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