In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On July 26 2017 14:01 Danglars wrote: Thread treasure. And I hope he kept his receipt for the whole classics major thing.
You see the thing is, I can actually read the book we're discussing, and indeed I have read it. Whereas xDaunt could only link to a wikipedia article about the book in his own language, and honestly there wasn't much evidence that he had even read that. That's the difference having the education on the subject makes.
Lol, the evolution of natural law in Western culture isn't something that is reduced to a classical Greek text for very obvious reasons. C'mon, Kwark, you're smarter than this. And if you're actually trying to fool people, you're doing an abysmal job at it. No one's fooled by the charade.
If they're so obvious you shouldn't feel any trouble listing the reasons. Thread rule two violation.
Are you shitting me? Is it not obvious to you why a history of the evolution of a concept over the course of 2300+ years of western culture (from Aristotle to modern times) would not show up in an ancient Greek text? Since when did we have to start constantly pointing out the obvious in this thread?
Edit: Christ, I guess that means that people are being fooled by kwark's bullshit.
Considering that (as I understand it) Kwark's point is that these ancient Greek texts are only very tenuously corrected to "Western culture" as it exists today, I'm fairly sure Sermokala hasn't followed what Kwark actually said (which would make your edit a complete non sequitur for the sole purpose of throwing shit at Sermokala and Kwark both), and I'm not at all sure that you did either.
No, I have followed kwark's argument and its movement quite carefully. It went from "there is no link from Christian/Roman/Greek culture to Western culture" to, upon being confronted with unequivocal evidence that there was such a link, to "yeah, but modern people would have come up with this stuff anyway." The bankruptcy there is patent.
Quite the opposite. It went from you claiming that Christian/Roman/Greek culture was the foundation to modern western culture to "well if it wasn't then how come Jefferson read a book and anyway you can't name a better start point for history".
The modern western culture is a modern western development that is as much a product of its own time and place in history as anything can be. I stand by that. Obviously there are links between different peoples at different times but the popular myth, that the Greeks invented democracy and the Olympic games and then gave them to the Romans who invented the Republic and marble and that's how we're here, that's a bedtime story that has somehow infected the public consciousness and just won't leave. Greece does not have a special or unique place in western cultural history. It's simply a part of the broader historical context. 1066 AD is as good as 490 BCE to me.
Yeah, I don't see how you can make that argument, considering that our holiday's come from the romans/Constantine, our calendar is Christian, our laws are very much Roman influenced, we style ourselves on "Democracy" an invention of the Greeks, Liberal studies in college is a hand-down from the Roman and Greeks. They were the genesis and much of what you say is arbitrary starting dates, really isn't. The reason you don't start @ 1066AD is because much of Western society at that point was heavily influenced by Rome and Greece, plus, Byzantine was still around and was a huge influence on Eastern Europe / Russia.
Now, we can talk about whether much of Christian mythology is copied from Babylon and the tales of Gilgamesh, but it's hard to make the argument that Western societies beginnings wasn't Rome and Greece (if you want, instead of society, think Civilization). Now, of course this is cherry-picked, because you know, most people aren't going to point to the Huns or the Celts as western civilization even if for example the Celts were around longer. Which is to say, that Europe before the Romans and Greeks were mostly tribal peoples without much written history (mostly oral). When people say western society they mean Civilization. A pre-requisite of civilization is writing, history, accomplishments, influence, etc.
Having said this, none of this talks about "superiority" or whatever. It's just cause and effect relationships. We have so many hand-me downs from the Romans and Greeks it's silly, which is why making the argument that our current civilization is not heavily influenced by these two giants of western history is remarkably dumb. By the way, I hate it when people on the "right" make that superiority argument. Indo-European culture (Sanskrit/Hinduism/etc.) and history is rich and magnificent, so is Chinese and Japanese, as well as old Civilizations like the Egyptians.
