EB and the West

[Urnamma]

A note to potential posters... please do not make inflammatory comments on this thread, nor attack anyone with silly arguments. Perhaps we can learn something from a reasoned debate and conversation on EB's depictions and goals.

[oudysseos]

Although Signifer's post is long and detailed, I have to agree with Abou. I am going to try and be rational, but I found much of what Signifer had to say deeply offensive and full of cultural prejudice.

The whole argument is ( by the standards of Western Classical Philosophy and Logical Thinking ) poorly structured and full of weird assertions not supported by scholarship. The argument fails totally if it can be demonstrated that Signifer's list is not original or unique to Western Culture, and Urnamma has already done an excellent job in doing just that. Not much to add there, but I do have to say that I had a huge laugh at algebra being attributed to the ancient classical west. Look it up. Even wikipedia gets that one right.

And that bit about music is pure ignorance and personal prejudice. He thinks music prior to JS Bach sounds 'semitic', 'oriental' or 'egyptian' (what is semitic music supposed to sound like? How do you objectively define something as sounding 'semitic'?), therefore it can't be 'westernism'. Never mind the huge importance of their own music to people like Socrates, Plato, Euclid. Never mind the pivotal role the investigation of musical phenomena played in developing geometry (but not algebra ) Never mind that the 'oriental' sounding music of ancient greece was an integral and inalienable part of the 'western' drama of ancient greece that contributed so much to philosophy and those 'fully formed' notions of virtue, pleasure, and personal happiness. Purely circular reasoning through and through.

Actually, Signifer's ignorance about algebra is a perfect illustration of the wishful thinking that informs his definition of what it means to be western: he has picked out the things that he thinks are admirable or impressive and claims them for western culture, regardless of their actual origin. Anything else is non-western, regardless of where the Celts (f'r instance) actually lived and followed their highly developed material culture, or how much of that 'non-western' culture influenced the development of 'westernism'. But hey, don't believe me- ask Herodotus, who often attributes much of greek culture and science with oriental origins. And he was born in Turkey.

Which is a good segue to what is really the main thing wrong with Signifer's post. Most of what he values as 'westernism' (political and ethical philosophy, science, law, art, engineering etc etc) was transmitted to the west through eastern sources (as latin translations of arabic or persian translations of latin or greek originals) (does he even know who Abu Musa Jabir or Ibn Rushd or al-Farabi or Ibn Sina were?), so who is now to say what is western and what is eastern? Hell, for a long time if you wanted to read the defining works of 'westernism' first you had to learn ARABIC. Without the availability of 400,000 books captured from the Moors at Cordoba, or the works plundered by crusaders from Constantinople and the mid-EAST, there would have been no Renaissance, and no 'westernism'.

Gaah. Trying to keep calm. Trying not to resort to adhominem attacks. Would be so satisfying. Must resist.

Ahem. Sorry. Dude, Signifer, with all due respect, your concept of western culture is terribly outdated. Thankfully, serious scholarship and popular history have moved on. To everyone else, try

Barbarians, Terry Jones
Black Athena volume One: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Martin Bernal
Empires of the Word:A language History of the World Nicholas Ostler
Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture, Walter Burkett (this one really upsets Signifer's apple cart)
The Ancient Celts , Barry Cunliffe

Obviously don't take any of these books as the whole truth and nothing but the truth: everyone has a perspective of their own that informs their work. Make your own judgments, just try to base them on the facts, and not on what you wish the facts had been.

[Bootsiuv]

What is "fully formed free government"? I live in America in the 21st century, and we don't even have a fully formed free government. I don't think such a thing has ever existed, to be honest. Many of the things you speak of as "fully formed" have been constantly evolving over the course of time. Even today, many of the things you speak of continue to evolve.

Do you have a "fully formed" concept of happiness? Or reason and logic? These things simply do not exist. Happiness is relative to many things, one being personal opinion. How it can be fully formed is beyond me. The same can be applied to almost all of the other things you speak of. If these ideas were fully formed, we would still be using them exactly as the ancients did.

