Christiaan Briggs wrote:
On 27 Aug 2004, at 9:55 pm, Stan Shebs wrote:
Um, some guy claiming this doesn't make it an undisputed fact.
Um, I know, that's why I said "he argued."
You gave yourself away when you repeated it all uncritically...
Reflexive condemnation of Western civilization is no more rational than uncritical praise.
Well, luckily for me, my response was nether reflexive nor condemning of Western culture.
Trotting out the "millions of deaths" argument is a standard tactic for blanket condemnation; we're supposed to be so horrified and guilt-ridden that we'll just go along with whatever is said next.
To borrow from politics, instead of doing negative attacks on the competition, why not just stick to the advantages of your approach? This all started with the comment (I paraphrase) that principles of Western civilization are a better guide for encyclopedizing; if that's not true, let's see a sample article developed according to the principles of Islamic or Hindu civilization. Dunno about other people, but I'm tremendously curious about how that would go.
Stan