Also, did someone really make the "who taught the Romans/Greeks" jib? That's a rabbit hole. Who taught the teachers? There's something called genesis. No one taught Leibniz or Newton calculus - they discovered it on their own. That's the nature of discovery - there is generally no proceeding event. Who taught the Roman or Greek architects how to build? Where are these other European peoples architectural pieces? You don't hear about them in any historical texts of the time period, nor do any stand to do this day. All you see are stone megaliths that proceeded them. Certainly, the people who built the stone megaliths did not teach the Romans how to build the ampitheatre or the Greeks how to construct the Parthenon.
Technically, Leibniz and Newton werent the first ones to employ infinitesimals - Archimedes and a lot of other people before them did it before them. Leibniz and Newton didnt discover calculus - they just built upon previously existing ideas and made refinements to them.
On July 26 2017 07:47 Godwrath wrote: Weird, to me it reads like it's talking about that christianity has been the engine that has shaped most of the good western cultural values. Specially since he mentions marxism, but nowadays you never know.
Christianity is inseparable from Western culture. What we now know as Western culture is the product of classical Greek culture, Roman culture, and Christianity. The Enlightenment didn't happen in a vacuum.
I don't disagree with you about that (and by this, i mean christian), but i find that most of the time it had been blocking the way to where we are today, like a stone to circumvent in some way or another, not the opposite. Every advance, had been fighting the church's facts.
Since i am sure you are well aware of the counter-reform and how behind it left Spain in those areas which you describe as core good western cultural values through christian philosophers you mention, i hope you can understand how skeptical i am about religious conservatism when it comes to promoting anthropocentric values from classical culture for western culture.
I'm well aware of the bad parts of Christianity's history and how it obstructed aspects of the development of Western culture at various points. The difference between me and most of the other posters, however, is that I will not overlook the contributions that Christianity made to Western culture. You have to take the bitter with the sweet. Furthermore, you can't look at Christianity or the Catholic Church as being a monolithic influence on the development of Western culture. There never really was pure uniformity in Christian thought. In fact, Christianity became increasingly fragmented as time went on. Various factions within Christianity had different agendas and thus influenced (or impeded) Western development in different ways.
And that's why i specifically said religious (or dogmatic if it makes it more clear) conservatism rather than christianity as a whole.
This is not directed to you xDaunt. Rennaisance wasn't triggered by constantinople's fall. There would had been a renaissance despite constantinople's fall, and it would had been heavily influenced by the classics aswell. I would say that The new world "discovery" was bigger influence during those optimistic times but the transitions began much earlier than that point (centuries).
I also have to question how much it matters if taking Greek polis political (athenas) and philosophical as birthplace for western civilizations wasn't based on facts rather than mythos. At the end what matters is what people believes not what it is true, and i would rather discuss if what had derived from the mythos has provided positive values rather than if it is a mythos in the first place, and well if given the choice, compared to the long stagnation christianity provided during medieval times, i would take the greek/roman mythos any day of week aswell.
The main reason we point to ancient Greece as the birthplace of modern civilization is because that's the first account of fairly widespread written tradition. While there are of course written traditions predating the Greeks, the main writings were of laws, accounting and other day-to-day issues. So what did the Greeks give us?
1. Philosophy that influenced absolutely everybody up to and including Descartes. Hell, Platonic realism in one way or another is STILL a mainstream idea that pops up every now and then. Did Plato come up with that himself? Well, we don't know for sure, but it's very very likely. Most other western philosophical ideas have their roots in ancient Greece as well. 2. Political framework and philosophy. Once again, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. And of course, the Athenean Democracy they wrote about (and opposed in one form or another). 3. Science. Aristotle and his natural philosophy was one of the main influencers of every "scientist" up until the rennaissance. Greece also made major contributions to mathematics (one could say they founded the field as we know it). While you can argue that none of this would be possible without the inventions of Babylonians and Persians, it's kind of irrelevant: Pythagoras and Euclides are some of the first original thinkers in Mathematics and laid down the framework of how to construct mathematical proofs. 4. The alphabet.
