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Thread: Why the West Won

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    Quote Originally Posted by jet57 View Post
    I don't think you did. Your source left out a lot of information on western success, that was the point.
    Sure, because he was generalizing. Just as Diamond generalized.

    The question is not really why is the West successful but why has it won out over other regions of the world which have in many respects adopted Western ways, as Francis Fukuyama argued about the end of history--even though we now that that was too early a call.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Sure, because he was generalizing. Just as Diamond generalized.

    The question is not really why is the West successful but why has it won out over other regions of the world which have in many respects adopted Western ways, as Francis Fukuyama argued about the end of history--even though we now that that was too early a call.
    Diamond DID NOT generalize. He answers all of your questions very thoroughly. Had you read his book you'd know that. He work was very very specific and he goes to great lengths on the study of western civilization and it's its successes. Your source is more market driven and leaves a great deal out of the entire story, and I'll stand by that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jet57 View Post
    Diamond DID NOT generalize. He answers all of your questions very thoroughly. Had you read his book you'd know that. He work was very very specific and he goes to great lengths on the study of western civilization and it's its successes. Your source is more market driven and leaves a great deal out of the entire story, and I'll stand by that.
    Same can be said of the OP author.

    He and Diamond, as you said, say the same, but the OP author adds in market forces.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Same can be said of the OP author.

    He and Diamond, as you said, say the same, but the OP author adds in market forces.

    You're arguing when you have nothing to argue.
    You've posted a half truth right-wing opinion dude. I've pointed out it's faults: it tries to say that Western thinking and policies are so much better without offering the whole story of Western civilization gained its power, mostly through war and military conquest and how that happened.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jet57 View Post
    You've posted a half truth right-wing opinion dude. I've pointed out it's faults: it tries to say that Western thinking and policies are so much better without offering the whole story of Western civilization gained its power, mostly through war and military conquest and how that happened.
    You've done no such thing.

    Here is what you posted:

    Quote Originally Posted by jet57 View Post
    Technological advances due to wars also propel civilizations into advancement. Wherein Mr. Ferguson is correct, really more from a market perspective..., Ferguson leaves quite a bit out of his history. Advancement through military might is how the New World was discovered and those "western values" were stamped onto people where ever the west went.
    But that is what Ferguson says:

    ...slavery, imperialism, and war. OK, but that was the way of the world and not original to the West.

    The West advanced because of a number of institutional innovations:
    • Economic and political competition
    • The scientific revolution whereby through experiment and measurement nature could be understood, manipulated, and mastered
    • The rule of law and representative government based on individual property rights and the representation of them in elected legislatures
    • Modern medicine
    • The consumer society
    • The work ethic where Westerners work longer and harder and save more of what they earn which leads to investment
    "political competition" includes war.

    "The scientific revolution" includes "Technological advances."

    What you miss about the OP is Ferguson plays down what the West shares with every civilization, "slavery, imperialism, and war," and focuses on what is unique and innovative to the West.

    The topic is an attempt to explain how the West won. Not merely how it advanced as all civilizations have, but how it uniquely went further to practically dominate the globe.
    Last edited by Chris; 02-22-2020 at 11:46 AM.
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    It seems someone has been misreading Jared Diamond.

    How 'The West' Beat 'The Rest' With Six 'Killer Apps'

    ...On why it's not just about Guns, Germs and Steel

    "I'm a huge admirer of Jared Diamond, and I've been inspired by him and indeed influenced by him. I think the idea that competition is a killer app, I credit him with that insight.

    "But the emphasis that he puts on geography as a determining factor is something I have a slight problem with, not because it's not helpful. It's clear that the reason Eurasia ends up being a great deal richer and more powerful than, say, Australasia or, for that matter, the Americas, has to do with geography.

    "But — and this is the critical point — the Diamond thesis can't really explain why one end of Eurasia ends up dominating the other end; in other words why Europe ends up so much more powerful than China and India and indeed ends up formally ruling India after the mid-18th century.

    "And I don't think you can get there with a geographical story ... there isn't a significant enough difference, it seems to me, in geography between the two ends of the Eurasian landmass. And indeed that's why I press the case for an institutional explanation ...

    "You can think of this as a big debate between people who think that it's natural resource endowments that determined history — including geography or for that matter climate — and those like me who say ... it's the manmade institutions that make the difference.

    "And one reason that I incline strongly towards that second view is that we've conducted some interesting experiments in the last 100 years to see what happens when you make radical institutional changes. We took two very similar populations, living in pretty much the same place, and we divided them — the Germans and the Koreans — into communist and non-communist or capitalist parts.

    "And with incredible speed, the institutional changes had massive material consequences. They just changed the way that people behaved. So Germans living in Germany, Koreans living in Korea started to behave totally differently because they had different institutions.

    "That seems to me a pretty good illustration of the way institutions matter. And that's why my book is much more about institutions. Although I call them the killer applications to try to attract the attention of my teenage readers, including my own children, I'm really talking about institutions here. And I think they're more important, in the end, than geography."
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    You've done no such thing.

    Here is what you posted:



    But that is what Ferguson says:



    "political competition" includes war.

    "The scientific revolution" includes "Technological advances."

    What you miss about the OP is Ferguson plays down what the West shares with every civilization, "slavery, imperialism, and war," and focuses on what is unique and innovative to the West.

    The topic is an attempt to explain how the West won. Not merely how it advanced as all civilizations have, but how it uniquely went further to practically dominate the globe.
    Ferguson goes nowhere near what I'm talking about and what created the power of Western Civilization. Moreover, Prager University is a conservative propaganda producer and the Hoover Institute is funded by the Koch Brothers: Stanford is 20 minutes form my house, so I've been there, heard speakers and know the organization.

    Ferguson speaks from a commercial point of view and leaves out most of the story. Moreover he starts in 1400 A.D. at the time of world expansion and only mentions the Romans and empire. There was a hell of a lot more that went on before that and let's not forget how expansion went and what methods were used.

    So you're off the mark again as is your source.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    It seems someone has been misreading Jared Diamond.

    How 'The West' Beat 'The Rest' With Six 'Killer Apps'
    All books have their critics, and as you've never even read Guns Germs and Steel, you have no idea - yet again - of what you're talking about.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    It seems someone has been misreading Jared Diamond.

    How 'The West' Beat 'The Rest' With Six 'Killer Apps'
    Diamond is a egalitarian ideologue who, like the Stephen Jay Gould, was more interested in combating racism than helping anyone understand the tides of human history. GG&S is a straw man intended to disapprove theories of racial superiority.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


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    He managed to mention the Kochs again. Incredible.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


    ~Alain de Benoist


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