Rise of Cultures

Great Debates
1

Milum’s earlier comment about America’s right to do anything is granted by its power being derived from superior culture, while absurd to me, is, nonetheless, interesting.

What is the basis for the West’s rise to dominance over other cultures? Is this a form of cultural evolution - survival of the fittest, random mutations (technology) making one culture more capable of thriving than another?

What catch made the native American Indians thousands of years behind the West in development of technology (and thus, I suppose, dominance)?

What is the factor that made the West triumph over the East? A mere twist of fate leading to a leap forward in technology? I see nothing fundamentally flawed in the great philosophies or civilizations outside the West, other than their failure to develop scientifically. As late as the fourteenth century, Khanate China and Persia stood alongside Europe, often exceeding them in splendor and glory (certainly in numbers)…

But somewhere, at some point, something changed. Europe surged ahead - gunpowder, while not limited to Europe, put them in a position of power from their use of it en masse. Then - their dominance in the Americas, on that power. Then, the industrial revolution, the world wars causing leaps in technology.

Why in the West? What special traits cause Western culture to evolve so rapidly, and the various other cultures to stagnate for thousands of years? Is this merely a golden age, a Western empire lasting for a few hundred years (1400-?), as many have come and gone before?

What prevents the other cultures from catching up? Technology? Or some cultural trait - a tie to older ways of thinking? Did Imperialism slow them down, or was Imperialism a sign of their slowness?

Why does democracy thrive so well in the West, but struggle so constantly in the rest of the world? What is causing them to be left behind? Material riches are spread across the world, but the people who sit on them squander them, taking themselves out through infighting, sell out their resources to Western comapnies and powers.

If there is something different - what is the secret to Western culture? Individualism? Capitalism? Democracy? All of these exist throughout the world, and meet with failure more often than glory.

Is Milum right? Are we just better, and everyone else slower, obsolete, incapable of modern thought and competition? Is America an evolved super-state, a culture superior to the others, geared for success?

Or are we riding out our golden era? Were these questions asked in ancient Egypt? The Khanates? China? Rome? Persia? The Incan Empire?

Or is the percieved gap between America and the developing world permanent, as we develop more and more technology and they fall further behind?

2

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond is probably where you want to start. If you haven’t read it*, I think you would enjoy it.

*Since you didn’t reference it in your OP, I assume you haven’t.

3

The best explaination I’ve ever read boils down to how much a society interacts with other societies. The more mixing and interaction there is, the greater the technological progress experienced.

4

Remember that this is the Information Age, the whole world is already or potentially linked to the Internet, and all Western technology is available to the Third Worlders, or at least their ruling elites. The limiting factor is the capital available for investment to develop practical applications of technology in their countries. And WTO and the IMF ain’t helpin’ none there . . .

5

Well, Milum’s theory is that there is a distinct cultural “advantage” to the West (and I suppose to America) that grants us this special place in the forefront of the world (I also suppose the same thing that put us there, though I’m not sure what that quality is).

6

Another urging to read Guns, Germs and Steel. An excellent book, good read, and offers some very logical explanations.

7

I haven’t read Guns, Germs and Steel yet, but I think Milum is conflating two different things that are intrinsically linked (at least in this case). Lest that sound like an oxymoron, I should explain. By itself, our culture isn’t any better or worse than any other. The problem is that Western values of property and individualism were key in the development of democracy and as such they have become ingrained in our culture. I would say, unequivocally, that our form of government is better than other forms of government and that the morality that comes with it is better than other moralities. The reason that other countries are having trouble with democracy is that it’s complete shock to them. Traditional value systems are still dominant there and since these typically advocate theocracies a sudden shift in government has vast consequences for their way of life. As a result, you have resistance in the form of reactionary movements, which often take to extremism to ensure an unquestionable morality.

The real problem then is to define what culture is. Are Arab Muslims who have integrated into American society diluting their culture by not blindly following all traditions or are they simply engaging in the same dialectical evolution that has always ruled history? Can one be considered ethnically Moroccan if one only partakes in the culinary aspects of the tradition and ignores those that conflict with Western mores?

8

Not having read GG&S, I would venture to say that American came out on top after WWII by waiting for its rivals (Soviet Union and Britain) to get beaten badly enough that recovery to their former superpower status was not possible (OK, the Soviet Union did, but it proved to be an unworkable system, having given up too many freedoms to make their economy sustainable).

Also note that while Britain really prospered during the Industrial Revolution, producing goods that other countries wanted to buy thus enjoying a favorable balance of trade, they eventually settled into Empire building and waiting for their colonies to produce rather than expand their core economy. The US really gained on them in the post-war, advancing technologically and industrially up until the information age, where producing commodity items wasn’t as important as making more ethereal items: i.e. financial and information economics.

As manufacturing can be outsourced to China for significantly cheaper than the US and they have a phenomenal resource base and information technologies to Inidia, which has wonderful resources for this, the only thing left for the US to do to advance is to work on creating more efficient systems for…getting the Chinese and Indian workers to produce and sell back to them. Unfortunately, this flow of capital is not conducive to a growing economy and it appears that the end of American hegemony is in sight. On the plus side, China and India are poised to become the next economic powerhouses and it will be interesting to see what these two non-Western nations will bring to the growth of the world economy.

I’d say Milium’s panicking at the last hurrah.