What did the Romans give us? 1. Political philosophy (Seneca and Cicero mainly) 2. They spread the Greek innovations around Europe: the early Roman republics were enamoured by Greek culture. Hence why Virgil was commissioned to write the Aeneid and Ovidius leaned heavily on Greek mythology in his Metamorphoses. Of course Greek mythology in turn assimilated many pantheons from Asia Minor and Egypt itself, and there was very heavy religious cross-polination: unlike the Christians, if they encountered a God that they liked they were simply assimilated. 3. Christianity. While the early Roman empire was of course an opponent of Christianity, its quick spread throughout Europe was largely thanks to the Roman empire: both with its infrastructure and moving people around, and its latter adoption of Christianity under Constantine.
Were ancient Greece and Rome the only influencers of "western civilization"? No. Of course not. Another major player were the Arabs, who made important breakthroughs that rennaissance scholars and philosophers built upon themselves. But the Arabs were also very heavily influenced by Roman and Greek culture themselves. Then there's all the cultures the Greeks and Romans themselves incorporated (both them and the Arabs assimilated a lot of ideas from Asia Minor), and of course there are Norse, Celtic and other minor local influences that play a role locally. But I can't see how anybody can deny that Greek and Roman culture are one of the main inspirations and influencers of western civilization.
Finally, someone mentioned the Magna Carta and how that couldn't possibly be based on the antiquities, because it was in England in the early 13th century, while Roman and Greek knowledge was locked away in Constantinople and Rome. Given that the originals had long turned to dust (or burned in one of the many pillages of Alexandria), nobody had access to primary sources, but throughout history there was a class of clerks (monks in Christianity) dedicated to studying and copying (as faithfully as possible) what they considered valuable knowledge. Given that (1) this was not unknown to England and (2) the Pope was asked to mediate in the creation of the Magna Carta, I think it's pretty much a fact that someone in the drafting had read some of the ancients, ranging from Plato to Cicero. But even if none of them read a word of Latin or Greek, that knowledge was still passed down. The idea of Natural Law was not invented in medieval England, although it was the first time it was enshrined. The ideas about Natural Law are probably as old as law itself, but the first person to write a serious text about it (that we know of) was Aristotle. These ideas got refined by important Roman and later Christian thinkers, as well as Arabic ones (Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote a book about it, among others). And of course these ideas influenced the English court in the 13th century.
On July 26 2017 21:59 Acrofales wrote: The main reason we point to ancient Greece as the birthplace of modern civilization is because that's the first account of fairly widespread written tradition. While there are of course written traditions predating the Greeks, the main writings were of laws, accounting and other day-to-day issues. So what did the Greeks give us?
1. Philosophy that influenced absolutely everybody up to and including Descartes. Hell, Platonic realism in one way or another is STILL a mainstream idea that pops up every now and then. Did Plato come up with that himself? Well, we don't know for sure, but it's very very likely. Most other western philosophical ideas have their roots in ancient Greece as well. 2. Political framework and philosophy. Once again, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. And of course, the Athenean Democracy they wrote about (and opposed in one form or another). 3. Science. Aristotle and his natural philosophy was one of the main influencers of every "scientist" up until the rennaissance. Greece also made major contributions to mathematics (one could say they founded the field as we know it). While you can argue that none of this would be possible without the inventions of Babylonians and Persians, it's kind of irrelevant: Pythagoras and Euclides are some of the first original thinkers in Mathematics and laid down the framework of how to construct mathematical proofs. 4. The alphabet.
