Civilization: Powered by the West, Threatened by the Rest
Via William Butchman
As Butch mentioned above, (I just saw this post tonight, on March 1st) I’m increasingly confident that what accounts for the west consistently competing faster than ‘the rest’ is sovereignty, and its requirement for deflationary truth, and everything else results from it. The question is, why does it appear that westerners to have had this rather aristotelian bias “realism” or “military epistemology” even into prehistory? The only explanation that fits consists of a small number of related traits: (a) the lack of clannishness that seems to be a predisposition of near-arctic peoples everywhere in the upper hemisphere, (b) the long term use of metallurgy outside of the authoritarian mysticism necessary to organize irrigation in the river valleys, and (c) the battle tactics of raiders who family-financed bronze, horse, and wheel: beginning with voluntary membership in the ‘venture’, selection of leaders (generals), contractual adherence to promised battle plans even at risk of death, contractual distribution of proceeds from battle, and the merciless demands of military epistemology – a discipline we still practice in basic training today: testimony.