Just a note on the debate in the wake of IW's posted lecture on
Eurocentrism. Was anyone else struck by the way the debate dwelt entirely
on his critique of this bulletin board's favorite theory (the AfroEurasian
world economy) which constituted a fairly small portion of the article,
and, by the same token, the way the debate has entirely ignored his main
point, about the significance of the split between two cultures (that's
humanities and science, not, as some here appear to believe, East and
West)? I personally find this line of thinking, which he has been
developing in a number of places, to be potentially a good deal more
fruitful in terms of expanding and deepening world systems perspective
than either the extremely economistic view of history which generally
dominates debates here (including this one) or the loopy political
fantasies which occasionally interrupt it. It would be more fruitful to
critique and/or strengthen this central element of his argument than to
further remain lodged in critiquing one quarter of it.
Steven Sherman
Binghamton University
By the way, do any
other Western Hemisphere inhabitants feel a bit slighted by the pretense
that there was nothing much changing in the 'Afro-Eurasian' system in the
last five hundred years?