Belief (in) Systems (Part III): East vs West
Yes, I'm still going on and on about belief systems. But there is method in this madness, or this method would be madness...
For a long while, some people I've met have had this slightly absurd idea that there is an insurmountable East-West divide. The idea of an East-West divide is actually a British idea, from the same megacorporate constitutional monarchy that gave us the phrases 'East India Company' and 'East of Suez', that rewrote Latin and Greek to suit their own labial and lingual incompetence, that created the idea of currency, and that set up the first global empire.
It was Kipling who wrote that, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..." and then contradicted himself in the next three lines and the rest of the poem. It is easy to see the obviousness of the misdirection when you know what you are looking for.
Take for example the idea of 'Western Religions' and 'Eastern Religions'. It's ludicrous to think that there is any such divide. There are no major Western religions at all, nothing remotely close to the great arc of religions beginning on the west coast of Asia (Palestine, on the Mediterranean) and ending on the east coast of Asia (in China). You would be going from the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity (about 2.1 billion adherents) and Islam (about 1.8 billion adherents, from Arabia) — to Zoroastrianism (the world's first revelation-based religion, from Persia), and then Hinduism (about a billion more, from India), before going on to Buddhism (about 500 million, starting in India and heading north and east), Confucianism and Taoism. Together, this is about 80% of the world's population.
The majority of the remainder are secular humanists, who claim not to be religionists at all, animists, and suchlike. If you can find a major present-day religion with more than a million adherents that has an origin in any other continent besides Asia, and a community in every other continent besides that of its origin, it will be a minor miracle. I suppose it's possible, if you count some faiths that began as local offshoots of one of those I've already mentioned, but it isn't the norm.
In fact, one is tempted to think that Asian religions are more enduring than most, and that if there is such a thing as Western religion, it consists of modifying Eastern religions by about 5%, Western variants of a global practice such as totemism or shamanism, or some technology-based idea that has the fervent impulse of a religion. If anything, deliberately irreligious philosophy seems to be a hallmark of the European or American 'Western World'.
Besides religion, I think Eastern and Western values go beyond generalities. Universal human values are universal; if they're not universal then they are religious, and that leads us back to the argument that all modern religions are Asian in origin.
Perhaps the reason that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, is that East and West are a false dichotomy, something thought of by the Brits to divide the world conveniently, just as the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world for the Spanish and Portuguese.
For a long while, some people I've met have had this slightly absurd idea that there is an insurmountable East-West divide. The idea of an East-West divide is actually a British idea, from the same megacorporate constitutional monarchy that gave us the phrases 'East India Company' and 'East of Suez', that rewrote Latin and Greek to suit their own labial and lingual incompetence, that created the idea of currency, and that set up the first global empire.
It was Kipling who wrote that, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..." and then contradicted himself in the next three lines and the rest of the poem. It is easy to see the obviousness of the misdirection when you know what you are looking for.
Take for example the idea of 'Western Religions' and 'Eastern Religions'. It's ludicrous to think that there is any such divide. There are no major Western religions at all, nothing remotely close to the great arc of religions beginning on the west coast of Asia (Palestine, on the Mediterranean) and ending on the east coast of Asia (in China). You would be going from the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity (about 2.1 billion adherents) and Islam (about 1.8 billion adherents, from Arabia) — to Zoroastrianism (the world's first revelation-based religion, from Persia), and then Hinduism (about a billion more, from India), before going on to Buddhism (about 500 million, starting in India and heading north and east), Confucianism and Taoism. Together, this is about 80% of the world's population.
The majority of the remainder are secular humanists, who claim not to be religionists at all, animists, and suchlike. If you can find a major present-day religion with more than a million adherents that has an origin in any other continent besides Asia, and a community in every other continent besides that of its origin, it will be a minor miracle. I suppose it's possible, if you count some faiths that began as local offshoots of one of those I've already mentioned, but it isn't the norm.
In fact, one is tempted to think that Asian religions are more enduring than most, and that if there is such a thing as Western religion, it consists of modifying Eastern religions by about 5%, Western variants of a global practice such as totemism or shamanism, or some technology-based idea that has the fervent impulse of a religion. If anything, deliberately irreligious philosophy seems to be a hallmark of the European or American 'Western World'.
Besides religion, I think Eastern and Western values go beyond generalities. Universal human values are universal; if they're not universal then they are religious, and that leads us back to the argument that all modern religions are Asian in origin.
Perhaps the reason that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, is that East and West are a false dichotomy, something thought of by the Brits to divide the world conveniently, just as the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world for the Spanish and Portuguese.
etched with acid at 2:01:00 pm
2 Comments:
Mormonism has 13 million adherents. I don't know if you consider it a "local offshoot" of Christianity but it's grown far beyond it's origins in Utah.
Christianity, while born in Palestine, had most of its doctrines articulated by Paul during his travels in Turkey and the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and elaborated later by mostly Europeans. I guess that's what it means by calling it a western religion.
Yes, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints is a local offshoot of Christianity.
Re Christianity, the early apostles also travelled to Africa and Asia. Paul's travels were mainly in Asia Minor; his captivity was in Rome. But apart from the geographical origin of the Roman Catholic Church and the various schismatics of Western Europe, what really makes it 'Western'? Is it intellectually so, or culturally so?
Post a Comment
<< Home