3 ms·

I'm partially sympathetic to bashmelek's point of view. So much of the history and culture of Western civilization is actually rooted in the eastern Mediterrane

by wahern 2mo ago

I'm partially sympathetic to bashmelek's point of view. So much of the history and culture of Western civilization is actually rooted in the eastern Mediterranean. In the old world all writing can be traced back to Mesopotamia/Egypt and China. A surprising number of areas still use "ABCs" to refer to their alphabet. Much more than half of the old world by geography has a deeply connected written scholarly history. During Antiquity Greek culture itself extended much further east than west. Iconic Hindu and Buddhist art, particularly statuary, is Greek in origin. The center of Christianity was still east of Europe, or at least much further east than Rome, into the Middle Ages. There's a fascinating account by a circa 12th century papal emissary sent to the capital of the Khan Empire in Mongolia on a diplomatic and proselytizing mission. When reaching the Khan's court he found an entire native Christian contingent, and rather than listen to the emissary's preaching (Christianity wasn't new to him, and he wasn't inclined to take it up, though a sizable fraction of others had), Güyük Khan had him debate Christian theology with the existing Christian council in his court, partly for his own entertainment. The existence of these Christians caught the emissary by surprise, because the history of Christianity in the East had been forgotten by the Europeans. A few decades later, the Mongol Christian wife of Hulagu Khan was instrumental in securing the safety of Christians during the Sack of Baghdad (and IIRC she even had commissioned, or tried to have commissioned, the construction of a new Christian cathedral in Baghdad. But I might be thinking of another, much later Mongol Christian empress in China.) All of which is to say, a huge portion of the old world can claim "western civilization" as an inheritance, unless we narrowly define "western civilization" as being rooted sometime in the past millennia (and then ignore the the effect of European colonialism in bringing many other areas into the fold, some for the second time). And that's before delving into pre-history and the influence of Central Asian steppe culture, from which we get Western civilization's shared Indo-European linguistic and, arguably, even religious history (see, e.g., links between Judeo-Christian and Dharmic religions via Zoroastrianism). Which isn't to say modern European culture has the same relationship as everywhere else touched by Mediterranean culture, or that Renaissance and Enlightenment ideals aren't important, pivotal contributions to modern "western" culture. History has attenuated, obscured, and partially erased the historical interconnectedness. But relative to, e.g., East Asian or Mesomerican culture, there's a strong argument that everybody from the Hindu Kush to Portugal, from Ethiopia to Moscow, have a deeply shared cultural history and inheritance and are rightly called "Western" in a meaningful sense. I don't object to the existence of a western civilization, I just object to Europeans claiming it as a unique, or even uniquely formative, inheritance. When I read about Hindu nationalist claims to a third emergence of writing in the Old World, it seems they're so passionate only because there's the tacit belief that they don't have the same stake in western civilization as Europeans; that they're not otherwise equal heirs to a rich western culture. But they are, IMO.

skew-aberration 2mo ago
You're describing connections with regions which were on the borders of the western empires during antiquity. While there's abundant examples of cross pollination, there's also no doubt that Romans and Greeks identified themselves by their differences rather than similarities to those cultures. Modern Mongolians share far more cultural similarities with the Hunnic and Turkic 'barbarians' that 'western civilizations' warred with. Many Mongolians still live nomadically! By contrast, modern Europeans long since abandoned their own traditional lifestyles which were practiced at the time - largely due to their colonization by and integration into the Roman empire. Russian identity has many western origins but their connection with Rome/Greece during antiquity are far thinner. Islam did not exist during that time either - so despite shared ancestor cultures, the Islamic empire emerged outside of the collapsing Roman empire and in direct competition to it. Besides, Medieval era is a thousand years after 'antiquity' and was hugely influenced by the accelerating clash of east/west (spurred by the Mongol Empire) rather than pre-existing similarities.
- wahern 2mo ago
  What's the importance of Islam arising outside the Roman empire? It seems to me that to consider Islam outside the history of western civilization you must first define western civilization with that result in mind. It's tautological. For the first couple of centuries the spread of Christianity was also largely outside the Roman empire. Both Ethiopia and Armenia officially became Christian nations before Rome did (and both had become majority Christians earlier, meaning even earlier than the Roman empire itself.) Some Islamic practices, such as praying 5 times a day, were likely adopted from Christian practices (Protestants, and these days many Catholics, have largely forgotten the Liturgy of the Hours, but it was a widespread practice among Christians, and in Arabia in particular among lay Christians, not just clergy, who would lay down a rug, even in public, to perform their prayers). Do these facts somehow suggest a broken connection between Christianity and western civilization prior to it becoming widespread in Europe? At least until the 11th century, Muslim empires considered themselves inheritors of Greek intellectual culture. This at a time when Europeans had lost Greek literature and even the Greek language (Rome literally started to have trouble conversing with Constantinople centuries earlier). Europeans seem to consider Islamic civilization as a mere temporary steward of Greek culture, conveniently keeping its literature extant until it could be rightly restored to Europeans. Yes, the shared western cultural heritage in Mongolia itself is now extremely attenuated. But that's much less true in Persia or other areas closer to the epicenter of western civilization--i.e. the Levant--some of which are closer, geographically and otherwise, than most of continental Europe, especially Western Europe. Europeans have a bias when it comes to their inheritance--they only see the historical paths that lead to themselves. (This is a universal truism that applies to every culture.) But there were many other branches from the same origins, and other cultures only see the paths that led to their selves. Until recently North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia had their own memories of a Greek cultural heritage, albeit intermixed with other influences (as is the case with Europeans). But unfortunately the predominance of modern European culture and historical narratives, and tacit internationalization of a unique European claim, seems to have erased that memory. But the heritage exists nonetheless and can be reclaimed, the same way Europeans reclaimed their Greek cultural heritage in the late Middle Ages.

