From: josh@aris.ss.uci.edu (Josh Stern)
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Newsgroups: soc.history
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 5 Oct 92 02:07:14 GMT

>Joe Wang:
>>Josh Stern:
>>>John McCarthy:

>>>	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.

>>It isn't controversial that SOME of the Western technologies worked better.
>>The guns and the ships for instance.  Continuing with your examples
>>however, it seems likely that Western medical technology was more 
>>widespread in, say, the year 1860, than Chinese medical technology even
>>though it was technologically inferior.

>One important point.  Today there isn't a "Chinese astronomy" which is
>different from "Western astronomy" or a "Chinese chemistry" which is
>different from "Western chemistry," yet there still exists a Chinese
>medicine which is very different from Western medicine.  This does not
>prevent Mainland China from having a rather high life expectancy (68
>years).

I chose the year 1860 for this example because it was a point in history 
which satisfied both of the following: a) European culture (including 
its medical theory and practice, such as it was) had become widespread 
throughout the world, and b) Western medicine and surgery were still 
extremely primitive, both theoretically and practically.  This seemed 
relevant in my response to McCarthy, as it provided a counter-
example to his idea that superior technologies are, as a rule, selected 
piece by piece and according to merit in the course of some abstract 
competition between various civilizations of world.  "If it works, then
use it," seems to me to be a maxim which is practiced by the OCCASIONAL 
individual rather than by the TYPICAL civilization.

As I understand things, Chinese medical technology TODAY is a mixture of 
traditional Chinese medical technology and Western medical technology.  
It may be the case that the meta-scientific notion of `technology' 
presupposes a Western viewpoint.  But given such a viewpoint it would be 
silly to say that traditional Chinese medical technology equals modern 
(Western) medical technology - which is NOT to deny that Western medicine 
could learn many valuable things from traditional Chinese medical practice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>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.

>>China did not have an electoral democracy last I checked.  Perhaps you
>>are referring to the state of Taiwan, whose semi-indigenous ethnic population
>>is governed by an opressive oligarchy representing a dominant minority 
>>population which fled from mainland China when Mao came to power there, and 
>>massacred over 20,000 Taiwanese for political reasons shortly thereafter with 
>>the tacit support of the U.S. government.

>What you said would have been quite true 15 years ago.  However,
>things in Taiwan have changed drastically.  Most everyone in the
>government (including the President, most of the cabinet, legislature,
>and bureaucracy) now are descended from people who were there on the
>island in 1949.  All the political prisioners have been released, and
>the "lifetime legislators" have all been removed and replaced by
>either elected members or members appointed by the parties based on
>how well they did in the election.
>
>One sign of how much things have changed is that Taiwan receives a
>full USENET feed uncensored, and from time to time anti-government
>postings appear from Taiwan itself. 
>
>One of the more amazing these about this transformation is that it was
>accomplished through internal changes in the ruling party. 

Thankyou for your remarks and attempt towards correcting misleading 
impressions my statements could promote.  I think that I should 
have added to my statements something like the following (see what
you think):

   Today, Taiwan has, IN THEORY at least, a representative, elected
   government.  This change has come about in the last decade. 
   Although no president of Taiwan has ever been chosen
   by direct elections, there is talk of such in the future.  Opposition
   parties are no longer illegal in Taiwan, although the actual govt.
   is still totally dominated by the ruling party of before.  The
   military and the intelligence forces answer to the President - in
   theory at least - who is an ethnic Taiwanese.  The political
   assassination of dissident spokespeople seems to be a thing of
   the (recent) past.  It is still the case however that "outsiders"
   cannot say how much power the president actually has, or who really
   grants him that power.  The "loosening" of the reigns of power in
   Taiwan has accelerated after the death of the ex-president, the
   son of first president, four years ago.  The current situation in
   Taiwan exemplifies the notion that real democracy, depends on both 
   the laws which govern a country as well as the traditions and attitudes 
   of the rulers and the people of that country.  
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>	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.

>>Which planet are you living on?  
>>Since when does Earth have a big problem with people thinking that 
>>"all cultural traditions are equally valuable"?

>>As far as I can tell, almost all Earthlings have firm beliefs about which 
>>cultural tradition is the most valuable - their own.  And that is the way 
>>it has always been.  Issues of multiculturalism in the educational system
>>aside, do you really doubt that a little more multiculturalism - as you
>>define it above - in the world wouldn't do the planet some good?

>True enough.  That's why it's so important to study cultures different
>from your own.  Only in that way can one find what is universal and
>what is not.  

Well said.  But maybe there is an even more important reason for becoming
aware of the beliefs, practices, customs, artifacts, and achievements
of cultures which are foreign to one's own - this is simply that in
absence of such awareness, people are likely to make ignorant 
assumptions about these things and to rely on non-representative
stereotypes.  Obviously, opinions, formed on the basis of false
awareness of foreign cultures, and actions taken on the basis of such
opinions, can be pretty dangerous for all concerned.


Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.celtic,sci.archaeology