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C00002 00002	%wester.2[w88,jmc]	Western Technology and Western Culture
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C00011 00004	include quote from Susan Sontag
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%wester.2[w88,jmc]	Western Technology and Western Culture
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\title{WESTERN TECHNOLOGY --- WORLD TECHNOLOOGY, WESTERN CIVILIZATION --- WORLD CIVILIZATION}

	It's a commonplace that today we have a world technology that is a
descendant of Western technology.  Before 1500 non-Western countries
contributed a lot to the technological base of Western technology, and
today many non-Western countries are very good at world technology.
However, for about 500 years, between 1450 and 1950, almost all
significant technological advances were made in the West.  Also it isn't
very controversial that the reason Western technology won out is because
it was better.  The ships carried more goods faster and more safely, the
guns worked better, fewer babies died, literacy became universal.

	I will argue that the same is substantially true of culture and
the institutions of civilization though not to the same extent in the case
of culture.  There is a world culture today that is mostly a descendant of
Western culture.  Moreover, the superiority of Western culture and
civilization contributed to Western pre-eminence almost as much as did the
superiority of Western technology.  The use of the word ``superiority''
rather than something softer is intentional.

	Today the inheritance of Western culture and civilization is not
the property of Western countries.  In many of its aspects it is the basis
of a world culture, and this needs to be understood in each area
separately.  Thus the Western music presently dominates the world, while
Western cooking traditions don't.  Chinese cooking has penetrated the West
to a greater extent than any Western cuisine has penetrated China.
However, political electoral democracy has turned out to just as much of
a necessity for a decent life in China and the Soviet Union as it is in
the West. See the May 1988 {\it Atlantic Monthly} article about Fang Lizhi,
``the Chinese Sakharov'', makes that point.

	An early example of a cultural superiority
contributing to political domination is the conquest of Mexico by Cortez
with 500 men.  The decisive battles were fought when the conquistadores
were out of ammunition for their firearms and using Aztec cotton armor
that had proved superior to their metal armor.  Sixteenth century Spanish
Catholicism had many faults, and has long been intellectually and morally
obsolete.  It was intolerant as shown by the Inquisition, and moreover,
its adherents often violated its moral precepts.

	Nevertheless, the Spanish victory was substantially a consequence
of its intellectual and moral superiority to Aztec religion and ideology.
In the first place, it proclaimed universal religious and moral
principles.  These principles were asserted to be applicable to Mexican
Indians just as well as to whites.  In particular, it proclaimed that
human sacrifice was universally wrong, not merely that it wasn't the
Spanish custom.  These principles enabled the Spanish to gain allies and
to gain converts.  (I don't suppose that I would avoid charges of being
pro-imperialist even without saying anything about the results of the
Spanish conquest, one way or the other).  Actually, I think that both the
establishment of the Spanish empire and its overthrow after 300 years were
advances for the Latin American peoples.

	The superiority of Western civilization over Asian civilizations
seems to be real though not so overwhelming.  The idea of democracy is
Western, but its application to non-Western countries only began in the
late nineteenth century, so that can't account for the earlier Western
cultural superiority.  One paradigmatic example might be the British
suppression of {\it sati} in 1829.  This is the Hindu custom of a
widow throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre.  Its suppression
was triggered by Indian widows fleeing to the British to avoid
the enforced suicide.  This illustrates that the British already had a
reputation in India as people to whom one could flee to avoid some
kinds of injustice.  Before suppressing {\it sati} the British
argued about whether the evil of the custom justified interfering
with Indian religion.

	Here are some of the items which the West has contributed to world
culture and civilization.

	1. In politics.  The idea of democracy and many ideas about
human rights.  The idea of national rights and of international law.
The idea that slavery was immoral followed by the suppression of the
slave trade and then of slavery itself.  This required a civil war
in the United States.

	2. Harmony and counterpoint in music.  This has penetrated
all countries, and Seiji Ozawa is just as much an heir of Beethoven
as any Austrian.  Whether the Western musical advances have any
necessary relation to other cultural advances, I have no idea.

	3. Analytic philosophy.  All other important philosophies
reached dead ends in which they are still stuck.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ \number\year\ by John McCarthy}
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include quote from Susan Sontag

I realize these remarks are controversial, and I suppose that some
participants in the Western Culture would agree with the following
expletive (overheated effusion) from Susan Sontag.

The white race is the cancer of history.  It is the white
race and it alone --- its ideologies and inventions ---
which eradicates autonomous civilizations whereever it
spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the
planet, which now threatens the very existence of life
itself.  - Susan Sontag

Include a reference to a Spencerean tragedy.
affirmative action?
all cultures are equivalent?