From: sechrest@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Stuart Sechrest)
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 03:06:20 GMT


John McCarthy's list of examples of the contributions of Western culture
is certainly heterogeneous: the rule of law, musical harmony and 
counterpoint, the novel, analytic philosophy, the business corporation, 
the idea of progress.

One problem that people have with this list is the belief that these
achievements are quite common, or existed in some prototype form in
other cultures.  Thus, the idea that an epic poem is some sort of 
protonovel.  I think this view often overstates the importance of the
prototypes, and understates the uniqueness of the creations.

Another problem is that some achievements are not really
necessary.  The architect and writer Witold Rybzinsky has pointed out that 
very few cultures have developed comfortable chairs (essentially some European 
and Chinese cultures).  In other cultures people squat or sit on 
cushions.  They get along fine.  This does not mean that developing 
comfortable furniture is not a cultural achievement.  

On the otherhand, I think it is mistaken to view the spread of Western
cultural ideas both within and outside the West to be a simple transfer.
Cultural interactions are very complex, as one quickly finds in reading
of, for example, the development of Jazz or of the modern Japanese state. 

Still, the West has developed philosophical (in a broad sense) conceptions 
that are unique and powerful.  I think that to understand the cultural 
achievements of Western civilization, it is necessary to understand the 
alternatives that also developed in the West, and to understand what became 
of them.

I) The development of Science in the West is unique.  A variety of cultures
have developed practical approaches to a wide variety of problems.  All
cultures possess a great store of practical knowledge (which is often
ignored, to all of our detriment).  In the West, however, there was a 
search that went beyond the practical, to the mystical.  There was in the
fifteenth and sixteenth century, a search for God in physical matter.
Alchemy is now thought of as some sort of absurd superstition, and it is
embarrassing to some that Newton spent so much time on it.  Yet, as I
understand its development, many believed that if one could dissolve matter,
one would be left with the spiritual forces of the universe.  It is a
common notion that alchemists were trying to turn dross to gold.  This
was only what they did for funding.  They were searching for God inside
matter.  Of course this didn't work out very well.  The alchemists therefore
tended to divide into two camps.  Those who went on searching for God, and
those who went on exploring matter.  The latter we now call scientists,
and often mistakenly project a modern materialist stance on mystics such
as Kepler and Newton.

Other cultures did not look spend time trying to take apart matter, or
applying mathematics to planetary motions in search of God.  They failed
to develop the materialist underpinnings of science, and the experimental
perspective on the seeking of knowledge.  (None of my ancestors did either,
they were all illiterate peasants, most likely, so I do not find some sort
of reflected glory in the achievements of those with higher accomplishments.)

II) The development of Capitalism in the West is unique.  We somehow take
for granted that large-scale trade must have always existed.  Yet, large-scale
trade requires a number of innovations that occurred only in the West.
These include the development of banking, including money-lending for
speculation; the concept of joint ownership (originally for mills and
dams in the middle ages, later applied to ships); the development of
double-entry bookkeeping and other accounting techniques; the development
of insurance.  Without these innovations, the economy remains a bazaar 
economy.  There is little chance to get rich, and little economic activity.  
Trade is local and small scale.  I understand the Roman economy to have been 
of this primitive order (from Fox ``Pagans and Christians'').  Without
these innovations, only the state (the king or emperor) could afford to 
move large amounts of goods long distances.  With them, the world moved
very rapidly to global interchange and conquest.

III) The development of Republicanism is unique.  Organizing a large state
is a difficult matter.  Traditionally, large states are ruled by a hierarchy
of vassals.  Vastly smaller city-states had been ruled with certain forms
of direct democracy and republican councils.  The idea of governing a large
state as a republic, however, had never been tried at the time of the 
American Revolution.  At this time, it was quite clear that a problem with
monarchies was that a lot of monarchs were men and women of mediocre talents.
Harnessing a large state to the vagaries of an individual family was clearly
faulty.  It was obvious to everyone that more talented men should be put in
charge.  There were two alternative models that enjoyed intellectual support
in the eighteenth century.  The Republican model we know.  The idea is that
talented men can derive their power through the consent of the governed through
elections.  An alternative model was provided by the masons and other secret
societies.  Men of talent would form organizations that would rule countries,
eliminating hereditary aristocracy.  These organizations would recognize talent
and bring it into the organization.  The organization would be organized
hierarchically, with a central council (a politburo) running the show.

Masonic notions of government were quite attractive at a time when no republics
existed.  They grew less attractive as large scale republics developed,
and their political importance shrank.  Still, the idea of the organization
controlled state persisted, as I have hinted above, until it found flower
in the Soviet Union.

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So what about multiculturalism?  The preceding is intended to advance the
notion that Western ideas proved more effective in advancing technology,
organizing trade, and organizing large states.

One cannot conclude however that all students should read Greek or Latin epic 
poetry in preference to Babylonian or Sanskrit epic poetry.  To so insist 
distorts our distance from these ancient societies, putting us too close to
Odysseus and too far from Gilgamesh.

Cultural forms, such as harmonic music and novels, can thrive, but do so
at the expense of other forms: polyrhythmic music and extended poetry.
They represent important current cultural forms in the West, but I don't
see the danger in viewing these from a broader perspective either in time
or in geography.

Western Culture is hardly a unified whole.  There is nothing wrong with
learning about an interesting selection of topics from the history and
culture of Western nations.  To say that other traditions have contributed 
ideas worth studying seems not to be particularly radical.  The idea that
Western culture has produced a number of very dangerous conceptions, seems
equally commonplace.  But perhaps I am wrong, and these notions so overwhelm
both instructor and student in these freshman survey courses, that all they
do is total up the merits and demerits or each tradition to see which
culture wins.

We ought neither demonize, canonize, nor romanticize Western or other cultures.
Most of us have contributed rather little to any of them, so we ought not
worry about reflected glory or shame.  Appreciating the achievements of
other cultures should not prevent us from acknowledging the value of the
experimental method or the comfortable chair.

--Stuart Sechrest
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian