief in individual rights or the
equality of Indian women or something of that nature which led to the
British condemnation.  Some alternative principles might be: a) Indians
under British rule should behave as the British do, or b) Indians
under British rule should not be allowed to take extreme actions 
motivated by heathen religious beliefs.

>>> 	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.

>> A little more objectivity is called for here.  Basically all  
>>traditional 
>> cultures have laws which their people respect, and grant their  
>>people 
>> rights which they feel are important and to which they are  
>>entitled.  
>> Cultures typically differ substantially in what these laws and  
>>rights are.
>> Unfortunately there are many countries now in which people do not  
>>have
>> many of the rights to which they think they are entitled because  
>>they
>> are ruled over by a small minority using military force.  There is
>> no question in my mind that the latter type of situation (e.g.  
>>Haiti,
>> Iraq, South Africa) occurs more often in non-Western countries and  
>>is
>> a bad thing, but there is also no question that these situations  
>>are
>> more attributable to the de-stabilizing influences of Western  
>>military
>> technology and economic exploitation than to differences in  
>indigenous
>> political cultures.  It is Western military technology which makes  
>>it
>> possible for so few to subordinate so many, and, to some extent, it  
>>is
>> Western economics which gives them the material motivations to do  
>>so.

>No, most of the countries that are autocracies today have been
>autocracies throughout most of history, including times well
>before they were influenced by the west.  Remember the Persian 
>Wars, and the Persian monarchy fighting against Greek democracy
>(depending upon the city state).  Democracy on a large 
>scale by and large is something that flowered in Europe before
>it did in most other places.  (I would agree that we often
>overlook the fact that it wasn't strictly Eurpopean. Some of
>the American Indian tribes were democratic, a fact that some
>of our Founders (like Jefferson) knew well.)

i) Democracy was very much the exception rather than the rule in Europe
until very recent times.
ii) To say that the government of a country is an autocracy is not to
say that there is no "rule of law" in that country.  It seems to be
a regrettable fact about people that many of them psychologically
prefer autocratic systems of government - at least until they are 
persuaded that some other system holds overwhelming material
advantages for them.
iii) I did not say that the origination or existence of autocracies was
the result of Western influences, but rather that Western military 
technology makes it possible for SO FEW to SUBORDINATE SO MANY - I
meant to draw attention to both the percentages of the populations
(rulers vs. helpless subordinates) and how the subordinates felt
about the situation.  In my opinion, technology makes possible
situations where a very small minority subordinate a large majority
even though the majority is outraged and disposed to rebel.
The point is that Western influences have both encouraged democracies
and encouraged autocracies in non-Western countries.  As a thought
experiment, take a count of each among non-Western countries and
then decide whether there are a) more democracies or b) more autocracies
which rule primarily by military force and probably would have been
overthrown already were it not for the overwhelming superiority of
the technology that their small elite armies could bring to a fight
against any organized opposition, and which allow effective intelligence
gathering about the existence of any such opposition.


>> I like Western Culture too.  But you claim to be arguing that  
>>Western
>> culture is ``superior'' to other cultures.  Comparable lists of
>> cultural highlights can be compiled for many cultures (especially  
>>if
>> one makes the categories as broad as Western Culture).  Why are the
>> achievements of Western Culture ``better''?  More importantly, what  
>>does 
>> ``better'' mean?

>In music, at least, Western musicians (from Bach to Stravinsky)
>were able to take advantage of the musical notation scheme to
>produce very complex works, that thus could work on more levels
>than music written by someone who did not have such a system.
>The musical notation used in Europe also facilitated the evolution
>and growth of music in the West, because one generation of 
>musicians could easily study those who came before.

You realize, of course, that most of the music listened to
in the U.S., Canada, and Europe does not really depend on
written musical notation, though it can be so notated - we
have "Elvis imitators", not "Elvis interpreters".
Whether this music could have developed without a notational 
scheme is a difficult counterfactual question to evaluate. 

>Does this make Western music better?  I'd argue yes, overall.
>However, I don't think this says anything about the culture
>producing better musicians, overall. What it does say is that
>the musicians produced in the West had better tools to work with
>and thus could produce better music as a result. 

It so happens that I am heavily invested in Western music of many
types and have only a moderate exposure to some other non-Western 
traditions - e.g. Sudanese, Indian Classical (Carnatic and Hindustani).

One needs extensive exposure to both music of type A and music
of type B to know whether one really prefers music of type
A to type B, almost no matter what types A and B are.  Part
of enjoying music depends on developing the right set of mental
processes to `digest' it, and this happens for most people only
over time and with repeated exposures.  But ultimately one
would only say that type A is better than type B because one
get more enjoyment out of type A - the difference in enjoyment
is at least necessary, if not sufficient, for making such a
judgment.  So whether A or B is musically notated or not is 
largely irrelevant.

>Jim Mann            
>Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  

Josh Stern
josh@aris.ss.uci.edu
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.nepal,soc.culture.german,alt.food,rec.food.veg,alt.mcdonalds.nonUS,alt.smouldering.dog.zone