What did the Romans give us? 1. Political philosophy (Seneca and Cicero mainly) 2. They spread the Greek innovations around Europe: the early Roman republics were enamoured by Greek culture. Hence why Virgil was commissioned to write the Aeneid and Ovidius leaned heavily on Greek mythology in his Metamorphoses. Of course Greek mythology in turn assimilated many pantheons from Asia Minor and Egypt itself, and there was very heavy religious cross-polination: unlike the Christians, if they encountered a God that they liked they were simply assimilated. 3. Christianity. While the early Roman empire was of course an opponent of Christianity, its quick spread throughout Europe was largely thanks to the Roman empire: both with its infrastructure and moving people around, and its latter adoption of Christianity under Constantine.
Were ancient Greece and Rome the only influencers of "western civilization"? No. Of course not. Another major player were the Arabs, who made important breakthroughs that rennaissance scholars and philosophers built upon themselves. But the Arabs were also very heavily influenced by Roman and Greek culture themselves. Then there's all the cultures the Greeks and Romans themselves incorporated (both them and the Arabs assimilated a lot of ideas from Asia Minor), and of course there are Norse, Celtic and other minor local influences that play a role locally. But I can't see how anybody can deny that Greek and Roman culture are one of the main inspirations and influencers of western civilization.
Finally, someone mentioned the Magna Carta and how that couldn't possibly be based on the antiquities, because it was in England in the early 13th century, while Roman and Greek knowledge was locked away in Constantinople and Rome. Given that the originals had long turned to dust (or burned in one of the many pillages of Alexandria), nobody had access to primary sources, but throughout history there was a class of clerks (monks in Christianity) dedicated to studying and copying (as faithfully as possible) what they considered valuable knowledge. Given that (1) this was not unknown to England and (2) the Pope was asked to mediate in the creation of the Magna Carta, I think it's pretty much a fact that someone in the drafting had read some of the ancients, ranging from Plato to Cicero. But even if none of them read a word of Latin or Greek, that knowledge was still passed down. The idea of Natural Law was not invented in medieval England, although it was the first time it was enshrined. The ideas about Natural Law are probably as old as law itself, but the first person to write a serious text about it (that we know of) was Aristotle. These ideas got refined by important Roman and later Christian thinkers, as well as Arabic ones (Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote a book about it, among others). And of course these ideas influenced the English court in the 13th century.
I suppose the more interesting question to what extent did Ancient Greek and Roman culture influence Eastern civilisation.
Ah yes, the old "disrupt the unit" perspective! Obligatory clip, although this is about gays in the military (same stupid argument for transgender... and blacks, back in the day):
On July 26 2017 22:15 Drake wrote: i just got the news that trumps plans to ban transgender people in the military ... seems russia shitstorm wasnt enough for him xD
You know how devoted he is to repealing Obamacare when he suddenly strikes out in a new direction without warning. Sometimes he does this weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times a day.
On July 26 2017 22:42 Aquanim wrote: To be fair, I would expect a functional government to be capable of dealing with more than one issue at the same time.
They do under a capable President. This one is just floundering. He thinks the Oval Office is a show and he's fishing for ratings.
On July 26 2017 22:41 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: I have to believe he's actively trying to get thrown out of office. How low can his numbers get now after this decision?
I don't think anyone bothered by this was supporting him anyway.
On July 26 2017 21:59 Acrofales wrote: The main reason we point to ancient Greece as the birthplace of modern civilization is because that's the first account of fairly widespread written tradition. While there are of course written traditions predating the Greeks, the main writings were of laws, accounting and other day-to-day issues. So what did the Greeks give us?
1. Philosophy that influenced absolutely everybody up to and including Descartes. Hell, Platonic realism in one way or another is STILL a mainstream idea that pops up every now and then. Did Plato come up with that himself? Well, we don't know for sure, but it's very very likely. Most other western philosophical ideas have their roots in ancient Greece as well. 2. Political framework and philosophy. Once again, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. And of course, the Athenean Democracy they wrote about (and opposed in one form or another). 3. Science. Aristotle and his natural philosophy was one of the main influencers of every "scientist" up until the rennaissance. Greece also made major contributions to mathematics (one could say they founded the field as we know it). While you can argue that none of this would be possible without the inventions of Babylonians and Persians, it's kind of irrelevant: Pythagoras and Euclides are some of the first original thinkers in Mathematics and laid down the framework of how to construct mathematical proofs. 4. The alphabet.
