Eurocentrism

[Krajzen]

The years when most leading powers and technologically advanced cultures were Europeans.
For sure since around 1500 until now, and during most of the Roman golden age.
Also possibly in the period between the Crusades and the Mongol Invasion, in which some of the world's leading civilizations were European.

1) Roman Empire was prospering in the similar time as Parthian Empire, Mauryan/Gupta Empire and Qin/Han Empire

2)

You know how world GDP looked like for most of history?

60 - 70% of global GDP was India + China
5 - 10% - Europe
<5% - Korea and Japan
<5% - South Eastern Asia
<<5% - modern Latin America
most of the rest - modern Muslim World
<negligible GDP of Oceania, most of Americas, most of Africa and Central Asia>

This changed in the late 18th century.

India had ~20 - 25% of the world economy before British colonisation, later it fell to 2 - 4%, you see the results today

3) In medieval times Europe was... Well, not some kind of Third World but it was certainly much less developed than Muslim World/India/China. The only 'world leading civilization' from Europe in this period was maaaaybe France but even this is far - fetched. The main powers were Muslim and Central Asian empires + China. Also in this time African empires (Mali, Ghana, Ethiopia) were not really much behind Europe.

What European dominance? You mean the brief two hundred years which is now rapidly coming to an end?

Well, yeah these were two hundreds years of European domination which reshaped the entire humanity via globalisation and industrial revolution

Generally - greatly simplyfying - you could say human history goes:

1) Birth and 'childhood' of homo sapiens - Africa
2) First civilisations - Asia
3) Key to the Industrialisation - Americas
4) Industrialisation - Europe



2 - Egypt is culturally way more Middle Eastern than African [generally speaking, people of North Africa even today feel very different from Subsaharan Africa - personally I would even say we should adopt two separate names for these two 'continents' if Europe is separated from Eurasia only for historical reasons]. Mesopotamia, India, China, all main religions => Asia
3 - I mean resources taken by European invaders [mainly silver and gold -> entire world economy reshaped], but also Amerindian knowledge and crops - currently 2/3 of all world crops originate from America; it is hard for me to imagine merchant society -> capitalism -> industrialisation without the anomaly of European Colonisation.

As I see it, radicalism is much more of a problem here than any kind of Eurocentrism.
Some intelligent people in CFC historical discussions relate to every pre-civilized north Asian tribe as equal to European medieval duchies and kingdoms.

Huh? Never encountered something like that.


What is truly radical and as stupid as Eurocentrism is Afrocentrism. According to Afrocentrism:
- Egypt was black civilisation
- ...and Greek philosophy was based on Egyptian philosophy so -> 'African philosophy' is dominating in the world
- ...well, generally many Greek philosophers were apparently black
- ...hey, guess where did Jews come from according to Afrocentrism? (amazing, there are still people in this world who think Israel was great and significant ancient civilisation...)
- including Jesus
- also hella lot of great historical figures were in fact black: at least one Roman emperor
- my favourite statement was that medieval English king was African because he was called 'Black' (obviously this nickname had nothing to do with it )
- Mali Empire reshaped the entire world economy
- generally speaking 'African resources were used to built the modern world = credit should go to Africans'
- African states were very advanced, very impressive and very sophisticated (based usually on some renaissance white dude writing ridiculous stuff on magical african kingdoms)
- Kongo was an empire
- Zimbabwe was extremely sophisticated
- USA was created mainly by Africans
- etc



What is the sad thing here, I think it is safe to say something exactly opposite - Subsaharan Africa has been always the least developed of all continents in terms of 'civilisation'. Sorry, I did enough research to conclude like that.
Some big but ephemeric empires and vast areas of primitive tribes/slave kingdoms, almost no written languages, no 'high culture' except parts of Western Africa (Islam) and Eastern Africa (Islam, Ethiopian Orthodoxy), most of government systems no more sophisticated than despotic monarchies, and architecture which is less developed than Indigenous American one. With few exceptions (Mali, Ashanti, Ethiopia). Sorry but if Great Zimbabwe, regarded almost as the greatest piece of architecture in Subsaharan Africa, looks like mediocre Polish castle somewhere in the Podlasie...

The ideal is to accept the European dominance, but to remember the other great civilizations for all around the globe.

Generally speaking I am calm about Eurocentrism as long as I don't see the 'Greatest Books in the World History' list on which 90% of works are from Western Europe. Then I enter rage mode.

 

[Traitorfish]

Europe did not meaningfully eclipse China in terms of economic or technological power until the late 18th century, at the earliest.

I don't think anybody would call the Romans a dominant world power.

Even if they were, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to characterise them as "European", as we understand the term, given how closely integrated parts of Africa and Asia were into the empire.

 

[sophie]

What I believe is that European civilizations through history has indeed been more dominant, with several other important powers, depending on what period we talk about.
The ideal is to accept the European dominance, but to remember the other great civilizations for all around the globe.

This is hilarious. Fantastic joke.

 

[gay_Aleks]

For some reason, I don't get it. Where's the joke? The only thing I see is some white guilt - "to remember the other great civilizations for all around the globe".

