“Why the great accomplishments of humanity in the sciences and arts have been ov

—“Why the great accomplishments of humanity in the sciences and arts have been overwhelmingly European? My first task is to show that Europe was in fact the most creative culture of the world. My second, and main task, is to start explaining why this was the case, in comparative contrast to the

more serene and deferential Eastern spirit.”—

–“human accomplishment is determined by the degree to which cultures promote or discourage autonomy and purpose. Accomplishments have been “more common and more extensive in cultures where doing new things and acting autonomously [were] encouraged than in cultures [where they were] disapprove[d]” (395). Human beings have also been “most magnifi cently productive and reached their highest cultural peaks in the times and places where humans have thought most deeply about their place in the universe

and been most convinced they have one.” —

–“Both Buddhism and Daoism taught that purposeful action on this earth was a delusion; they encouraged the virtues of serene acceptance, gentleness, and passivity as a way of comprehending the universe and one’s role in it. The progress achieved in China and Japan was made consensually and hierarchically by individuals motivated to become a valued part of a tradition by imitating their past masters.

Islam gave its believers a sense of purpose and energy that helped foster the achievements of its golden age. But Islam saw God as a deity who is not bound by immutable laws, and which emphasized obedience to God’s rules and submission to his will against any presumption that humans could comprehend his works or glorify God with their understanding of nature.

Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures

were all highly familistic, hierarchical, and consensual cultures

(400–01). Europe was different in the way it was able to integrate

purpose with autonomy. This integration produced “the defining cultural

characteristic of European civilization, individualism” (401).

The Greeks laid the foundations of human rational autonomy but their

culture was still not individualistic, insomuch as it did not conceive

the individual apart from his public role as a member of the polis.

It was Christianity that “differentiated European accomplishment

from that of all other cultures around the world” (402). This did not

happen immediately, but with the consolidation of Roman Catholicism

and the development of a philosophical outlook, notably by Thomas

Aquinas (1226–1274) who stressed that “that human intelligence is a

gift of God, and that to apply human intelligence to understanding the

world is not an aff ront to God but is pleasing to him”.

This outlook, adopted by the Church, also taught “that human autonomy is a gift of God, and that the only way in which humans can realize the relationship with God that God intends is by exercising that autonomy” (403). However, the full development of individualism came with Protestantism and its encouragement of industriousness, persistent action,

and empirical utilitarianism.”—