What did the Romans give us? 1. Political philosophy (Seneca and Cicero mainly) 2. They spread the Greek innovations around Europe: the early Roman republics were enamoured by Greek culture. Hence why Virgil was commissioned to write the Aeneid and Ovidius leaned heavily on Greek mythology in his Metamorphoses. Of course Greek mythology in turn assimilated many pantheons from Asia Minor and Egypt itself, and there was very heavy religious cross-polination: unlike the Christians, if they encountered a God that they liked they were simply assimilated. 3. Christianity. While the early Roman empire was of course an opponent of Christianity, its quick spread throughout Europe was largely thanks to the Roman empire: both with its infrastructure and moving people around, and its latter adoption of Christianity under Constantine.
Were ancient Greece and Rome the only influencers of "western civilization"? No. Of course not. Another major player were the Arabs, who made important breakthroughs that rennaissance scholars and philosophers built upon themselves. But the Arabs were also very heavily influenced by Roman and Greek culture themselves. Then there's all the cultures the Greeks and Romans themselves incorporated (both them and the Arabs assimilated a lot of ideas from Asia Minor), and of course there are Norse, Celtic and other minor local influences that play a role locally. But I can't see how anybody can deny that Greek and Roman culture are one of the main inspirations and influencers of western civilization.
Finally, someone mentioned the Magna Carta and how that couldn't possibly be based on the antiquities, because it was in England in the early 13th century, while Roman and Greek knowledge was locked away in Constantinople and Rome. Given that the originals had long turned to dust (or burned in one of the many pillages of Alexandria), nobody had access to primary sources, but throughout history there was a class of clerks (monks in Christianity) dedicated to studying and copying (as faithfully as possible) what they considered valuable knowledge. Given that (1) this was not unknown to England and (2) the Pope was asked to mediate in the creation of the Magna Carta, I think it's pretty much a fact that someone in the drafting had read some of the ancients, ranging from Plato to Cicero. But even if none of them read a word of Latin or Greek, that knowledge was still passed down. The idea of Natural Law was not invented in medieval England, although it was the first time it was enshrined. The ideas about Natural Law are probably as old as law itself, but the first person to write a serious text about it (that we know of) was Aristotle. These ideas got refined by important Roman and later Christian thinkers, as well as Arabic ones (Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote a book about it, among others). And of course these ideas influenced the English court in the 13th century.
I suppose the more interesting question to what extent did Ancient Greek and Roman culture influence Eastern civilisation.
A debate that rages(a cool, dry, and dull rage) between historians to this day. And it may never stop.
On July 26 2017 22:41 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: I have to believe he's actively trying to get thrown out of office. How low can his numbers get now after this decision?
I don't think anyone bothered by this was supporting him anyway.
That's fair. I can't imagine he has too many non-cis community supporters. Hell, I bet Trump thinks that LGBT stands for Large Grabbing Billionaire Trumphands.
I'm sure the overwhelming majority of his voter base will applaud this for the betterment of cost cutting/military morale/America's morality. I wonder what the LGBT supporters of Trump feel about this recent decision from a "friend of the LGBT community".
On July 26 2017 15:29 Sermokala wrote: Beacuse you're the one thats arguing that the Romans weren't unique and the Chinese did the same as them. You can't change a non han chinese person to be a han Chinese person but you can romanize people by making them want to be roman. Romans just asked people to bend the knee and pay taxes. your example of the Chinese is them changing the local 's culture to hand culture. Its completely different and what I said is true. My point wasn't that perceived cultural supremacy was different my point was how the Romans got about spreading their culture was unique which is true.
