Dear Steven,
you seem to confuse my thesis of uniqueness of Europe with pro-Europeism
(= apologia of European (and Western) impact in World history). I did not
evaluated morally (ecologically, etc) the European impact in that msg. It
is in fact an open philosophy-of-history question and right you are the answer
must be far from triumphal one.
>
> Re: Nikolai's message below-- I know I'm missing something, but it seems
> there are a few lessons of other civilizations the west failed to learn,
> regarding interacting peaceably with other cultures and the non-human
> world, preserving that which is worthwhile from the past, prioritizing
> livelihood over economic 'growth'...
ok, but noone still managed to spread globally and realize non-locally these
ideas. You have nothing again except Western uniqueness. The Club of Roma,
Rio Forum, etc were organized by Western people. The same is with new
rathe widely spreaded ideas of
sustainable development, biological diversity, value of cultural diversity,
'Earth ethics', etc.
>By the way,
> what may be the single most important cultural technology--movable type
> printing--was 'invented' in Europe only after they were aware that the
> Chinese had devised a machine to do something similar ('invented',
> therefore, in the same sense that the USSR 'invented' the atom bomb).
as you remeber I emphasized effective ASSIMILATION and SPREAD in
my uniqueness thesis, NOT invention (where before XVII-XVIII Europe seems
not to be a leader). Tell me please what is the origin of MODERN
PATTERNS of public houses, newspapers and periodicals publishing etc. Still
Europe and US, not China, alas.
Your analogy with the atom bomb invention also can serve us. It is
absolutely not possible simply to "steal" the idea of such kind and
complexity and to realize it in short time. Russian physics
(Kurchatov,Sakharov, etc) had bright European(!) education and surely reached
the front level of nuclear physics ( all education and sciences in Russia
since Peter the Great are European, German originally, and by no means
asiatic). Without this factor the bomb would not be realized that time in
Russia. It seems that Europe was also quite ready for "stealing" printing
technology and in historically short time has overcome Chinese originals.
best, Nikolai Rozov
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Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy
Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University
rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk
Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA
Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI
(PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history)
http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe
/philofhi.html
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