Your argument also indirectly implies that easterners did not have "fully formed" concepts and thoughts. As far as I can tell, the Mesopotamian cultures (Sumeria, Babylon, etc.) and Egypt are considered more eastern than western in those times. Those civilizations were writing, conducting the business of rather centralized gov't (some times more than others), and building great monuments and art 2000 years before the Mycenaen Greeks. I can't help but think you're seriously underestimating the contributions these and other ancient eastern civilizations gave to the Greeks, who in turn gave them to the Romans.

Westernization in ancient times was mostly eastern ideas and logic which had been adapted to western life.

[Shigawire]

My wish to have SigniferOne define to me what Western-ism is started when he PM'ed me and called most of EB's - and "even" some of my own - comments as "anti-Western." (though he conveniently did not cite quotations)

Being a student of propaganda, my radar went up on the word "anti-Western", as a word identical to those used in totalitarian societies to quell dissent.
That is why the definition was very interesting to me.

Now, with public discussion, the truth can be gleaned.

[oudysseos]

"Romans, even not Greeks, were the profound teachers of the West prior to the 19th century. Seneca, not Plato, was judged by Joseph Addison as the greater philosopher, whatever you may think of that. But still, Greeks were highly respected, and Romans revered beyond measure; all other peoples in Western lands were despised and looked down on; descendants of Celtic people despised Celtic culture"

I've been trying to make sense of this statement for half an hour but it's just meaningless, unparseable drivel. It's so disjointed that the term 'non-sequitur' seems totally inadequate. I'm not trying to be insulting, I just can't make heads nor tails of the words. Why does the opinion of an obscure English whig politician and society flibbertigibbet from the late seventeenth century have any bearing on anything? Can I have some of what you're smoking?



"A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side."

"There are three sides to every story -- your side, my side and the right side."

-J. Addison

[KARTLOS]

My wish to have SigniferOne define to me what Western-ism is started when he PM'ed me and called most of EB's - and "even" some of my own - comments as "anti-Western." (though he conveniently did not cite quotations)

Being a student of propaganda, my radar went up on the word "anti-Western", as a word identical to those used in totalitarian societies to quell dissent.
That is why the definition was very interesting to me.

Now, with public discussion, the truth can be gleaned.

now that you have read it would you agree that it is a definition used uniquely by signifier 1?

[Urnamma]

Although Signifer's post is long and detailed, I have to agree with Abou. I am going to try and be rational, but I found much of what Signifer had to say deeply offensive and full of cultural prejudice.

The whole argument is ( by the standards of Western Classical Philosophy and Logical Thinking ) poorly structured and full of weird assertions not supported by scholarship. The argument fails totally if it can be demonstrated that Signifer's list is not original or unique to Western Culture, and Urnamma has already done an excellent job in doing just that. Not much to add there, but I do have to say that I had a huge laugh at algebra being attributed to the ancient classical west. Look it up. Even wikipedia gets that one right.

And that bit about music is pure ignorance and personal prejudice. He thinks music prior to JS Bach sounds 'semitic', 'oriental' or 'egyptian' (what is semitic music supposed to sound like? How do you objectively define something as sounding 'semitic'?), therefore it can't be 'westernism'. Never mind the huge importance of their own music to people like Socrates, Plato, Euclid. Never mind the pivotal role the investigation of musical phenomena played in developing geometry (but not algebra ) Never mind that the 'oriental' sounding music of ancient greece was an integral and inalienable part of the 'western' drama of ancient greece that contributed so much to philosophy and those 'fully formed' notions of virtue, pleasure, and personal happiness. Purely circular reasoning through and through.

Actually, Signifer's ignorance about algebra is a perfect illustration of the wishful thinking that informs his definition of what it means to be western: he has picked out the things that he thinks are admirable or impressive and claims them for western culture, regardless of their actual origin. Anything else is non-western, regardless of where the Celts (f'r instance) actually lived and followed their highly developed material culture, or how much of that 'non-western' culture influenced the development of 'westernism'. But hey, don't believe me- ask Herodotus, who often attributes much of greek culture and science with oriental origins. And he was born in Turkey.

