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On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys.
That doesn't mean they are equal in their contributions from a purely descriptive standpoint.
I'm far more impressed with the 'creation and discovery' of calculus than I am of basic algrebra
I will grant you it does seem like an extremely complicated thing to compare the two as if you can measure one as being 'more' than the other though. My point is I don't necessarily think it's any more or less racist than the idea of 'black pride' on the surface.
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On July 20 2016 07:48 maze. wrote:
A state can just pass?
The lady just literally said "Michigan passes." I don't understand.
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On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we?
What is the white race? Was jesus white? Or a jew (or are jews part of the white race? I guess it depends on which authority on eugenics you consult)? What about aristotle?
For some context on this issue:
On July 19 2016 07:52 KwarK wrote:
It kinda depends when you think world history started anyway. White people didn't discover bronze, or iron, or steel, or gunpowder, or writing, or domesticated crops, or domesticated animals, or the compass, or paper. The Greeks and Romans were not what we would think of as white, this was before mass migrations from the Steppes and the Baltic regions which flooded Europe with northerners. While the Romans did occupy some white areas I think nobody is going to argue that the provincial British Celts were driving that civilization.
What white people did have going on for them is a quiet little backwater on the far end of the silk road that was sufficiently in the loop to get every single major technological development invented in China after just a few decades but didn't have to deal with Mongols very often and could slowly ascend the development ladder without too many resets. Now if you're just looking at the last 500 years then yeah, you get a very sudden and very dramatic feedback loop where advantage begets advantage and suddenly Europeans conquer the world and wipe out a bunch of people. But if we hadn't burned down the Chinese records in the Second Opium War we'd have literal millennia of the history of the greatest civilization in the world to read through.
So basically there was no world before white people made one and they just happened to find all this useful stuff or whatever.
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On July 20 2016 07:45 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Are these inklings that there was a plant in the campaign?
On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down.
That'd be fine too, what's important is you're not being a Chinese supremacist just by virtue of suggesting that in response to someone trashing old Chinese people.
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On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down.
China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan).
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On July 20 2016 07:50 oBlade wrote:Are these inklings that there was a plant in the campaign? Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. That'd be fine too, what's important is you're not being a Chinese supremacist just by virtue of suggesting that in response to someone trashing old Chinese people.
+1 hit the nail on the head.
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On July 20 2016 07:34 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
'the net contributions of western civilizations to the overall well-being of humanity outweigh the net contributions of african civilizations, or asian civilizations, or etc etc etc civilizations'
Ok let assume that all progress ever in this period was thanks to "Western civilizations" eh? Western civilizations also gave you imperialism, (still are) wards, death, famine, slavery etc etc etc.. so really if we are talking net positives I dont think you can just sit there and say, yep we are a net positive on the "world" when most of the world at this point is fucked up and western civilizations had something to do with it at some point and still do.
So the net positive thing is as I said hubris to assume without actually just thinking like "but lol iphones and internet we win !?"
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On July 20 2016 07:49 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. That doesn't mean they are equal in their contributions from a purely descriptive standpoint. I'm far more impressed with the 'creation and discovery' of calculus than I am of basic algrebra I will grant you it does seem like an extremely complicated thing to compare the two as if you can measure one as being 'more' than the other though. My point is I don't necessarily think it's any more or less racist than the idea of 'black pride' on the surface.
Well, if you want to learn about the creation and discovery of calculus, most mathematicians would suggest you look at far more than "western" civilization.
On July 20 2016 07:53 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:34 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
'the net contributions of western civilizations to the overall well-being of humanity outweigh the net contributions of african civilizations, or asian civilizations, or etc etc etc civilizations'
Ok let assume that all progress ever in this period was thanks to "Western civilizations" eh? Western civilizations also gave you imperialism, (still are) wards, death, famine, slavery etc etc etc.. so really if we are talking net positives I dont think you can just sit there and say, yep we are a net positive on the "world" when most of the world at this point is fucked up and western civilizations had something to do with it at some point and still do. So the net positive thing is as I said hubris to assume without actually just thinking like "but lol iphones and internet we win !?"
I think by insinuating those are somehow due to "western civilization" you're doing a pretty big disservice to non-western civilizations-the west didn't invent slavery or imperialism in the slightest.
