Would our intellectual traditions survive if the West was to no longer dominate?

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

This is not about good guys vs. bad guys / good vs. evil. Nor is it suggesting that the next fall of the Roman Empire is in any way on the horizon or inevitable. Please don't anybody take it that way or turn it into that.

But let's imagine a scenario such as this: the political and economic landscape shifts, the United States of America and Europe are struggling poor countries, and, say, China and its allies dominate the globe.

Would the intellectual traditions of the West survive?

Or would a lot of the history, philosophy, science, theology, etc. that we in the West have developed over many generations come to a halt and/or be lost?

Europe was not exactly wealthy or dominant when many of the intellectual traditions that we now take for granted were thriving. But at the same time, the societies of the rest of the world and the overall political situation would not be the same if the West was to again be an economically struggling minor actor on the global stage.

 

[acropolis]

they almost certainly would survive. china, india, russia, etc. are not savages, they are just as devoted to reason and rationality as the west. granted they have been victims of some unfortunate psuedo-marxist philosophy, but as it is now i don't think the west is in any danger of having their entire intellectual tradition destroyed.

 

[quatona]

This is not about good guys vs. bad guys / good vs. evil. Nor is it suggesting that the next fall of the Roman Empire is in any way on the horizon or inevitable. Please don't anybody take it that way or turn it into that.

But let's imagine a scenario such as this: the political and economic landscape shifts, the United States of America and Europe are struggling poor countries, and, say, China and its allies dominate the globe.

Would the intellectual traditions of the West survive?

Do you think the intellectual traditions of Iraq will survive the American invasion?

I´m not sure I understand what "intellectual traditions" are supposed to be. To me, that sounds almost like an oxymoron.

Or would a lot of the history, philosophy, science, theology, etc. that we in the West have developed over many generations come to a halt and/or be lost?

Looking at history I am inclined to expect that the culture of the emperor will mingle into the culture of the conquered.

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten?
Sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschiessen,
es bleibet dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei.

 

[WorldIsMine]

None of the popular intellectual traditions (statism, democracy, nationalism, Christianity, welfare, anti-rationalism, environmentalism) are worth preserving. All of the ideas in the west which are worthwhile have faced continous attempts at extermination, and still do, so I think they'll survive just fine. If democracy and Christianity fall, I'll be the first to cheer.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

What is good and worth preserving will survive and the rest will (thankfully) die out.

Culture should be like cuisine we preserve what is good and we mix it with what other people have that is good.

The West could use an influx of Confucian and Taoist thought.

There is something sick about preserving tradition simply for the sake of preserving tradition.

 

[The Nihilist]

WorldisMine makes a pretty good point, if somewhat abrasively (She will be the kettle, and I will be the pot). Classical thought and literature thrived in the Islamic empires and survived the purges of the catholic church. I don't doubt that anything worth reading that the west has produced lately will survive similarly.

 

[WorldIsMine]

The West could use an influx of Confucian and Taoist thought.

Ugh, the Chinese could use an infusion of Aristotilean thought. And no, I'm not a western cultural imperialist (as my earlier post would indicate), and I do generally agree with you. But, to quote a Japanese scholar of the late 19th century, "European thought is successful because european thought is rational and chinese thought is not." Due in part to its massive wealth through relatively weak and decentralized governments, the West simply had far more independent intellectuals and thus a richer and less bureacratic-propagandistic strain of philosophy. That is no longer the case, but beh, Confuscianism has the advantage of being reality-oriented but it is not independent or individualistic, very collectivist and duty-bound. Slave morality, eh?

 

[ArnautDaniel]

Ugh, the Chinese could use an infusion of Aristotilean thought. And no, I'm not a western cultural imperialist (as my earlier post would indicate), and I do generally agree with you. But, to quote a Japanese scholar of the late 19th century, "European thought is successful because european thought is rational and chinese thought is not." Due in part to its massive wealth through relatively weak and decentralized governments, the West simply had far more independent intellectuals and thus a richer and less bureacratic-propagandistic strain of philosophy. That is no longer the case, but beh, Confuscianism has the advantage of being reality-oriented but it is not independent or individualistic, very collectivist and duty-bound. Slave morality, eh?

That depends on what aspects of life you are worrying about.

If you are worried about engineering and science, then European thought is obviously superior.

But philosophy encompasses much more than that.

A particular example would be how we each face death. European and American thought shows a large fear of death and dying, with little practical attempt by philosophy to mitigate that.

Now admittedly the Greeks and Romans did far better in this regard, and that aspect of their thought has been lost to the present.

One can think of other day-to-day quality of life issues that European philosophy fails to deal with. I think Confucianism and Taoism have much to contribute in regard to questions like these.

Philosophy is about the whole of our lives, and the European tradition fails to deal with things that happen daily.