Which is a good segue to what is really the main thing wrong with Signifer's post. Most of what he values as 'westernism' (political and ethical philosophy, science, law, art, engineering etc etc) was transmitted to the west through eastern sources (as latin translations of arabic or persian translations of latin or greek originals) (does he even know who Abu Musa Jabir or Ibn Rushd or al-Farabi or Ibn Sina were?), so who is now to say what is western and what is eastern? Hell, for a long time if you wanted to read the defining works of 'westernism' first you had to learn ARABIC. Without the availability of 400,000 books captured from the Moors at Cordoba, or the works plundered by crusaders from Constantinople and the mid-EAST, there would have been no Renaissance, and no 'westernism'.

Gaah. Trying to keep calm. Trying not to resort to adhominem attacks. Would be so satisfying. Must resist.

Ahem. Sorry. Dude, Signifer, with all due respect, your concept of western culture is terribly outdated. Thankfully, serious scholarship and popular history have moved on. To everyone else, try

Barbarians, Terry Jones
Black Athena volume One: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Martin Bernal
Empires of the Word:A language History of the World Nicholas Ostler
Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture, Walter Burkett (this one really upsets Signifer's apple cart)
The Ancient Celts , Barry Cunliffe

Obviously don't take any of these books as the whole truth and nothing but the truth: everyone has a perspective of there own that informs their work. Make your own judgments, just try to base them on the facts, and not on what you wish the facts had been.

Black Athena is something -I- take major offense to. That is just tripe.

There are plenty of wonderful things about ancient greece and rome... but what I take offense to is when people attribute more than the massive amount they did!

[KARTLOS]

Without the availability of 400,000 books captured from the Moors at Cordoba, or the works plundered by crusaders from Constantinople and the mid-EAST, there would have been no Renaissance, and no 'westernism'.

i agree with much of what you are saying, but i think you have certainly overstepped the mark here. it would be very hard to convincingly argue that without those events the renaissance would never have happened. the paucity of knowledge in western europe is often exagerated for starters.

p.s you should be ashamed to reference black athena. if the copy is your own i suggest you burn it.

[artavazd]

p.s you should be ashamed to reference black athena. if the copy is your own i suggest you burn it.


I had a professor in college he was African American and a Racist He would say things to the caucasian students that if a caucasian teacher had said things like that to black students he or she would have been fired and most likely gone to prison on the charges of hate crimes. He was not a history teacher, but an instructor in the teacher credential program. He asked me my ethnic backgroun I told him I'm Armenian, and this dumbass said well you know that about 500 years ago your people were about the same color as me, until they mixed with whites!!! My first reaction was shock. I thought to my self how can a college profesor be this dumb! I started giving him a little history lesson and this guy starts jumping from topic to topic he first says that well the sicilians which is the center of italian civilization was african. I refute that then he talks about Greece and the greeks being black refering to "black athena" I refute that then he asks me how old are you? I tell him my age 23 and he says well Im 60 ive been around u knowww. I laugh at him i told him you can be 160 and you'll still be wrong. Infront of the entire class I offed to make a deal with him. I told him in the 3000 years of Armenian history if he can find one source that relates armenians to africans I would drop the class with an F but if he doesnt than the entire class gets an A. This idiot waved me off trying to act profesional telling me lets get back to the subject

[KARTLOS]

p.s you should be ashamed to reference black athena. if the copy is your own i suggest you burn it.


I had a professor in college he was African American and a Racist He would say things to the caucasian students that if a caucasian teacher had said things like that to black students he or she would have been fired and most likely gone to prison on the charges of hate crimes. He was not a history teacher, but an instructor in the teacher credential program. He asked me my ethnic backgroun I told him I'm Armenian, and this dumbass said well you know that about 500 years ago your people were about the same color as me, until they mixed with whites!!! My first reaction was shock. I thought to my self how can a college profesor be this dumb! I started giving him a little history lesson and this guy starts jumping from topic to topic he first says that well the sicilians which is the center of italian civilization was african. I refute that then he talks about Greece and the greeks being black refering to "black athena" I refute that then he asks me how old are you? I tell him my age 23 and he says well Im 60 ive been around u knowww. I laugh at him i told him you can be 160 and you'll still be wrong. Infront of the entire class I offed to make a deal with him. I told him in the 3000 years of Armenian history if he can find one source that relates armenians to africans I would drop the class with an F but if he doesnt than the entire class gets an A. This idiot waved me off trying to act profesional telling me lets get back to the subject

what a cunt, i would have got up and slapped him.

people like that deserve to be shot, there should be no place for them in a university. political correctness gone mad indeed.