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On July 20 2016 07:50 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? What is the white race? Was jesus white? Or a jew (or are jews part of the white race? I guess it depends on which authority on eugenics you consult)? What about aristotle? For some context on this issue: Show nested quote +On July 19 2016 07:52 KwarK wrote:
It kinda depends when you think world history started anyway. White people didn't discover bronze, or iron, or steel, or gunpowder, or writing, or domesticated crops, or domesticated animals, or the compass, or paper. The Greeks and Romans were not what we would think of as white, this was before mass migrations from the Steppes and the Baltic regions which flooded Europe with northerners. While the Romans did occupy some white areas I think nobody is going to argue that the provincial British Celts were driving that civilization.
What white people did have going on for them is a quiet little backwater on the far end of the silk road that was sufficiently in the loop to get every single major technological development invented in China after just a few decades but didn't have to deal with Mongols very often and could slowly ascend the development ladder without too many resets. Now if you're just looking at the last 500 years then yeah, you get a very sudden and very dramatic feedback loop where advantage begets advantage and suddenly Europeans conquer the world and wipe out a bunch of people. But if we hadn't burned down the Chinese records in the Second Opium War we'd have literal millennia of the history of the greatest civilization in the world to read through.
So basically there was no world before white people made one and they just happened to find all this useful stuff or whatever.
I'm well aware of the racial history of the West, which is why I explicitly declined to equate whites to western civilization. You're the one asking the wrong questions.
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On July 20 2016 07:50 oBlade wrote:
That'd be fine too, what's important is you're not being a Chinese supremacist just by virtue of suggesting that in response to someone trashing old Chinese people.
What's funny about this is that Chinese supremacy is a real, prominent thing in China.
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On July 20 2016 07:54 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:49 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. That doesn't mean they are equal in their contributions from a purely descriptive standpoint. I'm far more impressed with the 'creation and discovery' of calculus than I am of basic algrebra I will grant you it does seem like an extremely complicated thing to compare the two as if you can measure one as being 'more' than the other though. My point is I don't necessarily think it's any more or less racist than the idea of 'black pride' on the surface. Well, if you want to learn about the creation and discovery of calculus, most mathematicians would suggest you look at far more than "western" civilization.
And Biology, and Physics, and Chemistry and Philosophy..etc etc etc
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On July 20 2016 07:53 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:34 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
'the net contributions of western civilizations to the overall well-being of humanity outweigh the net contributions of african civilizations, or asian civilizations, or etc etc etc civilizations'
Ok let assume that all progress ever in this period was thanks to "Western civilizations" eh? Western civilizations also gave you imperialism, (still are) wards, death, famine, slavery etc etc etc.. so really if we are talking net positives I dont think you can just sit there and say, yep we are a net positive on the "world" when most of the world at this point is fucked up and western civilizations had something to do with it at some point and still do. So the net positive thing is as I said hubris to assume without actually just thinking like "but lol iphones and internet we win !?"
I don't feel like that's a safe assumption to make. The argument he made was merely that the most net contributions came from Western civilization. Literally anything else you assume or extrapolate from that is at your own peril.
I'm pretty sure all of those negatives transcend Western Civilization as well.
No one is arguing the west is a net positive while everyone else is a net negative. That is an extrapolated assumption you have made on your own.
On July 20 2016 07:56 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:54 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 20 2016 07:49 GGTeMpLaR wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. That doesn't mean they are equal in their contributions from a purely descriptive standpoint. I'm far more impressed with the 'creation and discovery' of calculus than I am of basic algrebra I will grant you it does seem like an extremely complicated thing to compare the two as if you can measure one as being 'more' than the other though. My point is I don't necessarily think it's any more or less racist than the idea of 'black pride' on the surface. Well, if you want to learn about the creation and discovery of calculus, most mathematicians would suggest you look at far more than "western" civilization. You're all taking a strictly factual (albeit complicated) claim and extrapolating irrational extremities from it that no one here is suggesting to be true. And Biology, and Physics, and Chemistry and Philosophy..etc etc etc
I don't disagree with either of these points.
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On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan).
No country has ever had global dominance at any level. Most any country has ever achieved was 1 continent and maybe large parts of 1 or 2 others. China had its prime time some thousands years ago. So had Rome, the british empire, the spanish empire, the nazis and many more.
