Why Europe Dominated the World

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Actually, my philosophy teacher had an interesting slant on this one, which may even have something to do with it.

The reason Europe dominated the world was the Holy Roman Empire, or in a more general sense, Christianity.

WAIT! Don’t scream yet. Listen to the logic. It’s really rather fascinating.

In ancient Greece, they invented many devices similar to things Europe produced just before the industrial revolution. But in Greece, they never used them. They built it, said, “My, how interesting,” then shoved it into the Alexandrian Library and left it.

The reason Greece (and, by extension, many Eastern cultures) didn’t advance as quickly as the West is because of how the religion worked.

In the East, and Greece, the whole worldview was based on a cyclical view of things. In some areas, it was reincarnation, in others, like Greece, simply a feeling that “if it was good enough for our fathers, it is good enough for us”. The Christian world-view, though, is a line. We start at a point here, with original sin, and we are GOING to this point, redemption. Everything in between is the history of the world, as well as, on a smaller scale, personal life.

The point is that because of this, the Western, primarily Christian world, had the idea that advance is good. It is the DUTY of each generation to be better than the last one. In the Eastern culture, it’s the duty of each generation to copy the one before, to keep everything static. In the extreme form, this turns into the rigid caste system where you are born to your station and can never leave it.

In short, Europe dominated the world because they thought new ideas were a wonderful thing that should be encouraged, while many of the rest of the cultural centers were basically apathetic towards technology.

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How come Europeans dominated the rest of the world and not vice versa? (20-Jun-1997)

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3

Good theory, but wasn’t the Christian church almost single handedly responsible for maintaining the feudal system in Europe and stifling invention, original thought, education etc. And wasn’t it after the reformation and the loss of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’s’ absolute power base that Europe actually advanced noticably beyond that of the rest of the world and began serious colinisation and empire building? I agree that there is something in the European way of thinking that drives us to be different if not actually better than our ancestors. I just wouldn’t say this was ever seriously encouraged by one of the most dogmatic and traditionalist of the Christian sects.

4

Rubbish. Xtianity occured in lots of places which did not reflect anything of which your argument posits and the argument telescopes history, ignoring a good millenium where Xtianity (or its institutions) arguably had a retarding effect.

The problem with philosophers doing history is they don’t acquaint themselves with inconvenient facts.

I refer you to the White Man Cometh thread for an already ongoing discusion in this vein.

5

Yes, the Catholic church did have a bad influence there – but the point isn’t about the catholic church, it’s about the way of thinking. The Chruch didn’t do it on purpose, but along with the religion’s views came an automatic move to be better than before.

The reason you can sort of attribute it to the Holy Roman Empire is that they’re the ones who were pretty much responsible for spreading Christianity to most of Europe.

6

actually keenath i think your teacher made some very good points. i will think about that and add some more comments when i have time, unfortunately i don’t have time right now.

7

Well, in a word, no. The universities in Europe were created by the Catholic Church. As for saying the Holy Roman Empire had “absolute power”, that’s really incorrect. The Empire was a collection of duchies, kingdoms and city states under the titular rulership of an Emperor crowned by the Pope, but for much of it’s history, the Emperor and Pope fought, the Emperor and dukes fought, the Pope and dukes fought, etc…it was pretty far from absolute.

8

I’ve got to disagree with this generalization. The main reason for Europe lagging in original thought, education, etc. for a thousand years was the collapse of urban culture and the economic base to support it which occurred during the decline of the Roman Empire. As for stifled invention- during the Middle Ages practical technological inventions actually did develop at a significant rate.

The feudal system arose for economic, political and military reasons having to do with the need of supporting a relatively expensive military technology on a weak economic base. The Medieval Church certainly accommodated itself to the structure, but it is hard to see how it could have done otherwise without seriously marginalizing itself.

The Church was largely responsible for what advances occurred in education and science during the Middle Ages. It was dangerous to attack the Church’s position on theological issues; or to attack its political interests. But at that time secular knowledge had not advanced enough to be a threat to the Church’s preeminence, and so it did not react defensively in those areas. Modern belief that the Church was aggressively obscurantist during the Middle Ages is reading backwards into medieval culture what actually occurred later, when the Church did indeed become threatened, and reacted very defensively.