[artavazd]

If it wasnt for the quota system he probebly wont even be there


the sad thing is non of the caucasian students said anything to defend themselves. This idiot was insulting everyone including females in the class. After the whole incident There were somestudents that came up and told me they appricated what i did, and said that they were afraid of being called a racist if they said anything. It is sad very sad

[oudysseos]

A. Black Athena is highly controversial, politicised ( the author is a marxist ), and not particularly well written.
B. Martin Bernal is clearly completely and totally bonkers, often just plain wrong and obviously a total asshole.
Also he lets his desire to prove his case overcome his respect for the truth. Hardly a unique sin, eh Signifer?
C. Anyone who ignores or burns books/ideas because they don't like the author or the conclusion is a bit of a f***wit.

In fact I disagree with a lot (most) of what Bernal writes, yet some of what he says about the history of classical scholarship is not worthless. I could wish that his argument had been made by someone nicer and with a higher regard for good scholarship. For me the difficulty is that classical Greek culture is so central to western culture that it is nigh impossible to have any kind of objective perspective on it. That's precisely why I have read some of Black Athena (sorry, Martin, I skipped a lot of your ranting), because I like to think that I'm grown up enough to entertain another point of view, and I think that you're not entitled to disagree with a book until you have read it. If this was Third Reich Total War I would encourage people to read Mein Kampf. Recommending a book is not the same as endorsing its views.

And hey, you know what, I have almost precisely the same reaction to the first post of this thread- I think it's badly written, shows poor scholarship and has an obvious political agenda. But I don't think that Signifer should be burnt or ignored. And it may come as a surprise to him but I do agree that there is something called Western Culture and that it has great value (after all my degree is in classics). I just don't think that he has shown that he knows what it is.

[KARTLOS]

C. Anyone who ignores or burns books/ideas because they don't like the author or the conclusion is a bit of a f***wit.



. That's precisely why I have read some of Black Athena because I like to think that I'm grown up enough to entertain another point of view, and I think that you're not entitled to disagree with a book until you have read it.

.

but now you have read it surely you can burn it? it would be cleansing for your soul, you could consider it a sacrifice to the spirit of common sense!

[oudysseos]

KARTLOS- Let's not make this about Black Athena. I think everybody should have a look at it and make up their own minds.

Mea Culpa, I was (only very slightly) overstating the importance of Muslin scholarship to the renaissance in order to make a point.
I was annoyed at Signifer's didactic tone and his wildly unfounded assertions about the definition of the ancient classical west (his redundancy). His inclusion of algebra as one of the achievements of Graeco-Roman civilization is just the most obvious example of his cultural prejudice and his willingness to claim other people's accomplishments as 'westernisms' own.
The ironic (for Signifer) part is that regardless of their own cultural background people like Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi (that's the algebra guy), ibn Sina or Ibn Rushd were totally in love with Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy and Archimedes and kept them alive for us. We owe the survival of most of the important texts of westernism to easterners! Without Muslim scholars we would have no Aristotle. And we only have what they though was good enough to translate into arabic, so how western are we now?
The same applies to medicine- another one of Signifers defining characteristics of westernism that he GOT TOTALLY WRONG.

**Goes away and has a nice cuppa**

Hey well how bout them Twins, eh?

But seriously, It is difficult to overestimate Western Culture's debt to the East. I know it's only wikipedia, but still have a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_t...e_12th_century

Kinda hard to find a sentence without an arabic name in there. Anyone feeling slightly humble and less Romano-centric?

[keravnos]

Black Athena... or how a way of depicting figures on vases (which was abandoned later as artistic styles changed), became a rallying flag for African Americans with an agenda and a set goal in mind.