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On July 20 2016 07:55 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:50 Elroi wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? What is the white race? Was jesus white? Or a jew (or are jews part of the white race? I guess it depends on which authority on eugenics you consult)? What about aristotle? For some context on this issue: On July 19 2016 07:52 KwarK wrote:
It kinda depends when you think world history started anyway. White people didn't discover bronze, or iron, or steel, or gunpowder, or writing, or domesticated crops, or domesticated animals, or the compass, or paper. The Greeks and Romans were not what we would think of as white, this was before mass migrations from the Steppes and the Baltic regions which flooded Europe with northerners. While the Romans did occupy some white areas I think nobody is going to argue that the provincial British Celts were driving that civilization.
What white people did have going on for them is a quiet little backwater on the far end of the silk road that was sufficiently in the loop to get every single major technological development invented in China after just a few decades but didn't have to deal with Mongols very often and could slowly ascend the development ladder without too many resets. Now if you're just looking at the last 500 years then yeah, you get a very sudden and very dramatic feedback loop where advantage begets advantage and suddenly Europeans conquer the world and wipe out a bunch of people. But if we hadn't burned down the Chinese records in the Second Opium War we'd have literal millennia of the history of the greatest civilization in the world to read through.
So basically there was no world before white people made one and they just happened to find all this useful stuff or whatever. I'm well aware of the racial history of the West, which is why I explicitly declined to equate whites to western civilization. You're the one asking the wrong questions.
But you just said that "western culture is largely a creation of the white race". So i wonder what you mean by the white race.
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On July 20 2016 07:58 RoomOfMush wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). No country has ever had global dominance at any level. Most any country has ever achieved was 1 continent and maybe large parts of 1 or 2 others. China had its prime time some thousands years ago. So had Rome, the british empire, the spanish empire, the nazis and many more.
We aren't talking about countries, we're talking about culture. Before WW1, Western culture literally controlled the entire fucking planet.
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United States44417 Posts
On July 20 2016 07:28 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:25 Rebs wrote:On July 20 2016 07:22 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:20 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:14 Dan HH wrote:On July 20 2016 07:12 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:00 Lord Tolkien wrote:http://thediplomat.com/2016/07/dear-steve-king-heres-what-asia-contributed-to-western-civilization/Dear Steve King: Here's What Asia Contributed to Western Civilization
Rep. Steve King’s ahistorical commentary cannot go uncorrected.
By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
July 20, 2016
The Diplomat mainly focuses on the Asia-Pacific, the world’s most dynamic and strategically and economically important region. Moreover, Asia, as well as the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas have featured some the most culturally, philosophically, and scientifically sophisticated civilizations that humanity has ever produced.
So, given this, the comments of U.S. Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa regarding the civilizations of the world are a cause of great trepidation and sorrow. Referring to non-white people, King asked: “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about — where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
He added his view that the greatest contributions to civilization came from “Western civilization itself…rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Unites States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
What’s discouraging about King’s statements are that they resemble an increasingly common viewpoint in the discourse among the right and nationalists in the Western world and among the rank and file of the Republican Party in the United States. It is a discourse that does not match up with the facts about the historical development of civilizations.
Modern Western civilization, after all, is a relatively recent phenomenon that arose through the fusion of Roman and Christian ideas in Europe during the Medieval Era. Other civilizations preceded, influenced, and coexisted with the West.
At the same time it is important to clarify that the opposite perspective on Western civilization–that it contributed nothing of worth to the world except imperialism and exploitation, and was a mechanism to ensure the privilege of a few white males–embraced by many on the hard-left and among progressives is utterly wrong.
It would be as fallacious for one not to not be proud of the achievements of his or her own civilization as it would be to be to think that other civilizations contributed nothing to civilization. Certainly, for most of the past half-millennium, the West has been overwhelmingly dominant, in what has been termed the “Great Divergence.”
The Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Enlightenment are among the unique contributions of the West–driven by unique institutional and historical factors–that enabled the scientific, medical, and political developments that have made world a better and more prosperous place than ever before. By the turn of the 20th century, virtually everyone in the non-West from the Japanese to the Ottomans was attempting to “catch up” with the West in the military, political, and economic spheres.
But we cannot and should not deny the achievements of other civilizations, both due to their own merits, and because of the contributions that enabled the modern, global civilization to come into being. And of course, in the sphere of music and the arts, it would be impossible to argue that non-Western civilizations were ever anything other than the equal of the West, as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Civilization itself arose in the ancient Middle East. The desert biome of that region forced tribes to come together and cooperate in order to produce the irrigation systems necessary to produce enough food for everyone. This led to an increase in the complexity of social and political systems in order to induce cooperation.
