It made me feel better finding reasons that weren't intrinsic in the culture or race or whatnot as well, though more along the lines of "my culture was not doomed to failure" as opposed to "my cultural was not doomed to enslave people."
Yeah, I can imagine. Especially given that racism is normally taught as "those bad people/that bad time which we have moved beyond now," so that message of doom isn't actually instilled in white children in my experience. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but obviously can lead to problems in dealing with subtler stuff than Jim Crow later on.
You went to an American school in Taiwan, right? So did you ever study Chinese history from a Chinese perspective, or was it all American/European-written stuff?
why the US and Europe ended up on the top of the heap, globally speaking
Well, come on--Jesus is white. Haven't you ever seen the pictures? Why would God have made his Palestinian son blond if not to signal that white people should have the most power?
More seriously, I assume you've read Guns, Germs, and Steel? I don't know how you'd react to it--I know there are some issues with the methodology, and I read it long enough ago that there may be cultural stuff in there that I'm forgetting--but he does make a serious stab at talking about some possible geographical reasons why certain areas advanced more quickly technologically.
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Tue, Aug. 14th, 2007 01:52 am (UTC)Yeah, I can imagine. Especially given that racism is normally taught as "those bad people/that bad time which we have moved beyond now," so that message of doom isn't actually instilled in white children in my experience. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but obviously can lead to problems in dealing with subtler stuff than Jim Crow later on.
You went to an American school in Taiwan, right? So did you ever study Chinese history from a Chinese perspective, or was it all American/European-written stuff?
why the US and Europe ended up on the top of the heap, globally speaking
Well, come on--Jesus is white. Haven't you ever seen the pictures? Why would God have made his Palestinian son blond if not to signal that white people should have the most power?
More seriously, I assume you've read Guns, Germs, and Steel? I don't know how you'd react to it--I know there are some issues with the methodology, and I read it long enough ago that there may be cultural stuff in there that I'm forgetting--but he does make a serious stab at talking about some possible geographical reasons why certain areas advanced more quickly technologically.