I never did get that. There were major, MAJOR empires that thrived in "Black" Africa (to differentiate from people of Lower Egypt and Mediterraneand coast who aren't) at any one point. Meroe/Nubia, Axum, Many kingdoms in the area of Niger, and best of all Great Zimbabwe.

Why not embracing your culture fully, and be proud of it and go mind-raping young students about people who had absolutely no relation to what you are saying, instead?

a small guide to how NOT to be a historian.

1. take an artistic method (black figures over white background) as in the below vase of 5th century BCE)

Circe offers cup to Odysseus; end 5th century BCE
swine-man in background. Ahtens, National Archaeological Museum

or even later ones who have men painted as black and women painted as white (another way to create antithesis on people who were basically wearing the same clothes)

birth of Athena from Zeus. Greek
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

or... as pointed to by this hellenistic painting,

Men were outside tilling their fields, brandishing their wares, being soldiers and generally earning a living, thus getting a tan while the women were "protected" indoors without much rights but an obligation to have a family white was a desired quality back then when female beauty was on display (It is not generally known but Ancient greek women were treated much like property). Whereas Pahlavan and Saka women were generally treated in a much better light, with Sarmatians according to Herodotos having an armoured contingent of ONLY women warriors.

2. Project your own bias-goals into it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

However wronged one must feel to have his ancestors snatched from their own continent and brought to another land to live and die for many generations as slaves, WHICH IS DEAD WRONG, no doubt about it, it doesn't give those people the right to assume false identities, or try to find "hidden secrets" where there aren't any!!!

3. Lie, lie, lie to keep your own little moment of "Look mom I'm famous!" known to the world, blatantly disregarding things like the fact that there were other methods of drawing figures, like the following ones...(later than the one shown above)


and


or even white on white with colour (different artistic style)


There are basically thousands upon thousands of examples, as there are thousands upon thousands of ancient greek vase fragments which can depict what I am saying. A book on art can also be far more precise than I will ever be. Still, it is kind of sad to see art history being turned into " they live among us" kind of conspiracy theories.

So...how were "black" africans depicted back then?

found in London, British Museum

[Basileus Seleukeia]

people like that deserve to be shot, there should be no place for them in a university. political correctness gone mad indeed.

Kartlos, for yourself's sake I hope that you were drunk when you wrote this. Saying that racists deserve to be shot is the same thing as saying that one "race" has to be entirely killed. The sole wish of killing somebody for his political intentions is a shame. Btw, if a policeman would read this, he would be forced by law to get as many information about your location and give it to the police. well, everyone here would be forced by law.
I do not want to defend racism, I hate it, but countering that with a murderous rage is simply the wrong way. Seriously, that Professor should be kicked out of the university, but surely nothing worse, as even to those subjects, human rights apply.

[Treverer]

Kartlos, for yourself's sake I hope that you were drunk when you wrote this. Saying that racists deserve to be shot is the same thing as saying that one "race" has to be entirely killed. The sole wish of killing somebody for his political intentions is a shame. Btw, if a policeman would read this, he would be forced by law to get as many information about your location and give it to the police. well, everyone here would be forced by law.
I do not want to defend racism, I hate it, but countering that with a murderous rage is simply the wrong way. Seriously, that Professor should be kicked out of the university, but surely nothing worse, as even to those subjects, human rights apply.

Seconded!

[KARTLOS]

Kartlos, for yourself's sake I hope that you were drunk when you wrote this. Saying that racists deserve to be shot is the same thing as saying that one "race" has to be entirely killed. The sole wish of killing somebody for his political intentions is a shame. Btw, if a policeman would read this, he would be forced by law to get as many information about your location and give it to the police. well, everyone here would be forced by law.
I do not want to defend racism, I hate it, but countering that with a murderous rage is simply the wrong way. Seriously, that Professor should be kicked out of the university, but surely nothing worse, as even to those subjects, human rights apply.

sense of humour bypass?

[SigniferOne]

Well, really there's no way I am going to respond to all the other posters here, nor do I have an inclination to. But I picked out oudysseos's post to respond to, as it seemed to me the most philosophical of all the others.

