From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 06:42:51 BST
Squonk,
[Squonk:] I contend Skutvik advocates a divisive doctrine.
The divisions lead to the moral assertion that the West is superior to the East.
I wish to stress this - Skutvik's definitions are not only unnecessary, they lead to the morally justifiable assertion that the West is superior to the East. Skutvik defends his definitions, AND he fails to acknowledge cultural and racial division.
etc,
No. What has happened is that you have blown up a small thing into an absurdity. The small thing is that we posters of a Western background have taken our examples for the most part from Western culture and history. That does not mean we think Western culture is superior. It means we talk about what we are most familiar with.
You are using this small thing to accuse Bo of a social crime instead of replying to his ideas with ideas of your own. In your posts I have seen some ideas, but they are usually buried by invective, so I seldom bother to try to dig them out. This racism charge is the worst yet. It would at best be just silly, but overall I fear it is malicious. As low quality as it gets. And as Steve says, works to devalue accurate charges of racism. Like calling whoever one doesn't agree with a fascist.
Specifically, your racism charge comes from the claim that Bo and I have stated that S/O thinking arose in Greek culture about 500 BC, and that we call this the birth of the intellectual level. It is true that I have not usually stated that such thinking also arose in other cultures, but as mentioned, that is only because I and my interlocutors are more familiar with Western culture. It does not imply that I think there is no intellect elsewhere. However, you claim that Eastern culture is not S/O based, which if true would imply that they are not intellectual (if S/O thinking is the mark of the intellectual level), which is absurd. But it is straightforward to argue against that claim. There were materialist and idealist Indian philosophers and everything in between back then. This means that those philosophers were aware of the distinction between mind and what the mind perceived, and thought that only the perceived objects were real, or thought they were illusions. That can only come out of S/O patterns of thought. If there were not such thinking, why did Nagarjuna think it was necessary to argue that subjects and objects had no inherent self-existence? And why did so few listen or understand, so that hundreds of years later the arguments had to be repeated by Chandrakirti and others (and still not accepted)?
So when we say that "S/O thinking arose in Greek culture about 500 BC", we are referring to its advent in Western culture, not saying that it only arose in the West. Of course, it is a matter of dispute whether or not S/O thinking is the mark of the intellectual level, but you seem to prefer to use demagogy rather than argument over this question.
- Scott
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