02-03-2019, 11:31 AM
(02-02-2019, 06:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-01-2019, 06:36 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(01-31-2019, 12:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Now science and rationalism is part of our world culture.
Quote:The Western model of competitive politics is something else that has been imported now worldwide.
It only makes sense for everybody to import what has been proved to work. More reasonable non-Westerners adopted Western concepts of science and competitive politics, but maybe there are some Eastern ideas that could benefit the West.
Christian sexual morality is one, it was invented by a non-Western culture (ancient Israel) and promoted so heavily that most Westerners don't consider it foreign anymore. Now we are assimilating Buddhist philosophy of mind and mindfulness techniques. The same happens to art forms, many fashionable dancing styles have an African origin.
Yes. I agree. Although Israel and Judaism is usually considered "western" as it is the source of western religion.
The Ashkenazim often got much criticism among the Czechs, Poles, and Hungarians for being... too German! I often confused them with Germans when I was in California, and I am about half-German in origin. The Sephardim? In one country in which they were a large part of the Jewish population, all that distinguished them from the surrounding Dutch were (1) rejecting Jesus (they never claimed to be Christians) and (2) Spanish or Portuguese surnames.
The repertory of the Israel Philharmonic is reputedly very conservative.
Jesus, whom the Jews reject (they do well enough without Him) obviously does not define Western Culture. Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler do more to define Western culture and civilization than does Jesus.
....Speaking of Buddhism... had Alexander gone deeper into India, his largely-Greek armies would have encountered Buddhism. Buddhism would have well fit classical Greek philosophy far better than did Christianity. The West would have probably replaced pagan faith more easily, more quickly, and more completely, with Buddhism than with Chrisitianity.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.