Did Western Civilization Borrow Concepts and Ideas from the East?
More Thoughts on Naoise Mac Sweeney's Book: The West
Previously I wrote an article about the book The West by Naoise Mac Sweeney in which I challenged the two main premises of her book. Those two main premises are as follows. First, Western Civilization is not some unbroken chain of events from antiquity to today. Second, Western Civilization is just a concept designed to support imperialism and racism. Let us examine her arguments.
As I pointed out in my article, with respect to her first point, it does not seem anyone but her has been taught Western Civilization is some unbroken chain of events from antiquity to today. In fact, the two references she gives supporting her assertions of as she calls it from “Plato to NATO” actually state the opposite. This point is important. She repeats throughout her book this idea that we have been taught that the development of Western Civilization was this unbroken chain of events. I guess if you repeat something enough times you will believe it is true, but I was not able to find that her theory of being taught (brainwashed) that the development of Western Civilization was this unbroken chain of events anywhere. In her book she stresses it was not an unbroken chain of events, but frankly I cannot find any credible source who has stated it was.
With respect to the second point, I claim that: Western Civilization was a driving force for the elimination of racism and in particular slavery, and the elimination, or at the least unwinding, of imperial empires. Much of my first article is focused on this topic.
A colleague of mine who read the article says I missed the point. The point Mac Sweeney was trying to make, if not well articulated, was that she “implicates the linear version of Western Civilization as denying eastern roots of Western Civilization. As such, the west is juxtaposed against the east as “us vs them” which in turn is used to justify imperialism and slavery.”
Well, let us go back to what I said previously. I do not know who is asserting this “linear version of Western Civilization.” As I pointed out in my previous article, the development of Western Civilization has been anything but linear and unbroken. I still have not been able to find anyone who states so, although I have been able to find a few academics who state not. It seems to me some academics produce a statement that is not true, suggest that is true, and then spend their time writing books and articles about why it is not true (Mac Sweeney in particular).
My education is business. Today I teach finance and accounting. I never took a single college psychology, philosophy, political science, or history course. Yet even with my limited education I understand that the development of Western Civilization was not a linear and unbroken chain of events AND that what we now know as Western Civilization did not develop in isolation from the rest of the world.
Where would Western Civilization be without paper, printing, gunpowder, noodles, porcelain, the compass, and the clock all invented by the Chinese? Where would Western Civilization be without Hindu-Arabic numerals? Where would Western Civilization be without the pioneering work in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and other sciences that occurred in the Middle East? Where would Western Civilization be without the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes from India and China to the Middle East, that have been operating for 2,000 years? Where would Western Civilization be without the contributions to literature from the east, such as the Tales of the Arabian Nights?
You do not need a doctoral degree to know about the transfer of technologies across the globe, even the globe of 2,000 years ago. I remember learning about many of the above-mentioned transfers of technology in grade school.
Wikipedia says Western Civilization is linked to ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and Medieval Western Christendom. Christianity plays a strong role in the development of Western Civilization and the main text of the Christian faith is the Bible. A study of the Bible will expose you the following groups of people: Israelites, Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians/Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites, Hivites, Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Medes, Elamites, Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Ethiopians, Libyans, Samaritans, Galileans, Perizzites, Girgashites, and a few others. All these people contributed to the story that is the Bible that contains the tenets of the Christian Faith and many of the fundamental moral underpinnings of Western Civilization such as freedom, liberty, and justice.
Note that peoples who form part of the Bible’s story did not come from modern day England, Germany, or Holland. They came from what we now call the Middle East and from Africa. So, who is denying the eastern roots of Western Civilization? Bible reading Christians? People who learned about paper, printing, gunpowder, and Hindu-Arabic numerals in grade school?
Even if you accept that this linear version of the development of Western Civilization is true, how it is that its truth somehow justifies imperialism and slavery? Slavery existed long before the development of modern-day Western Civilization. A book by an esteemed professor from Princeton suggest racism has been with us long before modern day Western Civilization. A summary of the book’s contents states the following: “This groundbreaking book refutes the common belief that the ancient Greeks and Romans harbored “ethnic and cultural,” but not racial, prejudice. It does so by comprehensively tracing the intellectual origins of racism back to classical antiquity.”
I agree that Western Civilization benefited from influences from outside the west. But Unlike Mac Sweeney, I do not think anyone was hiding the fact. My question would be, what does Mac Sweeney want us to do?
I expect everyone reading this article has an image in their minds of Native American societies. We recognize Native American societies, particularly prior to the appearance of Europeans, as ones where elders are respected, history is passed down from old to young, society is organization on well-established principles, people have a respect for nature and the land, and their societies had honored traditions.
That image on Native Americans might also include a proud warrior mounted on horseback. Some Native America people were extremely skilled riders using the horse for hunting and in battle. I have read that a skilled Comanche could fire off ten arrows in a minute while at a full gallop.
When I praise Native Americans for their skill with horses should I also caveat that by saying that they got their horses from Europeans because prior to the Europeans arriving in North America there were no horses? I think that would be foolish and unnecessary. I am happy to say that Native Americans were skilled riders and utilized horses effectively in their communities. I do not need to add – But they got those horses from Europeans!
Encyclopedia.com provides some of the justifications for imperialism. Those reasons include the bulls issued by Pope Alexander VI to undertake the conversion of indigenous populations to Christianity, finding homelands for burgeoning populations, gaining advantage against other national competitors (particularly in Europe), and for economic purposes (opening territories for manufactured goods and importing in new products). All those reasons seem logical, but none are unique to Western Civilization. Various civilizations have been spreading their religion, looking for new homelands, gaining advantage over competing tribes or societies, and economic gain, since the dawn of recorded history. None of the major reasons for imperialism are unique to Western Civilization.
The real difference between Western Civilization and other cultures is that in the West, we took teachings and information from antiquity, from other cultures and lands including the East, from ongoing dialogue amongst scholars and leaders, from the Bible, and from a good amount of self-reflection, and came up with a set of social and cultural standards that evolved into what we now consider Western Civilization.
The Chinese could have come up with Western Civilization, but they did not. They replaced an imperial dynasty with a dictator who was responsible for the death of one hundred million people. The Russians could have come up with Western Civilization, but they did not. They replaced their tzar with a dictator who killed thirty million people. The Arabs could have come up with Western Civilization, but they did not. They adopted forms of government based on a religion where to this day gay people are thrown off buildings, women are stoned to death, and people’s heads are chopped off in the public square.
The problem is not that Western Civilization does not give credit to its eastern roots. As explained here and as accepted by most thinkers, Western Civilization borrowed from many cultures and peoples in its development. The problem is that if you consider Western Civilization as the culmination of societal development, then by that same notion other cultures are inferior, and that idea is kryptonite to the progressive leftists who believe in cultural relativism. So, the answer is to attack Western Civilization, as Mac Sweeney does in her book. Maybe Mac Sweeney’s time would be better spent trying to figure out why the Chinese killed one hundred million of their own people or why Iranians throw gay people off office buildings.