From: panwar@killer.cs.ucla.edu (Ramesh Panwar)
Subject: Re: World Culture and Western Culture
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 05:38:46 GMT

John McCarthy wrote: 

> However, for
> about 500 years, say between 1450 and 1950, almost all significant
> technological advances were made in the West.  

The word "West" has been bandied around a lot and it is time that
one used precise language especially when that someone accuses
others of using "befuddled" metaphors. 

Is "West" a geographic term denoting lands to the west of some meridian? 
Is "West" an economic term denoting economic prosperity? 
Is "West" a racial term? 
Is "West" an emotive term?

The answers to these questions which any objective person will arrive
at are no, no, yes and yes. The first three answers are obvious and
I will not elaborate on them. The last answer needs some elaboration.
Most Anglo-Americans' concept of the "West" includes ancient Greece 
but not modern Greece. Ancient Greece is included because of the 
pre-eminence of Greece as one of the centers of ancient civilization 
as compared to the barbarianism of the Anglo-Saxons. Any history book 
will attest to the fact that the ancient world consisted of a civilized 
core of various centers (Greece, Egypt, Sumeria, Persia, India and China) 
which exerted strong influences on each other. Outside this civilized 
core was a barbarian periphery which hardly had any civilized interation
with the core. The lack of any significant cultural or other interaction 
between the barbarian Anglo-Saxons and the civilized Greeks should lead 
us to debunk the label "Western" for ancient Greece which has been 
misappropriated by the "West" in its search for historical greatness.  

Likewise, the term "Western science" is an emotive term that is used
by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendents to misappropriate all the
scientific and technological achievements of humankind as their own.
It is quite non-controversial that almost all the significant
technological advances between 1450 and 1950 were made by the
"West" but that is hardly any justification for bestowing such
an exclusive label on science, denying its universailty and misusing
it for a crypto-fascist political agenda. It is quite non-controversial
that almost all of the significant technological advances until 1450
were made by the "East". But the "East" was never insecure enough to
feel the need to label its technological endeavours as "Eastern".  
And today, the majority of the people engaged in scientific and
technological research are again from the "East". Science and
technology will stand poorer if one were to let the likes of McCarthy
create a divisiveness amongst the scientists and technologists by
using exclusive labels like "Western" for science.

> There is a world culture today that is mostly a
> descendant of Western culture.  

This is so preposterous that I will not bother to dignify it with
any reply. 
 
> Moreover, the superiority of Western
> culture and civilization contributed to Western political pre-eminence
> almost as much as did the superiority of Western technology.  

Johnny, it is quite non-controversial to state that "Western" 
political hegemony resulted from technological superiority but you 
have not provided any arguments to support the claim concerning the 
cultural "superiority".  Moreover, "Western political pre-eminence" 
(your euphemistic label for all the enslavement and genocide) may
not have been the best thing that happened to humankind though such
an idea has a very strong appeal for small-town folks who are not
terribly overburdened with intelligence (artificial or otherwise).   

>	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.  

Johnny, your "manifest-destiny" arguments are best reserved for
the small-town folks. One wonders where you got your training from
since your rhetoric is similar to that used by the likes of 
David Duke and Pat Robertson. Johnny, you are in distinguished
company. But, then you are a McCarthy ... 

> 	An early example of generally exploitative colonialism doing
> good might be the British suppression of {\it sati} in 1829.  

Johnny, that was a gallant attempt to malign and dismiss all the 
accomplishments of the "East" by pointing out the atrocity of sati 
and at the same time to white-wash (nay, glorify) the atrocity of 
the "West" by pointing out one good that may have resulted from it. 
A proponent of sati (in the days when it was acceptable) may have 
used similar sophistry to press the case for sati. 

> 	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.''


Johnny, when you talk about "racism", speak about yourself. 
Your use of such an emotionally-charged quote (which uses the
word "white race") articulates your thoughts much better than all 
the words that you have used. It is obvious that "West" (atleast
to you) is synonymous with "white race". My third question in this
reply was motivated by your usage of this quote. 

Johnny, if you want to stake your claim to all the scientific and 
technological achievements of humankind as your own by using such 
exclusive labels as "Western" for science, then why not the complement
as Susan Sontag does? Shall we label prejudice, bigotry and genocide 
as "Western"? 

Johnny, you must realize that all the pressures of soliciting funds
for research have gotten the better of you lately - your clownish antics 
regarding the recent report "Computing the Future" being an elegant 
testimony to that fact. It is time that you paid a visit to a shrink 
(a real one and not an artificial one like Eliza). 

--Ramesh 
Newsgroups: soc.history,soc.culture.indian