History Forum / General / General Topics / March 2004

On 1 Mar 2004 17:36:51 -0800, in article
<157c968b.0403011736.3098c3d1@posting.google.com>, dan_rockandroll@yahoo.co.uk

All of these divisions are artificial, anyway.  You don't have to go back very
far to find a common mother for all of us.  Interestingly, a research group at
Berkeley deduced our common African ancestress by comparing mitochondrial DNA
from 147 women of different origins: European, African, Asian, Australian and
New Guinean. As a general rule, the differences within races were much larger
than the differences between them.  Read that sentence again.  It's rather
startling, and it puts these racial superiority freaks in their place.  (As if
they could even clearly delineate a human race anyway; human biologists are
beginning to reject even the very idea of races.)

Different cultures have contributed greatly to human advancement at various
times.  Trying to rank them is a fool's game.  Sure, Chinese culture made great
advances early.  But the creative spirit died, or when into deep hibernation,
or was suppressed.  Chinese culture had to be dragged kicking and screaming
into the modern world.  I expect it to contribute once again now that it has
clearly arrived there.  Fortunately, some group is always on the vanguard of
advancement, and the human race, despite its incredibly destructive tendencies,
moves on.

Shishimai

They practiced the closest thing to democracy the word had ever known & they
called it such.
No, it was not democracy by our standards; most people were still slaves in
that society (not citizens).

"The Gifts of the Jews" argues that Jewish thought changed the way the
Western world *thought*.
Since this is the same guy who wrote how the Irish saved Western
Civilization later, I took it with a grain of salt, but not too much salt;
he makes some persuasive points.

They are a

I think the original poster was just trying to say that racism is nonsense
because all have contributed.

Susan

Only in parts of Greece was any sort of democracy practiced and IIRC
about 10% of Athens population actually were citizens that voted.

Conversely almost all peoples outside Greece were citizens of some place
but they did not vote at all.

Overtime I suspects that the better books were kept. The books most
likely to be lost were the ones that were considered to being less good.

Why is this important? Many famous writers and thinkers come from minor
groups in society.

Jews come from pretty well all societies. Many of which are not Western.
Many Jews writing we have come from Greek and/or Roman society eg Philo.

Western civilization overtook years ago Chinese society.

I would call Western civilization now a global one. Very few places are
not under its influence.

Has to be Greeks or Graeco-Romans. Democracy is a very Greek concept,
recording of history, philosophy, mathematical advances over and above Egypt
and Babylon, same with medicine and science, baths showers, toilets, running
water - all Greek. An empire that lasted from 800BC into about 1204AD (I use
date of 4th Crusade's treacherous sacking of Constantinople). A testament to
its longevity is the number of Greek words in European languages. In English
for example, I would say 33% of words are Greek, most scientific, but a lot
of everyday stuff.

Oh yeah, 1 more thing the Greeks gave us is Christianity. It is a very Greek
religion regardless of whether or not the New Testament was written in
Greek.

I can't think of 1 thing the Chinese have done that I use in my daily life
other than paper and gun-powder, but I am just a westerner ignorant of east
Asian matters.

China's Age of Invention
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/china/age.html

Chinese invented restaurants to serve traveling officials and
merchants.

Gunpowder was used in Chinese rocket launchers to shoot fireworks -
and weapons of war.

The development of printing enabled Chinese officials to distribute
important documents.

Faster growing rice distributed during the Song Dynasty helped prevent
famine.

The Chinese invented the compass and then used it to travel the open
seas.
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THE GENIUS THAT WAS CHINA
http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~knappr/48260/GeniusThatWasChina.html

1. The horse collar
2. The wheelbarrow
3. The moldboard plow
4. Paper money
5. Cast iron
6. The helicopter rotor and the propeller
7. The decimal system
8. The seismograph
9. Matches
10. Circulation of the blood
11. Paper
12. Brandy and Whiskey
13. The Kite
14. The rocket and multi-staged rockets
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