Modernization impossible without westernization

[Thegoodshepherd]

http://www.unz.com/akarlin/struggle-europe-mankind/

One of the most interesting articles I have read this year. The author argues that Universality is actually Western ethnocentric beliefs dressed to look as if they apply to all humans. But that at the same time, in order to keep up with the west's advance in science&technology, you must adopt the West's way of doing things. The West has essentially setup a game where they are permanent winners because everyone is playing a game designed around the culture of the West. Whether you ape the West (e.g Japan) or not try at all (e.g Saudi Arabia), the West will despise you for not copying it exactly or for not choosing to copy it. The West has worked hard to make sure people are unable to distinguish modernization from westernization.

 

[merka]

http://www.unz.com/akarlin/struggle-europe-mankind/

One of the most interesting articles I have read this year. The author argues that Universality is actually Western ethnocentric beliefs dressed to look as if they apply to all humans. But that at the same time, in order to keep up with the west's advance in science&technology, you must adopt the West's way of doing things. The West has essentially setup a game where they are permanent winners because everyone is playing a game designed around the culture of the West. Whether you ape the West (e.g Japan) or not try at all (e.g Saudi Arabia), the West will despise you for not copying it exactly or for not choosing to copy it. The West has worked hard to make sure people are unable to distinguish modernization from westernization.

People like to use Japan as an example you must westernize in order to be modern but Japan did not really lose their culture at all in order to modernize. They kept their language, art, and religion, plus they still have the Emperor as their head of state.

What they did was to take industrial knowledge from the west and applied it to modernize their country. That's what really made Japan successful.

 

[Dhabaal]

It is interesting, i ran in to discussion with a fella once that had this ingrained belief that it was ultimate to ape from the west and the only path to progress.

They think Technology(i.e Modernity) is a product of western culture and that you have to adopt western culture. It has definitely become a by word for westernization ,but this is however incorrect.

Modernity is not the sole 'invention' of Westernization, but more over, 'modernity' is the accumulated Conquest of the Western world

Culture also interacts with modernity at many complex levels, but advancing culture should never mean the retreat of modernity, and vice-a-versa.

Africans were part of modernity, how many Arabs and Asians were also part of creating modernity? Modernity may have been assembled in a White man's house but by many non-White people. So no one race can claim everything in modernity. Modernity does not imply West or White. It has been and is the product of a global human effort.

Cultural values can exist in the most technologically advanced spaces, without challenge. A pure example of this is how western culture is wrapped up in technology, which debunks the idea of culture being inherently backwards to begin with.

e. It is a false dichotomy to think that Xeer is incompatible with modernity or dowry belongs in a bygone era.

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o explains the problem as it exists in Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonising_the_Mind

 

[Dhabaal]

Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o explains the problem as it exists in Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonising_the_Mind

Yeah i read his theory on the cultural bomb.

"
The biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed against
collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural
bomb is to annihilate a people's beliefs in their names, in their
language, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in
their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It
makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievements and
it makes them distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes
them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from
themselves ... with all the forces that would stop their own spring
of life (p.3).

 

[Dhabaal]

People like to use Japan as an example you must westernize in order to be modern but Japan did not really lose their culture at all in order to modernize. They kept their language, art, and religion, plus they still have the Emperor as their head of state.

What they did was to take industrial knowledge from the west and applied it to modernize their country. That's what really made Japan successful.

@dhegdheer

Modernity is just technological state it does not mean westernization.

Japanese entered into modernity with Japanese culture as the foundation. They adopted systems and technologies then in turn made into their own version of modeled to the needs and demands of their society's culture.

Only people with strong cultural agency can look at new technologies and see the technologies as distinct from the culture of the techno-bearers. They can then skillful take the technology and leave what threatens their self-identity.

But how do you integrate your diversity and contribution into the world when you reject your own cultural values and end up a cultural orphan? Only loyal to European defintions, ideals and power structures?

Thus beyond the over reaching hand of Westernization many cultures put their foot down in the monocultural stream of globalization to take ownership of their spaces. The Japanese practices Japanese culture in the modern workplace. They did not completely base their work ethos on Europe just because Europe brought technological gifts to Japan in the 19th century (Convention of Kanagawa)

 

[Thegoodshepherd]

@Dhabaal That is correct. You first have to realize that you are a non-western nation and that shedding what makes a non-western nation will lead to the fragmentation and deconstruction of your state. By emulating the French or the English, the elite in many formerly colonized countries further strengthened the idea in the minds of their subjects that what is western is always good and that which is native is bad. If the best educated/ ruling class is mentally colonized what hope is there for the average African? This is why I respect Kenya and Tanzania greatly for making Swahili an official language not in theory but in actual practice. Ethiopia having only Amharic as an official language is something to very proud of, although I wish they would Oromo on there too.