I am going to try and be rational, but I found much of what Signifer had to say [...] full of cultural prejudice.

Thank you :)

The whole argument is ( by the standards of Western Classical Philosophy and Logical Thinking ) poorly structured and full of weird assertions not supported by scholarship. The argument fails totally if it can be demonstrated that Signifer's list is not original or unique to Western Culture, and Urnamma has already done an excellent job in doing just that. Not much to add there, but I do have to say that I had a huge laugh at algebra being attributed to the ancient classical west. Look it up. Even wikipedia gets that one right.

Alright well, what I had in mind were the algebraic developments in 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, such as by Diophantus. I am well aware that the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic textbook, but am referring to the actual mathematics involved. Quoting from your wiki, which "gets it right":

Those who support Diophantus point to the fact that the algebra found in Al-Jabr is more elementary than the algebra found in Arithmetica and that Arithmetica is syncopated while Al-Jabr is fully rhetorical. (emphasis mine)

Diophantus of Alexandria (Greek: Διόφαντος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς b. between 200 and 214, d. between 284 and 298 AD), sometimes called "the father of algebra", was a Greek mathematician of the Hellenistic period. He is the author of a series of classical mathematical books called Arithmetica and worked with equations which we now call Diophantine equations; the method to solve those problems is now called Diophantine analysis. The study of Diophantine equations is one of the central areas of number theory. The findings and works of Diophantus have influenced mathematics greatly and caused many other questions to arise. The most famous of these is Fermat's Last Theorem.

Refrain in the future from being rude and ordering me to look something up.

And that bit about music is pure ignorance and personal prejudice. He thinks music prior to JS Bach sounds 'semitic', 'oriental' or 'egyptian'

That's not what I said. Nor could I possibly have said it, since the polytonal music of which JS Bach was the champion took its actual origins in 1100s in Christian monasteries. I said ancient Roman or Greek music sounds semitic, which I defined as close similarity to music that was actually semitic or eastern. Nor did I say it can't be 'westernism', I said it does not have enough distinguishing characteristics to be specifically Western, specifically Greek and Roman. It doesn't matter what influence it had on good people. How many incorrect assumptions are you going to attribute to me, and then lecture me on proper presentation of logical arguments?

Besides music is music, and even before it became polytonal in the West (the supreme achievement), it could still be good and resonate with people's feelings in its earlier stages.

Actually, Signifer's ignorance about algebra is a perfect illustration of the wishful thinking that informs his definition of what it means to be western: he has picked out the things that he thinks are admirable or impressive and claims them for western culture, regardless of their actual origin. Anything else is non-western, regardless of where the Celts (f'r instance) actually lived and followed their highly developed material culture, or how much of that 'non-western' culture influenced the development of 'westernism'. But hey, don't believe me- ask Herodotus, who often attributes much of greek culture and science with oriental origins. And he was born in Turkey.

Let's not make a hyperbolic argument shall we? Herodotus doesn't attribute "much of greek culture and science" to oriental origins. He says the Babylonians had an astrolabe. The facts are that some of Eratosthenes' calculations were an improvement over old Babylonian observations. Herodotus doesn't say the drama came from the orient, it came from Aeschylus. He doesn't say history came from the orient; it came from Hellanicus. He doesn't say poetry came from the orient; it came from Homer. He doesn't say the Greek polis came from the orient; he says how the Greek polis defeated the orient. As you can see, I am no dolt; please produce a more intellectually sound response in the future, especially since I have not attacked you even once. As you might know, that is called ad hominem and is a logical fallacy, recommended for avoidance in the future.

(does he even know who Abu Musa Jabir or Ibn Rushd or al-Farabi or Ibn Sina were?)

Great men.

Gaah. Trying to keep calm. Trying not to resort to adhominem attacks.

