A recurring theme in the modern multiculturalist anti-eurocentrist conception of history is the assertion that Europe would have always remained an undeveloped backwater if it didn't "rob" the allegedly immense wells of knowledge and technology that some would say "belonged" to the purportedly superior races and civilizations of the east; a statement that essentially treats receptiveness to foreign innovations as an unquestionable moral wrong, something that I understandably (hopefully) find utterly incomprehensible and absurd. I don't mean to say that the exploitation of natural resources extracted from european colonies didn't play a critical part in the transition from the pre-modern to the industrial age, but rather that the scientific and technological underpinnings which enabled modern society to emerge were not solely the results of "asian" ingenuity. Disregarding the usual falsity of claims that Europe "stole" all its inventions from Asia, I was always under the impression that knowledge was a thing to ideally be shared and benefited from by all peoples and cultures that are willing to make use of it, not something that could "belong" to one particular group of people. Isn't it exactly this manner of parochial egocentricity and epistemological monopoly that came to shoot China in its bound feet when they stubbornly refused to learn anything from the laowai and were subsequently dominated by foreign powers? One might even make the case that being receptive to knowledge from the outside is a virtue because cultures that are the most open to external influence will tend to be more adaptive to changing circumstances. That was the view I assumed was shared by the vast majority of people but now I'm not so sure . How can knowledge in any way be "stolen" in the sense that it's an unforgiveable crime if knowledge in itself is something to be sought after, no matter where it originated? And even if you accept the dubious claim that oriental knowledge was somehow "stolen" by europeans, wouldn't this supposed debt to Asia have been more than repaid by now, what with cars, instant communication, modern medicine, air travel, every scientific discipline currently studied and an almost infinite number of other scientific and technological developments that has immensely benefited all of humanity and that has been copied by pretty much every non-western nation?
Another problem with the modern strain of multiculturalist thought as I see it is that the excessive emphasis on the negative effects of the rise of Europe gives us a picture of reality even more skewed, one-dimensional and inaccurate than the one they set out to combat; a narrative which presents all non-western societies as living in perpetual bliss and prosperity until the evil rapacious europeans brutally conquered them through deceit, genocide, theft and deliberate disease-spreading. While there was a fair bit of incredibly morally questionable practices going on during the ages of exploration and colonization, reality is rarely as conveniently black and white as people with an ideological axe to grind would like you to believe. It also strikes me as highly hypocritical of people to be so overwhelmingly critical of everything that the west stands for when they still reap the fruits from the labour of our forefathers that made the progress to modernity possible. I could go on forever about this, but now I need sleep. I'll come back and elaborate my views eventually.
edited 6th May '14 3:53:55 PM by HeinousHeathenHedonist
"Your impertinence invites my severest displeasure"
A recurring theme in the modern multiculturalist anti-eurocentrist conception of history is the assertion that Europe would have always remained an undeveloped backwater if it didn't "rob" the allegedly immense wells of knowledge and technology that some would say "belonged" to the purportedly superior races and civilizations of the east; a statement that essentially treats receptiveness to foreign innovations as an unquestionable moral wrong, something that I understandably (hopefully) find utterly incomprehensible and absurd. I don't mean to say that the exploitation of natural resources extracted from european colonies didn't play a critical part in the transition from the pre-modern to the industrial age, but rather that the scientific and technological underpinnings which enabled modern society to emerge were not solely the results of "asian" ingenuity. Disregarding the usual falsity of claims that Europe "stole" all its inventions from Asia, I was always under the impression that knowledge was a thing to ideally be shared and benefited from by all peoples and cultures that are willing to make use of it, not something that could "belong" to one particular group of people. Isn't it exactly this manner of parochial egocentricity and epistemological monopoly that came to shoot China in its bound feet when they stubbornly refused to learn anything from the laowai and were subsequently dominated by foreign powers? One might even make the case that being receptive to knowledge from the outside is a virtue because cultures that are the most open to external influence will tend to be more adaptive to changing circumstances. That was the view I assumed was shared by the vast majority of people but now I'm not so sure . How can knowledge in any way be "stolen" in the sense that it's an unforgiveable crime if knowledge in itself is something to be sought after, no matter where it originated? And even if you accept the dubious claim that oriental knowledge was somehow "stolen" by europeans, wouldn't this supposed debt to Asia have been more than repaid by now, what with cars, instant communication, modern medicine, air travel, every scientific discipline currently studied and an almost infinite number of other scientific and technological developments that has immensely benefited all of humanity and that has been copied by pretty much every non-western nation?
Another problem with the modern strain of multiculturalist thought as I see it is that the excessive emphasis on the negative effects of the rise of Europe gives us a picture of reality even more skewed, one-dimensional and inaccurate than the one they set out to combat; a narrative which presents all non-western societies as living in perpetual bliss and prosperity until the evil rapacious europeans brutally conquered them through deceit, genocide, theft and deliberate disease-spreading. While there was a fair bit of incredibly morally questionable practices going on during the ages of exploration and colonization, reality is rarely as conveniently black and white as people with an ideological axe to grind would like you to believe. It also strikes me as highly hypocritical of people to be so overwhelmingly critical of everything that the west stands for when they still reap the fruits from the labour of our forefathers that made the progress to modernity possible. I could go on forever about this, but now I need sleep. I'll come back and elaborate my views eventually.
edited 6th May '14 3:53:55 PM by HeinousHeathenHedonist
"Your impertinence invites my severest displeasure"