tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post6972795151979749435..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: Whither western civilization?David Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-67735151692641920772021-06-27T05:25:05.494-04:002021-06-27T05:25:05.494-04:00In Europe assimilation has occured also. Lots of i...In Europe assimilation has occured also. Lots of immigration for instance of Germans to the East everywhere over centuries who became largely assimilated and of Slavs and others who became Germans over time. Immigration was due to economic need. Industrialism drawing Poles to Germany in 19th century or overpopulation leading Germans to move eastward in previous centuries( basis of pied piper story). I read of how many central and East Germans moved to Hungary and assimilated when Austro- Hungary was wealthy centuries ago. I think history and headlines are made by crisis situations like the 15 millions of German ethnics driven Westward after WWII. Good news fdoes not make for News. I have a multi volume history of technology. It explains a lot about middle to latemiddle ages manufactures, small factories in various German states. This is like the USA with lots of accents, cultural differences between the regions, even body types, etc( my father in laws family was from what is now France and my wife retains very Soutjern German characteristics, much different than Northern types where I reside in Hamburg). At any rate many people would emigrate for work to say Leipzig to do factory jobs, from rural Bavaria or so and go back home after a time, feeling homesick or unwelcome. One can imagine a Southern US resident, particularly in less modern times, when culture in terms of food, manners, etc. realy meant something and prejudices were deep seated, going to Chicago or New York just to do a job. <br /><br />Modern life standardized a lot through mandatory school education, literacy, Press, TV, radio. I have a German dialects book which is quite varied. In European countries this is common as in USA also. Tower of Babel story comes to mind. Teens develop own lingo, slang and in 100 years or so, Shakespeare as example, people have difficulty reading own older language. So this is all very fluid. Modernization however overrides a lot of this. Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and a standard American accent was one thing. Now culture is getting more varied due to internet media flourishing. This could explain a lot of cultural disintegration everywhere. Centralization of media control over language, ideology controlled the population for central governments. Losing control of that media like nowadays is dangerous economically, socially and militarily. So Facebook and co. make censorship decisions. A letter to the edior of NYT in 1960 would have been allowed or ignored on certain criteria of professionalism. Chatrooms, online discussions were kitchen, church, watercooler or locker room talks, all informal, personal and not recorded, controlled by a central instance. Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-7968396539224206942021-06-24T11:04:31.494-04:002021-06-24T11:04:31.494-04:00Professor
These are the ideals of the Enlightenm...Professor <br /><br />These are the ideals of the Enlightenment:<br /><br />"Paradoxically, the men who trusted so highly in the powers of intelligence regarded the mind as essentially vacant and inert; the idea of the passive mind was indispensable to their system. it was the guarantee that the truths of nature might be perceived without distortion. It was the basis for the distinction, then so important and so clear, between enlightenment and prejudice. It was the metaphysical groundwork for the belief that men were equal, and that they possessed the quality of perfectibility, that is, susceptibility to progress. Minimizing the effects of will, denying original predisposition, refusing to see any inevitability in human nature, the doctrine was flatly contrary to the Christian idea of sin; and by representing man as a passive child of circumstances, easily abused by his environment, it slipped sometimes into a notion that human nature, when crude, is good; and that order, restraint, discipline, and suppression are affronts to man's dignity and freedom." Palmer, Catholics and Unbelievers, p 133, 134<br /><br />All the bestBozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-19107943156695855752021-06-23T11:14:05.457-04:002021-06-23T11:14:05.457-04:00Professor
noribori can remain in technicolor pana...Professor<br /><br />noribori can remain in technicolor panavision liberal Western internationalism La La Land, but as you point out, the decline of Western Civilization, not just Brexit nonsense, has long now been a self inflicted wound that the colored Rest have also now been freed to cause to fester further.<br /><br />The only thing ever truly available to put in place of nation states has been glorified armed guerilla camps.<br /><br />All the bestBozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-71665235067070057492021-06-20T15:34:42.359-04:002021-06-20T15:34:42.359-04:00Professor
Great post
These two reviewers' ar...Professor <br />Great post<br />These two reviewers' articles and topics are the meat and potatoes of intellectual pundits of color and Western Civ liberal white Stokelys as well, in all fields, not just history or politics. Your recent post re Lisa Wilkerson is a locus classicus re accusing the British for really fixing the caste system in India firmly in place as part of colonial rule. <br /><br />With David Reich's paleogenetics, following in the spiritual footsteps of Gimbutas, blaming the Yamnaya Steppe Indo Europeans for subjugating India, W. and Central Europe, the Mideast, and even a return to Africa to dominate it, the stage has now been set to blame white westerners and their forebears, only, among the worlds paleo populations, as the original sinners, for everything wrong with human prehistory, not just slaughter and slavery everywhere the modern West has dominated in recorded history. <br /><br />But it is now a widespread calumny to claim that racism and violence came only out of the white West against the colored Rest. As DK says, "...That hardly means, however, that such ethnic or racial conflicts only existed in Europe, or that, as Mandami apparently argues, the west taught the rest of the world about them..." DK.<br /><br />This may be a slight exaggeration: "...no hunter-gatherer society has ever survived in direct contact with an agricultural or industrial one." DK <br />Although some Western colonial power tried to Westernize and Christianize more primitive people, that was not always the main theme. <br />Colonialism in Africa turned out to be a dog of an idea, if one does the research; most powers quickly realized this, and attempts to Westernize and Christianize Africans faltered of their own weight. India was a different story. Asia, different yet again.<br />I only got halfway through this post so far...<br />All the bestBozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-51262154894855182002021-06-20T13:01:16.506-04:002021-06-20T13:01:16.506-04:00This questioning of Western civilization seems to ...This questioning of Western civilization seems to me to be related to the forces that brought about the Brexit. Since the end of the Cold War, a fear has crept in that progress toward supranational entities like the UN and EU will burst like a bubble. Conservative forces see a return to national entities as the solution, but overlook the fact that once the retreat is initiated, there is no stopping it. <br /><br />Boris Johnson has demonized the European Union; now he must see that the UK is not demonized in the same way. Can Scotland declare itself independent by majority vote? Could pro-England areas then break away from Scotland and usher in Scotland's disintegration as a nation? There is no stopping to this game of fear.<br /><br />The ultra-conservative forces of the U.S. have demonized internationalism, now they must see ultra-left forces demonize the glorified nation-state in the same way, questioning the common standard for all groups and thus invoking further disintegration into ethnic subgroups. You spit on our ideals, we sh*t on yours.noriborihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11746086704148831224noreply@blogger.com