by wahern 2mo ago

skew-aberration 2mo ago

You're describing connections with regions which were on the borders of the western empires during antiquity. While there's abundant examples of cross pollination, there's also no doubt that Romans and Greeks identified themselves by their differences rather than similarities to those cultures. Modern Mongolians share far more cultural similarities with the Hunnic and Turkic 'barbarians' that 'western civilizations' warred with. Many Mongolians still live nomadically! By contrast, modern Europeans long since abandoned their own traditional lifestyles which were practiced at the time - largely due to their colonization by and integration into the Roman empire. Russian identity has many western origins but their connection with Rome/Greece during antiquity are far thinner. Islam did not exist during that time either - so despite shared ancestor cultures, the Islamic empire emerged outside of the collapsing Roman empire and in direct competition to it. Besides, Medieval era is a thousand years after 'antiquity' and was hugely influenced by the accelerating clash of east/west (spurred by the Mongol Empire) rather than pre-existing similarities.

wahern 2mo ago
What's the importance of Islam arising outside the Roman empire? It seems to me that to consider Islam outside the history of western civilization you must first define western civilization with that result in mind. It's tautological. For the first couple of centuries the spread of Christianity was also largely outside the Roman empire. Both Ethiopia and Armenia officially became Christian nations before Rome did (and both had become majority Christians earlier, meaning even earlier than the Roman empire itself.) Some Islamic practices, such as praying 5 times a day, were likely adopted from Christian practices (Protestants, and these days many Catholics, have largely forgotten the Liturgy of the Hours, but it was a widespread practice among Christians, and in Arabia in particular among lay Christians, not just clergy, who would lay down a rug, even in public, to perform their prayers). Do these facts somehow suggest a broken connection between Christianity and western civilization prior to it becoming widespread in Europe? At least until the 11th century, Muslim empires considered themselves inheritors of Greek intellectual culture. This at a time when Europeans had lost Greek literature and even the Greek language (Rome literally started to have trouble conversing with Constantinople centuries earlier). Europeans seem to consider Islamic civilization as a mere temporary steward of Greek culture, conveniently keeping its literature extant until it could be rightly restored to Europeans. Yes, the shared western cultural heritage in Mongolia itself is now extremely attenuated. But that's much less true in Persia or other areas closer to the epicenter of western civilization--i.e. the Levant--some of which are closer, geographically and otherwise, than most of continental Europe, especially Western Europe. Europeans have a bias when it comes to their inheritance--they only see the historical paths that lead to themselves. (This is a universal truism that applies to every culture.) But there were many other branches from the same origins, and other cultures only see the paths that led to their selves. Until recently North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia had their own memories of a Greek cultural heritage, albeit intermixed with other influences (as is the case with Europeans). But unfortunately the predominance of modern European culture and historical narratives, and tacit internationalization of a unique European claim, seems to have erased that memory. But the heritage exists nonetheless and can be reclaimed, the same way Europeans reclaimed their Greek cultural heritage in the late Middle Ages.