I hope so.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Let's not make a hyperbolic argument shall we? Herodotus doesn't attribute "much of greek culture and science" to oriental origins. He says the Babylonians had an astrolabe. The facts are that some of Eratosthenes' calculations were an improvement over old Babylonian observations. Herodotus doesn't say the drama came from the orient, it came from Aeschylus. He doesn't say history came from the orient; it came from Hellanicus. He doesn't say poetry came from the orient; it came from Homer. He doesn't say the Greek polis came from the orient; he says how the Greek polis defeated the orient. As you can see, I am no dolt; please produce a more intellectually sound response in the future, especially since I have not attacked you even once. As you might know, that is called ad hominem and is a logical fallacy, recommended for avoidance in the future.

Hyperbolic? Hmm, might have to look it up for you but if anything becomes clear from Herodotos then it is his acknowledgement of foreign development - he even explains why in his opinion the Greeks had copied their entire Pantheon from Egytian examples. That is a rather large chunk of culture.

Also he specifically mentions the handles on shields being a foreign invention, IIRC a Lydian one to be precise. Also he attributes astrology & astronomy to Babylonians. IIRC he claims that they were the first to accurately measure time and date, and to incorporate it all into calendars.

While he certainly doesn't claim that all science comes from Greece, he certainly gives his audience the impression that Greek science is to a large extent based on "Barbarian" science. A rather audacious move, given the recently acquired bad blood between Greeks & Not-Greeks.

It is equally true, however, that in his vision other peoples often copied Greek inventions / designs and did some further thinkering with them.

As for history: according to Herodotos you best sources would be the local priesthood. He certainly doesn't claim that Hellenikos invented any such thing - anyone with even the slightest amount of education would've known better than that. Temples and Courts, that is where they expected to find sources on history.

Based on your last remark I think you either know jack of Herodotos' Historia or have a woefully wrong conception of the content of the books. He himself explicitly state what he is going to describe in his book in just one sentence - the very first one he makes.

Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.

Quick, raw translation:

[This is] the record of the research by Herodotos from Halikarnassos, in order that the [following] events [will] not become forgotten among people[s] because of [passing] time, and that the great and wonderous deeds perfomed among Greeks [on one side] and among Barbarians [on the other side] [will] not become unknown of either and especially the reasons why they [have] waged war against eachother.

Now one simply can't summarise his work any better than that. For those three topics are precisely the thing he discusses. He doesn't describe "how the Greeks won, and the Persians lost" - in fact that is how he describes the rise to power of Persia. "How did the Persians win, and how did everyone else lose." Read his 'chapter' on the war between Kyros and Kroissos for example, or read about the sieges of Babylon by the Persians.

Quite frankly you may point out that oudysseos isn't correct - eventhough one could have quite an argument over that statement - but you, yourself SigniferOne show an even more worrisome lack of knowledge of what you're talking about. (And with that I mean Herodotos' "Historia")

[oudysseos]

Although I was willing to admit that I was a little quick off the draw, attitude wise, with Signifer, and also guilty of a (very) little hyperbole in relation to the influence of Persian/Arabic/Moorish scholars on the renaissance, I am pretty confident that Herodotus was very candid about the many cultural, religious and scientific debts that the Greeks of his day thought they owed to others. Whether or not he was actually right is another issue. Here's a few quotes.

Book 2 ca. line 109

...This was the way in which geometry was invented, and passed afterwards into Greece- for knowledge of the sundial and the gnomon and the twelve divisions of the day came into Greece from Babylon

Book 2 ca. line 58

It was the Egyptians too who originated, and taught the Greeks to use ceremonial meetings, processions, and processional offerings.

Book 2 ca. line 49

Melampus, in my view, was an able man who acquired the art of divination and brought into Greece, with little change, a number of things which he had learned in Egypt... The names of nearly all the gods came to Greece from Egypt...

There's lots more but I think ye get my drift. Herodotus is not the only weak link in Signifer's chain so I don't want to spend all night on just that.


