The recent PBS Series "Civilization" which attempts to "explain" the "dominance" of Western Civilization for the past 500 years based on western "killer apps"...is TOTAL BULLSHIT...!
They should be ashamed of the themselves for spewing this kind of nonsense...but the Right WingNut Congress has been threatening the funding for PBS recently ...so perhaps they felt obligated to produce some right wing crap to balance their mythic "liberal bias"...
The series posits that the basis for Western success...has been the Protestant "work ethic"...and worse that this work ethic is ONLY available via the Churches of Northern Europe...and that the Catholic nations are therefore "indolent" and ...lazy...!
WHAT CRAP...
This notion completely ignores the dominant Spanish and Portugese Seabourne Empires of the 16th Century...who were Catholic...and whose influence is still dominant in most of South America and also in parts of Asia...Goa and Macao for example...
It also ignores the role of violence and war...in the "dominant Protestant Empires"...like Britain an the Dutch Republic...
It was not "work ethic" that allowed the British and the Dutch to "take over" Asia...it was their willingness to use force and violence...
The 300 year Dutch occupation of the what is now Indonesian was particularly brutal... And the Indian Raj and the British occupation of the Middle East Post Napoleon where hardly based on "work ethic"...rather on notions of Empire achieve by war.
Or was Napoleon just another example of an "indolent Catholic"...!
The program continues to claim that the current commercial success of the Chinese is because they are "turning to Protestant Churches...!" What crap...
The Chinese where the businessmen of Asia for Centuries BEFORE the Protestant missionaries even showed up in Asia...! The Chinese where the merchant class of Asia...even called the "Jews of the Orient"...they were the businessmen and traders...long before the Europeans arrived...and they still are...!
Indeed, it was the dissatisfied Chinese Merchants in Malacca who were tired of their Islamic Sultan...that opened the gates of Malacca for the Portugese invaders...!
The appeal of "Western Style" religions in China can also be explained by the fact that anceint "Chinese Religion" is not really very "organized"...it consists of a set of rules for behavior...with some ancestor worship...and is really less a "religion" than a philosophy of life...
For example there is no equivalent of "going to church" in Chinese religion... The Temples are simply open for people to visit as they feel the need...there is no organized ceremony...except on special occasions...and it is not dominated by "priests"...as in the West...or even among the Hindus...
The entire Civilization series on PBS...is CENTERED ON WESTERN HISTORY...and only comes to its nonsensical "conclusions" by TOTALLY IGNORING...THE HISTORY OF THE EAST...
BUT THEN AGAIN...THAT'S WHAT WE DO IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES...!
WITH OF COURSE A HEAVY DOSE OF PITIFUL BRITISH POST-IMPERIAL BULLSHIT ADDED FOR GOOD MEASURE...!
NO WONDER OUR VIEW OF THE WORLD IS SO DISTORTED...SO DOOMED TO FAILURE...
WAR HAS BEEN THE BASIS OF WESTERN "DOMINANCE NOT "WORK ETHIC"...
INDEED THE PAX AMERICANA...WHICH HAS BEEN RELUCTANT TO USE TOTAL WAR AS THE ULTIMATE TOOL OF IMPERIALIST SUCCESS...
....COULD BE THE REAL REASON FOR THE DECLINE OF THE WEST...!