 

[Kyriakos]

For some reason, I don't get it. Where's the joke? The only thing I see is some white guilt - "to remember the other great civilizations for all around the globe".

Maybe they feel the guilt so as to make them feel more white as a twisted source for guilt. Essentially they are just more racist than the rest

 

[Flying Pig]

Even if they were, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to characterise them as "European", as we understand the term, given how closely integrated parts of Africa and Asia were into the empire.

I would be cautious about saying 'integrated into the Roman empire' as if it meant the same thing in any two places, or even as if it meant anything at all. I don't think that most of the 'empire' even noticed that Rome existed.

I'd also not assume that 'dominating the world' is something which any state could have claimed to have done before about 1991, though there were moments at which the British Empire could tenuously claim to do so.

 

[Krajzen]

Well, three countries which were closest to 'world domination' were historically

1) Mongol Empire, world in flames from central Europe to Java o_o
2) British Empire , cultural/naval/economic domination, British influence almost everywhere
3) USA in modern times, cultural/scientific/economic/military domination.

 

[Tahuti]

I would be careful with "most important" lists in general. The main problem is that such lists ignore outliers: A tiny nation surrounded by larger neighbours may come up with an invention that is hardly noticed overtly yet signicantly alter the technological development of any region that comes into contact with such an invention. In other words, outliers cannot be neglected, yet are almost impossible to accurately quantify.

 

[innonimatu]

You know how world GDP looked like for most of history?

60 - 70% of global GDP was India + China
5 - 10% - Europe
<5% - Korea and Japan
<5% - South Eastern Asia
<<5% - modern Latin America
most of the rest - modern Muslim World
<negligible GDP of Oceania, most of Americas, most of Africa and Central Asia>

This changed in the late 18th century.

And I'm calling on those numbers. I've seen them many times but it just doesn't make sense to even attempt to calculate "GDP" for the pre-modern Age. You can look at technological level and population and make some serious comparisons based on that, but go beyond that, trying to calculate a "GDP"... it's silly.

India had ~20 - 25% of the world economy before British colonisation, later it fell to 2 - 4%, you see the results today

It would have fallen anyway. India simply lacked the resources to carry out industrialization at the time.

3) In medieval times Europe was... Well, not some kind of Third World but it was certainly much less developed than Muslim World/India/China. The only 'world leading civilization' from Europe in this period was maaaaybe France but even this is far - fetched. The main powers were Muslim and Central Asian empires + China. Also in this time African empires (Mali, Ghana, Ethiopia) were not really much behind Europe.

Medieval Europe was not less developed that the muslim world/India/China. They were all part of a huge landmass where technology was, by the middle ages, spreading quite fast. The muslim world in fact inherited most of its tech from the ancient world, so did western Europe. Both improved on it somewhat (not that the pace of innovation was quick in the pre-modern age) and got some new ideas from trade also. The only real "border" delaying that was central asia/Indochina, and that only dung some periods of war that disrupted trade.

China was more different because of it's system of government, more than lack of communication with other regions. The imperial government allowed some amazing works in some areas but absolutely stifled others. Probably (and we could have a lengthly discussion just about that) europena political fragmentation was a "technical advantage" for Europe.

Ethiopia was hugely behind Europe and its arab neighbors. It would probably had been conquered by egyptian/sudanese arabs with ottoman support, had europeans not shown up to mess thing about around the Red Sea in the 16th century. Mali and Ghana were weak empires with rather serious institutional frailties: when Europe already had some bureaucracy of modern states (and arguably china also had its own) these empires had none. Civilization should have a "University of Bologna" wonder, not a "University of Sankore". That was where Europe, with its unique mix of political fragmentation and institutional stability shored up by religion, had a huge lead over the other "civilizations": it had a lot of universities starting in the middle ages.

3) Key to the Industrialisation - Americas

3 - I mean resources taken by European invaders [mainly silver and gold -> entire world economy reshaped], but also Amerindian knowledge and crops - currently 2/3 of all world crops originate from America; it is hard for me to imagine merchant society -> capitalism -> industrialisation without the anomaly of European Colonisation.

Industrialization resulted from two things:
1) scientific advancement rooted back in the late middle ages, going through the renaissance (which only revolutionized arts, not really science) and finally the enlightenment and its natural philosophers who did groundbreaking work on mathematics, physics and chemistry.
2) availability of the necessary resources.

Europe, or rather some specific regions in Europe, would have had both things at roughly the same time even if the whole american continent did not exist. The resources were there waiting to be used; and the big political change in Europe which arguably helped bring about to the enlightenment was the reformation and the wars of religion and its final settlement at Westphalia. The most influence colonial empires had on that was shoring up the Hapsburg catholic allies with wealth to pay for mercenaries. But even absent that France would probably play the catholic side and led to roughly the same settlement - no hegemon in Europe.

Europe did not meaningfully eclipse China in terms of economic or technological power until the late 18th century, at the earliest.

