07-27-2003, 07:18 AM
"1. What have they done for "civilization" lately? Nothing, they are trapped in anachronisms, trapped in the past. OK, for culture, the Arab world can still split hairs over Islam with the same energy as the Westerners can split hairs over Christianity. Bravo."
Well, there have been plenty of "lately" times when Christianity has done nothing positive whatsoever for humanity. Like I said: They had a tremendous civilization. They have certainly fallen far.
"I disagree, the Arab world you refer to is a romantic fiction, it was a Muslim world, which included enormous Persian cultural influence. It assimilated some Greek influence, and later adopted Turkic influence. Ottoman period was a furtherence of that civilization, in a similar vein to how America is a furtherence of the Enlightenment of Europe."
Yeah, and christian civilization is no more pure. The Arabs swept aside a decandent and collapsing Persia; they certainly presided over a great revival in the many centuries of rule, and I think it would be foolish not to give them a great deal of credit for their civilization. Sure, the Romans stole a whole lot from the Greeks, and the Persians as well. Does that really dig in to their accomplishments? Not really. Contextualizes them, yes.
The Ottoman Empire is only a furtherance of the Arab civilization in the sense that the Third Reich is a furtherance of Napoleon's empire; same territory, totally different rulers, with the Arabs resenting the Ottomans, rather than the Turks resenting Arab rule. Turks and Arabs are no more the same "civilization" than the French and Germans, perhaps even less.
"Moscow in the era of USSR was a center of great arts, one of the world's finest ballets, and a global center of education. Does that mean any Russian yearns for a return of deapotism, or that I should consider despotism as an equivalent good to the Western approach?"
Well, some do. And, no, you shouldn't. But, accepting the right to self determination of the peoples involved, you aren't the one who needs to be convinced. If the Russians want a new Stalin, then all we can do is try our best to persuade them otherwise. If the Arabs long for a long lost dream of the great rise of Islam, which very many of them do (though perhaps not more than the Enlightenment thought back to the Rennaisance), we cannot deny them that simply on the basis that we prefer our own model. I don't think either their history or their religion prevents them from developing a just modern civilization, perhaps even more than ours. They just have to sort it out for themselves. Much of the problem this whole thread is dealing with is the inherent difficulty assimilating one fully formed western democracy into a developing middle eastern context, acknowledging that it may be impossible, or damaging, to transform one into the other.
Jester
Well, there have been plenty of "lately" times when Christianity has done nothing positive whatsoever for humanity. Like I said: They had a tremendous civilization. They have certainly fallen far.
"I disagree, the Arab world you refer to is a romantic fiction, it was a Muslim world, which included enormous Persian cultural influence. It assimilated some Greek influence, and later adopted Turkic influence. Ottoman period was a furtherence of that civilization, in a similar vein to how America is a furtherence of the Enlightenment of Europe."
Yeah, and christian civilization is no more pure. The Arabs swept aside a decandent and collapsing Persia; they certainly presided over a great revival in the many centuries of rule, and I think it would be foolish not to give them a great deal of credit for their civilization. Sure, the Romans stole a whole lot from the Greeks, and the Persians as well. Does that really dig in to their accomplishments? Not really. Contextualizes them, yes.
The Ottoman Empire is only a furtherance of the Arab civilization in the sense that the Third Reich is a furtherance of Napoleon's empire; same territory, totally different rulers, with the Arabs resenting the Ottomans, rather than the Turks resenting Arab rule. Turks and Arabs are no more the same "civilization" than the French and Germans, perhaps even less.
"Moscow in the era of USSR was a center of great arts, one of the world's finest ballets, and a global center of education. Does that mean any Russian yearns for a return of deapotism, or that I should consider despotism as an equivalent good to the Western approach?"
Well, some do. And, no, you shouldn't. But, accepting the right to self determination of the peoples involved, you aren't the one who needs to be convinced. If the Russians want a new Stalin, then all we can do is try our best to persuade them otherwise. If the Arabs long for a long lost dream of the great rise of Islam, which very many of them do (though perhaps not more than the Enlightenment thought back to the Rennaisance), we cannot deny them that simply on the basis that we prefer our own model. I don't think either their history or their religion prevents them from developing a just modern civilization, perhaps even more than ours. They just have to sort it out for themselves. Much of the problem this whole thread is dealing with is the inherent difficulty assimilating one fully formed western democracy into a developing middle eastern context, acknowledging that it may be impossible, or damaging, to transform one into the other.
Jester