It occurs to me that the root here might lie in 17-18th century philosophy: British Empiricism v. European Rationalism. Empiricism defers to the world, and buil

It occurs to me that the root here might lie in 17-18th century philosophy: British Empiricism v. European Rationalism. Empiricism defers to the world, and builds knowledge bottom-up. Rationalism defers to the mind and its abstract ideas, which try to impose themselves top-down on an unsuspecting world. Spoiler alert ... in any conflict, the world wins. Obviously 19-20th century philosophy continues the tradition, with the Europeans contributing Marx (his -ism, with followers in Russia, China, and beyond!), cultural-Marxism, existentialists and post-modernists (mostly German in 19th century, then mostly French in the 20th). Meanwhile, the Anglo-sphere had to fight (I mean really fight and die, not just oppose) all these ridiculous European ideologies, to defend Western Civ and uphold Enlightenment ideas.