04-16-2009, 06:09 PM
Quote:It hasn't been "ever expanding". There were a remarkable series of experiments in Athens over two millenia ago, followed by a somewhat-better mostly-worse Rome, followed by a thousand years of unfreedom. Now, sure, we've done pretty well in the last few hundred years, and the Islamic world has not. But, in the biggest of pictures going all the way back to ancient times, that's pretty recent, whereas the cultural and geographical unit of "the West" (well, Europe, really) is not recent.
-Jester
It's also tricky in that some of the ideals aren't just Western either. While it hasn't all survived, Hammurabi and Babylon date back to 1760 BC. Socrates, who Pete mentioned was was 469 BC. The Athenian democracy was 510 BC for the founding. The Babylonian empire didn't survive and shrank continually after Hammurabi died, but the Hittites and Kassites who conquered the region did adopt much of the philosophy of the rule of law. There were even provisions for trials in the code. That speaks to personal freedoms as well, if not to democracy and some of the other "Western" philosophical ideals.
How much were the Greeks actually influenced by Middle Eastern ideals that predate Islam is a question that can muddy this whole thing even more.
My original point in getting involved in this tangent was to clarify definitions, that I realize are muddy. At this point I think I can follow what Kan, Pete, and Jester all mean when they say Western (though Jester doesn't want to use the term at all). So I'm good.
But it's an interesting tangent so I'm willing to drive it a little deeper and hence this post. :)
As mentioned my history isn't the best. It was knowledge that I never received as a "package" and just got bits and pieces of from various sources so I'm enjoying tying some of those strings back together. :)
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.