June 09, 2008

Western civ. is best? (part 2)

Another debate on the alleged superiority of Western civilization:Western Civilization works best. Proof: Of the 320 "greatest inventions" of all time, only 27 were not invented by Western Civilization.Parthenontipis

1 comment:

dmarks said...

@Rob: From my posting on the Multicultural Origins of Civilization, here are a few things invented by non-Western civilizations—i.e., before Western civilization existed:

Agriculture...Mesopotamia.
Metallurgy...Mesopotamia.
Commerce...Mesopotamia.
Government...Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Art...Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Architecture...Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Monotheism...Egypt (Akhnaton) and the Israelites.
The rule of law...Hammurabi.
Literature...Gilgamesh and Sumerian myths.
Judeo-Christian ethics...from the land formerly known as Judea and Samaria."

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I think that all of those, with the exception of Judeo-Christian ethics, have been part of human civilization and "pre-civilization" for thousands, or tens of thousands of years, and were also found in the pre-Columbian Americas.