Good lord. Do you even remember where you started? Let me bring it up for you:
If there is any truth to "western culture" being under attack I think it has to be in this. Western civilization repeats the themes of "bringing civilization to the unwashed barbarians". Imperialism and forcing others to assimilate to our way of doing things is the legacy of everything that we are today. In many cases our way of doing things is better then other peoples and I won't hear anyone saying otherwise.
How is there no element of "perceived cultural superiority" in the phrase "bringing civilization to the unwashed barbarians"? Where did you say anything about the the Romans? I honestly guessed you were talking about post-Enlightenment imperial powers, seeing as they're much more closely related to modern Western civilization than the Romans. Nobody is arguing that Western culture is self-loathing due to guilt over the Roman Empire rofl.
Are you familiar at all with the Tibetans and Uighurs? Neither group was even under Han rule until 1911 (i.e. the birth of modern China), and China's government had enough problems just ruling China proper to worry about assimilation of Tibetans and Uighurs until ~1980 or so. Neither are really culturally Chinese (since they became a part of China only after Qing conquest in the 17th and 19th century, and were very loosely governed until recently), and separatism is an issue in both province. What China is doing right now is literally " imperialism and forcing others to assimilate to [the Han] way of doing things."
This is exactly what most (all?) Han dynasties did. To be clear, the Han Chinese are not (and were not) "two-way assimilating" with the conquered. They believed their culture and way of life is/was superior (and economically/technologically/bureaucratically it almost always was, like the imperial powers), and literally saw/see themselves as "taming the barbarians." How do you think the civilizations that China previously conquered felt as they were being assimilated? Likely the same as the Tibetan and Uighurs do today.
By your logic, if the Nazis had a population larger than the rest of Europe combined, won WWII, united Europe under Nazi rule and culture, and persisted for a 1000 years to a time where Europe was essentially culturally homogeneous under a united and democratic European rule, you would not consider the Nazis to be imperialist cultural oppressors in the 1940s. Because they were merely "assimilating" the barbaric Europeans, which was different from the how the Romans did it.
What kind of logic is that? ------------------------------------
So final recap! What you said was under attack was this: "Western civilization repeats the themes of "bringing civilization to the unwashed barbarians". Imperialism and forcing others to assimilate to our way of doing things is the legacy of everything that we are today."
What you said has nothing to do with "method of nation building." It has nothing do with the Chinese being exactly the same as the West. Or the Romans (God knows how they even entered the discussion, but here we are). It does not have to do with whether you can "change a non han chinese person to be a han Chinese person but you can romanize people by making them want to be roman" No, your point was quite clearly about the West's unique legacy of imperialism and cultural oppression.
We have conclusively shown that imperialism and cultural oppression is by no means a legacy unique to Western culture. I have gone into detail explaining that the same thing has happened in China for thousands of years, and is still happening today. xDaunt brought up examples of other civilizations doing it as well. To be honest, pretty much every dominant civilization in history did it so it wasn't hard.
Trump continues to think Twitter is the appropriate venue to make sweeping policy statements. Instead of, you know, the actual people or departments below him in charge of these sweeping policy statements.
On July 26 2017 23:10 TheTenthDoc wrote: Trump continues to think Twitter is the appropriate venue to make sweeping policy statements. Instead of, you know, the actual people or departments below him in charge of these sweeping policy statements.
I highly doubt Mattis really cares and that he'll do anything about it. Mattis don't take shit from no one. First Arabs and Mexicans. Now LGBT. Next are the blacks. What will he do next? Stay tuned on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z!
On July 26 2017 23:10 TheTenthDoc wrote: Trump continues to think Twitter is the appropriate venue to make sweeping policy statements. Instead of, you know, the actual people or departments below him in charge of these sweeping policy statements.
I highly doubt Mattis really cares and that he'll do anything about it. Mattis don't take shit from no one.
I hope so, because otherwise we'd be kicking trans people out of the Public Health Service.commissioned corps for no reason instead of just a terrible reason.
EPT