Not that I or Herodotus or anyone reasonable would ever claim that "The Greeks" (a worrisome generalization as it is) didn't develop and advance some of scientific and/or cultural memes (you might want to look up memes- but it's not an order) that they thought were good and useful, just as al-Kwarizmi, ibn Rushd and ibn Sina did, and just as the renaissance translators and scholars did, and just as we (at least, scientists and academics- I'm just a chef and parttime musician) do today.
That, in my view, is what makes it so silly to try and set 'westernism' apart based on characteristics with multiple contributions from many sources. Science is the child of many parents, and not exclusively western ones, and the same applies to medicine, architecture, engineering, sculpture, grammar, oratory, ethics, and everything else.
Why is so important to you to claim these things solely for the west? The achievements of Greece and Rome are substantial enough without this kind of thing, and an attempt (such as EB) to make people aware of the cultures of the non-Roman contemporaries of Scipio in no way detracts from Graeco-Roman preeminence at the time. Nothing can, as it's all history and has already happened.

The shelves of Waterstones are filled with popular books on Greece and Rome- more than a single person could reasonably ever expect to read. What do you care if there's one or two on the Persians? How is anyone harmed?

Finally, I intend to put my thoughts together in relation to your statements about music and painting, as I find them quite disturbing.
But I have to ask, isn't calling polytonal music 'The supreme achievement' a purely subjective expression of your musical tastes? Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, Copland, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrnae might disagree with you. Oh, and by the way, 'polytonality' is the use of more than one key simultaneously, and is not particularly common, so that's probably not exactly what you meant. You probably meant polyphony. It may sound pedantic, but if you're a musician (I am, semi-professionally) that's a pretty big mistake to make.

Gotta go. The kids wanna play EB, not talk about it.

[geala]

After reading the thread and the related threads it still remains a mystery to me what should be changed in EB. I would be with you if you would want to change some Greek units but in the whole I am stumped. Because this feeling of helplessness I allow myself a not so systematic approach in the following thoughts.

It also remains a mystery why you are insulted when the feats of other cultures are mentioned. The Romans themselves were always able and willing to take from other cultures. They took a lot from the Greeks who took a lot from the east. For example the Roman law is influenced by the Rhodian law. They took from the western "barbarians" also, f.e. agrarian machines or iron working etc..

I question myself what western culture you want to defend? The current one? If you name the Germanic culture anti-western, what western culture is in your mind? Of course the Germanic culture is anti-western if the modern western system is your focus. But the Roman culture in this sense is also anti-western in many aspects. Think of the human rights for example. Is it allowed to the EB team to mention gladiatorical games? Should they mention that the broad introduction of Roman law in the 13th c. AD was the starting point for inquisitional inquiries and torture also? Together of course with the ability to judge more complicated cases and to serve the growing power of the state.

In my opinion the most important Roman heritage to the western world is the idea of a state ruled by a law made by specialists. That is a rather boring fact, but with many surprising aftereffects. Many other aspects came from a Greek, Christian and Jewish (so eastern) tradition. Wether they were (late) Roman or not is debatable. And after the fall of the empire a lot of new "barbarian" influences were added to the western culture. Otherwise try to explain the quite different evolution of the areas once in the Roman empire.

[oudysseos]

To me, the most important defining feature of western culture is the corpus of literature, art and music, sometimes called the Canon, or the Great Books. Mostly Dead White Guys, I'm afraid.
Of course, other cultures have their own collections of lit, so it's not the existence of literature in general that define the west, but this specific example.
Every culture, by definition, has social norms, ethical values and traditional customs that differentiate it from others. This is hardly surprising. But it's a bit weird to claim that grammar (just for one example) is a unique contribution of Graeco-Roman culture to human history. A brief study of Sanskrit knocks that one on the head- the Greeks neither invented grammar nor were its greatest exemplars (although we use their word for it).
But of course Greek/Roman grammar had great influence on the world's second most successful language, the otherwise largely germanic English. And the Roman alphabet (though totally semitic in origin) is probably the world's most prevalent (tho I don't have any figures to back this up). Of course the reasons why these things are true are seriously open to debate and might not be anything to be proud of.

[mcantu]

After reading the thread and the related threads it still remains a mystery to me what should be changed in EB. I would be with you if you would want to change some Greek units but in the whole I am stumped. Because this feeling of helplessness I allow myself a not so systematic approach in the following thoughts.

If I take his comments correctly, he is not saying there is a problem with EB's representation of the Romans in the game...he is criticizing what he feels are dismissive comments by EB team members (some the Romanii team) towards the Romans, IMO