Somalia having Arabic as an official language is something I am opposed to because we have no strong cultural ties to that language. It is a disgrace for us to have Arabic , a language less than 3% of the population can speak be an official language for us.

 

[merka]

@dhegdheer

Modernity is just technological state it does not mean westernization.

Japanese entered into modernity with Japanese culture as the foundation. They adopted systems and technologies then in turn made into their own version of modeled to the needs and demands of their society's culture.

Only people with strong cultural agency can look at new technologies and see the technologies as distinct from the culture of the techno-bearers. They can then skillful take the technology and leave what threatens their self-identity.

But how do you integrate your diversity and contribution into the world when you reject your own cultural values and end up a cultural orphan? Only loyal to European defintions, ideals and power structures?

Thus beyond the over reaching hand of Westernization many cultures put their foot down in the monocultural stream of globalization to take ownership of their spaces. The Japanese practices Japanese culture in the modern workplace. They did not completely base their work ethos on Europe just because Europe brought technological gifts to Japan in the 19th century (Convention of Kanagawa)

People seem to underestimate what colonialism has done to the societies under their rule. Generations of children were educated in schools being taught European cultures and norms. They were taught to speak the colonial master's language, the history of the "Mother Country" and to consider their own culture as backwards and primitive.

Once they graduated from the schools they became fully immersed in western culture. On the surface they were African, Asian etc. but mentally they were Europeans. The ones who could best assimilate into the colonial culture were rewarded with post secondary education in the Mother Country and gained lucrative government positions once they finished their studies. They eventually became the political elite post-independence and to this day most African countries are completely dependent on their former colonial masters.

You should read Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon. He really goes into detail about the psychology of racism and colonial rule.

 

[dhegdheer]

@dhegdheer

Modernity is just technological state it does not mean westernization.

Japanese entered into modernity with Japanese culture as the foundation. They adopted systems and technologies then in turn made into their own version of modeled to the needs and demands of their society's culture.

Only people with strong cultural agency can look at new technologies and see the technologies as distinct from the culture of the techno-bearers. They can then skillful take the technology and leave what threatens their self-identity.

But how do you integrate your diversity and contribution into the world when you reject your own cultural values and end up a cultural orphan? Only loyal to European defintions, ideals and power structures?

Thus beyond the over reaching hand of Westernization many cultures put their foot down in the monocultural stream of globalization to take ownership of their spaces. The Japanese practices Japanese culture in the modern workplace. They did not completely base their work ethos on Europe just because Europe brought technological gifts to Japan in the 19th century (Convention of Kanagawa)

Bro we're literally in the middle of a debate in another thread let me finish that before I get back to you

 

[Dhabaal]

People seem to underestimate what colonialism has done to the societies under their rule. Generations of children were educated in schools being taught European cultures and norms. They were taught to speak the colonial master's language, the history of the "Mother Country" and to consider their own culture as backwards and primitive.

Once they graduated from the schools they became fully immersed in western culture. On the surface they were African, Asian etc. but mentally they were Europeans. The ones who could best assimilate into the colonial culture were rewarded with post secondary education in the Mother Country and gained lucrative government positions once they finished their studies. They eventually became the political elite post-independence and to this day most African countries are completely dependent on their former colonial masters.

You should read Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon. He really goes into detail about the psychology of racism and colonial rule.

You know the thing i found interesting is that even tho science, economics , philosophy, and all other subjects you can learn at university and school are characterized by them as neutral learnings and disciplines, it generally is not. Because the knowledge(root) might be neutral but how they convey it is not, it is rooted in western epistemology which is very much centered in western culture,atheism, secularism etc.

For example they also teach dudes called Immanuel Kant and David Hume in one of my classes and applaud them for being terrific philosophers and their ideas.They conveniently left out that these men were both white supremacists who believed that asian,arabs, africans and every none European lacked the ability for rational thought. So people should be vary absorbing their work uncritically.

Same thing with the usage English language,(european languages), it is centered and controlled by western politics and interests. You get introduced into terminologies and paradigms shaped in their world view and interests. Which then shapes your opinions and you get stuck seeking your reality in the linguistic boxes built for Europeans.

I have read Frantz Fanon he influenced me a lot, along with Osman Keynadiid, Ali Mousa Iye, Musa Galaal ,Malcom X ,Noam Chomsky and couple of various writers and academics.. who really shaped my thinking and understanding.

 

[Kaafiye]

People like to use Japan as an example you must westernize in order to be modern but Japan did not really lose their culture at all in order to modernize. They kept their language, art, and religion, plus they still have the Emperor as their head of state.

What they did was to take industrial knowledge from the west and applied it to modernize their country. That's what really made Japan successful.

Exactly. Countries like China and India are also modernizing while also holding onto aspects of their own cultural heritage. Somalis should be able to do the same thing.