In the late 16th century Europe was ahead of China in several extremely important things, namely institutions and science. I repeat, universities had a huge impact on the future of Europe, and they had come of age by this time, were spreading throughout western Europe. Whereas china kept its bureaucracy centralized and closed. In one word: stagnant. Europe it was at least on par with china technologically, probably superior already in mathematics, optics and precision instruments - which would prove hugely important for scientific progress leading up to the industrial revolution. This is not eurocentrism, it's simply the reality of things.

A scientific lead would have amounted to nothing come the industrial age if a state lacked iron and coal. But both Europe and China had these together at some places. Those European states which had them used them early, first the UK then France, Germany, and Belgium (and the US across the ocean). The russians took a little longer but found what they needed too, and the austrians were lucky that they had kept a bit of Silesia. The chinese just sat on theirs for a century more. And most of the other states on the world were screwed at that point in time because it lacked those resources in places easy to get to.

 

[Kyriakos]

In Imperialism II (some cool old game) you can advance your industrial base only if you import exotic goods like tobacco and sugar from the new world, cause higher ranking clerks need those due to being so sybaritan, so i guess that is the main link between the Americas and european industrialisation

 

[gay_Aleks]

Of course. Without sugar or honey or tobacco, as Anno 1701 tells us, there would be no modern man, you see.

 

[Takhisis]

Granted, there are something in the order of three billion systems for transliterating Chinese languages into Roman characters, but at least within any given system it's relatively straightforward and consistent.

...Right?

Almost anything is consistent compared to the English writing system…

PINYIN OR NOTHING

Anyway I've heard Japanese history can be tricky because people tended to change their name a lot or be given a new name by a lord after a battle to acknowledge their bravery or some feat or another.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was at various stages Hideyoshi-maru, Kinoshita T&#333;kichir&#333;, Hashiba Hideyoshi, Hashiba Chikuzen no Kami Hideyoshi, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, emperor Taicosama, and Kozaru.

No, never emperor.

Until you've learned Greek and Latin you can't complain about unnecessary grammatical complexity.

Pffft. Anything with less than 10 grammatical cases is just monkey-speak.

 

[Masada]

In Imperialism II (some cool old game) you can advance your industrial base only if you import exotic goods like tobacco and sugar from the new world, cause higher ranking clerks need those due to being so sybaritan, so i guess that is the main link between the Americas and european industrialisation

The process of taking raw sugar, which is what is crushed out of the cane, and turning it into the sort of sugar we like to eat is actually, interestingly, a very involved process that utilizes a lot of industrial processes and requires huge amounts of plant and equipment. So there is, I suppose, some grounds for supposing that sugar refining might be an important step in building up the sorts of technical knoweldge and capital you need to transition into fully fledged industrialism. On the other hand, tobacco is more or less finished in the fields and was consumed in its leaf form usually and not, as is the case now, in a rolled form. So that's a bit of a bust

 

[Tee Kay]

No, never emperor.

Westerners thought of the Japanese Emperor as the Japanese Pope and the Japanese Shogun as the Japanese Emperor.

 

[Masada]

I think that's, sorta, apt. But I prefer the Emperor as Avignon Pope?

 

[Phrossack]

Pffft. Anything with less than 10 grammatical cases is just monkey-speak.

Fewer than 10, you Takhish simian.

 

[Takhisis]

Westerners thought of the Japanese Emperor as the Japanese Pope and the Japanese Shogun as the Japanese Emperor.

Yes, yes, but that's a translation msitake that somehow managed to accurately reflect a political reality…

Fewer than 10, you Takhish simian.

Wow! Someone who actually bothers to apply the rule.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes, yes, but that's a translation msitake that somehow managed to accurately reflect a political reality&#8230;

"Emperor" was never a direct translation to begin with- given the uniquely Roman derivation of the term, how could it be?- so it was only ever going to be used as an analogy. You're not simply dealing with a different language, here, as when we translate "Kaiser" to "Emperor", but an entirely different set of political structures and concepts. (The Japanese emperor was not in any formal sense an "emperor" until the 19th century, when Japan successfully asserted imperial status so that they could deal with France, Britain, etc. as ceremonial equals.) When you consider that, in Europe, the term "emperor" referred primarily to the Holy Roman Emperor, a secular ruler who was formally appointed to rule by and on behalf of a divine monarchy- Christ, represented on Earth by his Viceroy the Pope- this analogy makes more sense than modern convention would have.

 

[Takhisis]

I know, I know, due to my career choice I've had to take a few translation courses already&#8230; aah, sometimes I should post the sarcasm alert smiley.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I am an ardent chauvinist of the western heritage, from Greece to England. This is the tradition I was grounded it; from its stories I draw my metaphors, my allusions. Its history delivers my heroes, its philosophy my hopes. If I had been born in Arabia or China, my home tradition would be different. But I was born in America, tied to England, tied to Europe, tied to Greece and Rome. I will not let go, or even loosen my hold on this tradition, in the name of dreary, wretched, contemptible academic desiccation of culture that reduce all to the same status. There are many great civilizations, but the west is mine.