Thus, in addition to the domestication of crops and animals, the first weights and measures, the first bureaucracies, organized government and religion, writing, and the wheel all arose in the ancient Middle East. In later times, that region, which became a part of Islamic civilization, gave the world algebra, distillation, and advanced astronomy and navigation, which Europeans used to sail all over the world.
India gave the world its numeric system, including the number zero, plastic surgery, steel production, and urban planning with sewage systems. And among China’s many contributions are paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass, and clocks. This is not to mention the various other crops domesticated, production techniques, and technical achievements of various other non-Western peoples.
Western civilization, and indeed the modern global civilization built largely by the West, would have been impossible without the contributions to civilization from the people of the rest of the world. This is not to disparage the achievements of the West; nor should we ignore the historical failings of other civilizations. But we ought to remember and celebrate the contributions to civilization from all the peoples of the world.
Today, as the era of Western domination draws to a close and as other nations have borrowed much of the best from the West, we should expect to see many more contributions to civilization from outside the West, and from among non-White or non-Christian people in the West itself.
This is the apologism of the politically correct at its finest. And attacking the margins of a larger point is an incredibly lame and ineffective way of shitting on the larger point itself. If anything, all it does prove the larger point. Disagreeing with white supremacism is politically correct now? Of course. That is the power of dismissive labeling. It's PC culture providing accurate accounts of history. How dare they prove those age old white supremacist talking points incorrect! The nerve. White people just want credit for all civilizations accomplishments across all of history. So mean that PC culture wont let them. Anyone with even a remedial understanding of history has to admit that western culture has contributed far more to civilization than any other. The author of that article even has to admit as such, which is why his overall argument is so stupid. He basically is forced into shitting on his own point and proving Rep. King right. Uhhh what ? Thats a very very debatable talking point. On average I would say that is true but relatively speaking not so much. Western civilization has dominated human civilization at a global level for the past 300 years, and has been the most powerful civilization for far longer. Throw in Greek and Roman achievements from antiquity, and it's a really fucking easy call to make.
Human civilization is a story older than 300 years. All the big stuff, from writing to shipbuilding, from basic shit like animal and plant domestication, metallurgy, that's mostly Chinese and Middle Eastern. The stuff so basic and fundamental that you don't even think about it, none of that was white guys. Now I take pride in the fact that it was white people in general and my people in particular which shaped the modern world but we're not just talking about the modern world, we're talking about 10,000+ years of the ascent of man. A white guy wrote the Origin of Species, a fundamental book that changed our understanding of what it meant to be man and our place in the world. And that's huge. But he didn't invent writing. Or paper. And that stuff is so huge it's taken for granted.
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On July 20 2016 08:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2016 07:58 RoomOfMush wrote:On July 20 2016 07:52 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:48 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:43 Plansix wrote:On July 20 2016 07:38 xDaunt wrote:On July 20 2016 07:32 Plansix wrote:
Xdaunt: I taught history before I went into law. I have well beyond a rudimentary understanding. You are just wrong by almost every metric.
And second: that specific line, "what other sub group(race) has contributed more to civilization t(han the white race?)" is straight out of a clan meeting. It is white supremacist talking points 101. You many not be familiar because you seem willingly ignorant on the subject, but it is a common argument used by white supremacist. And it is born of knowing every little about history as a whole. Welp, facts are facts. Given that western culture is largely a creation of the white race (though I'll note that not all whites are part of western culture), and given the relative supremacy of western culture in the historical record, we run into a rather uncomfortable predicament, don't we? Civilization is larger than just western culture. And the majority of the accomplishments of western cultures are on the foundation of other races discoverys. Yeah, and we go all the way back to some form of monkey by that logic, which is why it's absurd to place undue emphasis on foundational issues. Sheer cultural dominance is a far better metric. Most historians don't really care about that metric. But it's works nice for your argument, so I can see how you would like it. And if that was the metric, China wins hands down. China has never has never had global dominance at any level. And we aren't too far removed (less than 100 years) from when China was little more than a colony to Western powers and countries emulating Western powers (Japan). No country has ever had global dominance at any level. Most any country has ever achieved was 1 continent and maybe large parts of 1 or 2 others. China had its prime time some thousands years ago. So had Rome, the british empire, the spanish empire, the nazis and many more. We aren't talking about countries, we're talking about culture. Before WW1, Western culture literally controlled the entire fucking planet.
I heavily doubt that. How do you measure that? Where are your sources?
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EPT
