[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Which comes first: The culture or the institutions? One culture's
> institutions may not be capable of being migrated to another culture. Or a
> transplant may only take place if there is a positive receptor.
[snip]
There is a book the title of which I forget which
even speculated that the coming of the printing press
in a rigid society could fail to change anything but
merely be absorbed to facilitate the society's
existing rigid lifeform. THe printing pressers
could be used to print catechisms and pledges of
allegiance (etc.) instead of sparking (as Elizabeth
Eisenstein argued):
+ A permanent Renaissance
+ A Reformation of religion, bringing the
authority down from a this-worldly Hierarchy
to the inner faculty of judgmment/"conscience" of each
individual)
+ A scientific revolution
As I have said previously, at the end of a very long
life devoted to studying ancient Chinese science and
technology, and also a deep humanistic commitment to
socialism, Joseph Needham came to the for-him sad
conclusion that what enabled the West to "take off"
in science and technology, and to surpass China
ca. 1700, whereas previously Europe had indeed been
relatively barbarian, was that Europe had capitalism
whereas China never got beyond feudalism.
On the other hand, we see how the most "reactionary"
persons enthusiastically embrace things like
jumbo jets, and we see how to use them in
novel ways we Westerners seem too imaginatively
limited to conceive of. So we surely all agree
that receptivity can be selective and also
reinterpretive.
O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure!
O fate of man working both good and evil....
(--Sophocles, "Ode to Man", in _Antigone_)
Cheers!
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
