Quote (Skinned @ 7 May 2019 13:29)
Have you ever heard of the Renaissance? Rebirth of Greek ideas of civics and society that were rediscovered by Europeans through exposure to the Middle East via the crusades, brought civilization back to Europe and ended the dark ages.
That being said all things are cyclical and privilege is contingent on time and space. We are lucky to be who we are where we are when we are. The pendulum will swing again and we might help our Islamic brothers through their dark age through similar ideas of human freedom as we fight the repression of our own against market forces seeking to buy government.
Key to the European cultural superiority are the advances made during the Age of Enlightenment, which only began 50-100 years after the Renaissance had ended.
At around 1700, the European monarchies, the Mayas in Middle America, the Moghul Empire on the Indian subcontinent and the Chinese Empire were still on roughly the same technological, social and cultural level. Since then, Europe dramatically pulled ahead and more or less ruled the world by 1900.
Other than that, I agree with you and Sauci when you say that the veil of civilization in thin, that we were lucky to be born into privileged regions of the world and that European civilization did similarly horrible things in the not so distant past. I also agree that the pendulum is swinging back and forth. All true. But none of this explains or excuses the archaic backwardsness and violence that we see in the muslim world today.
Yes, they are currently going through their version of what was called "Dark Ages" when it happened in Europe. However, no foreign influence was to blame for the sale of indulgences, witch hunts, torture, a feudal society and all the bloodshed which happened in Europe at the time. Similarly, no foreign or outside influence is the primary cause of the intolerance, backwardsness and violence which is occurring in the muslim world right now. The key difference between the Dark Ages in Europe and the muslim world of today is that we're now living in a globalized world in which the struggles and the regression of civilization in one region of the world threatens to negatively affect everyone else if they dont prevent that from happening.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 7 2019 06:24am