The Iberian expansion started in the early 1400s under Prince Henry, it hit paydirt in the 1490s. Luther did not nail his theses to the door until 1517, so the process was well under way before the Reformation. The only real contribution which the Reformation might have played in European expansionism is making it more competitive by getting England and the Netherlands involved, but it is possible they might have gotten involved anyhow for purely secular reasons even if the Reformation had not occurred.

It is any real surprise that once the Europeans were the first technologically advanced society to reach the Americas (in any great numbers at least) that their wealth and power expanded exponentially? They could wrest the land and resources from people unable to resist, and then use the initial profits from that to acquire slave labor, which would in turn allow for even greater extraction of wealth from those lands. That wealth funneled into Europe was what fueled the developments by which Europe outpaced the rest of the world for 400 years.

9

Europe isn’t a single entity. 500 years ago Spain and Portugal that dominated. Part of the reason that they later lost out to Britain and Holland was the church’s Orwelian response to Protestantism. Stifling free thought stifles society.

An excellent book on this subject is

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
by David S. Landes

10

Fraid I have to disagree, Landes book is seriously flawed when dealing with non-European history. Very seriously flawed. And I found his ideologically based attacks on ‘revisionist’ or otherwise critical histories to be unprofessional at best. Now, mind you he has some good arguments but spoils them with poor scholarship. (I have in mind his concetration on the Ed Said school of anti-orientalism neglecting the fact that most non-Western history is written in quite a sober manner. It’s a straw man argument.)

Overall, a mediocre book.

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*Originally posted by Collounsbury *

Collounsbury,

I have Landes’s book (although I have not read it) and I was wondering if you could briefly identify some of the problems you find with the text (i.e. one or two examples to help point out instances of poor scholarship). I’m just curious…I don’t for a minute doubt that your assessment is probably accurate; I just want to be able to apply the same critical eye to the text as you have :).

By the way, I thoroughly enjoy and respect your posts, especially those regarding the issues race/racial characteristics. I, too, bang my head in disbelief every time I read an argument by someone who still thinks that “race” is a valid biological construct. I’m glad you have the knowledge and wherewithall to tackle the misconception head-on with the teeming millions.

P.S. - As an aside, I would be interested in hearing your views as to the validity of race as a sociological/cultural construct.

12

Hmm, well I had some notes on this, but they’re in some trunk somewhere, so I have to go with some things I happened to have on my laptop hard drive --pack rat that I am I keep file fragements:

This fragment of my notes indicates me intial impression was that he does make interesting points but he also commits the very sins which he so readily castigates his perceived ideological enemies (which appear to be any kind of revisionist historical criticism of European place in history or in some respects non-Western histories.)

Some trivial errors disappoint, such as the Martel ‘stopping’ of an Islamic army. There never was such, only a small raiding group. The generals of Andalus had already halted their real invasion. This revision to the hoary old interpretation has been known for some time. Trivial point but he really should know better; the Gambian contacts of the Portuguese he refers to on p 74 seem to badly mischaracterize Portuguese contacts with Africans – based on my reading (see Curtin or Thorton for example).

Much more disappointing is his use of straw men in an ideological dismissal of points of view he does not like rather than addressing the substance of the argument. Oddly enough, he does this at the same time as he
claims others do it, notably the anti-Orientalist school of Ed Said. See pg 411. Not that I have the least sympathy for the Ed Said cult – but there are critiques of “orientalism” , which are much more substantive. However our friend gives not the slightest hint of this, prefering to set up Ed Said as a straw man to attack --if I read him right-- all critical histories of the role of Europe in the world

Well, I wish I had more substance to offer, but as I said, I’m away from home base and have neither a copy nor my real notes available (how obsessive is that, I take notes on pleasure reading… I clearly need help.) And of course I read it a while back, perhaps I may have overreacted.

Thanks for the encouragement. Sometimes, e.g. with that Peace character, or Exion, I wonder if race discussions cause sudden IQ drops.

Well, its there, its deeply rooted and its not likely to go away fully any time soon. And lots of people’s personal identities are built around it. Ergo, quite clearly social scientists have to accept it as a given.

As a personal position, I’d wish it would go away. However, since stereotyping is fundamental to how we percieve and organize our conception of the world, I guess it would simply be replaced by another form of group identification. I suppose that so long as the mythologies of inherent biological characteristics are broken down, the rest of it isn’t sooo bad.