I will comment on both articles simultaneously. I find two major problems with both compositions.
First, especially in The West and the Rest, a clean-cut dichotomy is drawn between West and East, as if all the world were inhabited by two simple lineages of human beings. This, in my mind, is a pungently stupid simplification of our global population, and neither piece even includes some disclaimer to this fact.
Second, using this term 'the West' somehow distracts from the fact that we are speaking about a small handful of Western European lineages, and not a hemispheric empire of diverse peoples.
And now to combine my two grievances, I'll offer a brief overview of my own reality. Our species is disputably between two million and 600,000 years old, and up until less than about 1000 years ago, all peoples existed as parts of small communities united by tens of thousands of years of unique heritage. They were tribes, in effect, and in the post-colonial era we can, sadly, only see reflection of this old tribal nature in the nation-states of Europe: the Swiss got Switzerland, the English got England, the Irish got Ireland, the Poles got Poland, etc...
Had this era of nation-statehood dawned without an epoch of colonial conquest, slaughter, and reorganization, likely all the world would be divided into small nations much like Europe. North America would be split between the Iriquois, Tonkawa, Lakota, Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Karankawa, Cherokee, etc...
But, in fact, when we refer to "Western culture,' we are referring to the culture violently promoted, almost exclusively, by some Latins (Spanish and Portuguese) and Anglos (English and German). With a crazed lust for blood and power, these peoples took the world by storm over the last few centuries and removed the native states to implement mercantile colonies. This is what the 'West' is. We may think of ourselves as Americans, but we are nothing but Europeans, just a few generations off from tidal immigrations to a land that was once lushly inhabited by actual Americans.
And, conversely, when we refer to the 'East,' it must be presumed that we're referring to the Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks, and Tajiks of Central Asia, to the Arabs and Assyrians and Coptics and Phonecians of the Middle East, to the Quiche, Quecheua, Aymara, and Guarani speaking peoples of South America, to the Han Chinese, the Uhigurs, the Daxi and Nai, the Japanese and Koreans, All southeast Asian peoples, to the Polynesians and the Muslim Indonesian tribes, to the Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Tamil, Urdu, Bodo, and Punjabi peoples of India, and even the small shreds of Navajo, Apache, and Cherokee who now live in small restricted encampments inside the European settlements in North America. So, you get the idea.
First, especially in The West and the Rest, a clean-cut dichotomy is drawn between West and East, as if all the world were inhabited by two simple lineages of human beings. This, in my mind, is a pungently stupid simplification of our global population, and neither piece even includes some disclaimer to this fact.
Second, using this term 'the West' somehow distracts from the fact that we are speaking about a small handful of Western European lineages, and not a hemispheric empire of diverse peoples.
And now to combine my two grievances, I'll offer a brief overview of my own reality. Our species is disputably between two million and 600,000 years old, and up until less than about 1000 years ago, all peoples existed as parts of small communities united by tens of thousands of years of unique heritage. They were tribes, in effect, and in the post-colonial era we can, sadly, only see reflection of this old tribal nature in the nation-states of Europe: the Swiss got Switzerland, the English got England, the Irish got Ireland, the Poles got Poland, etc...
Had this era of nation-statehood dawned without an epoch of colonial conquest, slaughter, and reorganization, likely all the world would be divided into small nations much like Europe. North America would be split between the Iriquois, Tonkawa, Lakota, Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Karankawa, Cherokee, etc...
But, in fact, when we refer to "Western culture,' we are referring to the culture violently promoted, almost exclusively, by some Latins (Spanish and Portuguese) and Anglos (English and German). With a crazed lust for blood and power, these peoples took the world by storm over the last few centuries and removed the native states to implement mercantile colonies. This is what the 'West' is. We may think of ourselves as Americans, but we are nothing but Europeans, just a few generations off from tidal immigrations to a land that was once lushly inhabited by actual Americans.
And, conversely, when we refer to the 'East,' it must be presumed that we're referring to the Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks, and Tajiks of Central Asia, to the Arabs and Assyrians and Coptics and Phonecians of the Middle East, to the Quiche, Quecheua, Aymara, and Guarani speaking peoples of South America, to the Han Chinese, the Uhigurs, the Daxi and Nai, the Japanese and Koreans, All southeast Asian peoples, to the Polynesians and the Muslim Indonesian tribes, to the Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Tamil, Urdu, Bodo, and Punjabi peoples of India, and even the small shreds of Navajo, Apache, and Cherokee who now live in small restricted encampments inside the European settlements in North America. So, you get the idea.
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