Explaining Sharia Law

[eyeball]

So Han Supremacism and Sinocentrism do not exist? Perhaps you should ask historians in Korea, Vietnam or Tibet.

And now 'progressivism' is the dominant ideology that has completely infected the politics, education system, media and everything in Western Countries (with very few exceptions such as the US south).

Just so we're clear here, we're making progress when we eliminate supremacism and that's a good thing...right?

[-1=e^ipi]

Just so we're clear here, we're making progress when we eliminate supremacism and that's a good thing...right?

Depend what kind of supremacism and what the context is. I would argue that liberal democracies are superior to theocracies for example (which would make me a liberal-democratic supremacist).

[eyeball]

I meant racial.

[Argus]

I suppose historians and ethicists from a variety of backgrounds will argue the point for as long as there are people living on Earth; but for me, what sets the European empires apart from earlier Muslim and Chinese empires that had expanded their reach, was a clear, thought out argument that they were racially superior to the natives of all lands they explored and conquered, \

They certainly believed they were culturally superior, yes. And they were certainly racists. They also disdained those who were not Christians (as other religions disdained non-believers) but they were far from the only ones who believed they were uniquely chosen by God as a superior people. Racism as government policy existed throughout Africa and the middle east, through India, and on into China and Japan.

The big difference is it still exists in those countries to a much greater extent than it does in Europe.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Argus

[cybercoma]

True, Byzantium was overrun by the Ottomans, some 1000 years later in the 15th century. But that was well after the end of what we call the dark ages, in the beginning of the Renaissance. Throughout much of the intervening period (from the fall of Rome until the Renaissance), the Islamic world was actually more advanced culturally and scientifically than Europe, and was responsible for preserving much of the knowledge of antiquity that played a significant part in the Renaissance revival. Concurrent with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Islamic civilization declined in what we call the Fragmentation, amid a resurgence of fundamentalism even as Europe was casting off the shackles of fundamentalist religion. This decline is attributed in part to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.

Look, I agree with you regarding the problems with Islam today. But that doesn't mean we have to throw away correct historical perspective, or try to paint Islamic civilization through history with a worse brush than it deserves. It is no different than the revisionists who want to demonize every aspect of the history of European powers so that it can all conform to their religion of white guilt.

I don't know about you, but screw them. I would much rather use Roman numerals for long division.

[jacee]

?

[WIP]

They certainly believed they were culturally superior, yes. And they were certainly racists. They also disdained those who were not Christians (as other religions disdained non-believers) but they were far from the only ones who believed they were uniquely chosen by God as a superior people. Racism as government policy existed throughout Africa and the middle east, through India, and on into China and Japan.

The big difference is it still exists in those countries to a much greater extent than it does in Europe.

Europe during the age of conquests, and America post-slavery were the societies that really refined and encoded racism to much greater degrees than any other society did before them. The prevailing European assumption was that the darker people were, the more inferior they were also. It's been noted that a century or two ago, English and American newspaper cartoonists were depicting the Irish as darker than English or naturalized Americans in their deliberately Irish-baiting cartoons at the time. The only other example I can think of off-hand, where a culture felt a strong need to develop hierarchies along racial lines is the caste system in India. It's supposed to be about Hindu beliefs in reincarnation etc., but what it really was designed for on a more subtle basis, was to prevent any racial mixing between invading Indo-Aryans from the north (who considered themselves superior and claimed the high caste positions) and the lowest caste - untouchables, were the Melanasian people who lived in southern and eastern India.

From a psychological vantage point, we are hardwired to be more averse to people who look much different than we do for various reasons. This is likely a tribal artifact that is still active in isolated regions of the world, and more absent in modern, cosmopolitan cities, where someone can see people who came from all corners of the earth as they go about their daily lives. Racism and encouraging racism becomes a social problem when extenuating factors are included, like the economic and political power/or lack thereof of the group that feels oppressed or discriminated against by a majority. Reverse discrimination is usually of little consequence, if it becomes a problem, because most of us are not ruled or economically controlled by the group that might be reverse racist.