From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 11:27:11 MDT
On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 12:10:02PM -0400, Dickey, Michael F wrote:
>
> "Every civilization has its share of massacre, but nothing tops Western
> civilization's penchant for institutionalized mass killing."
>
> I would have to respectfully disagree, communism has been much more
> effecient at mass killing. Mao 30 million, Stalin 10 - 15 million, Pol
Pot
> 3 - 4million. etc. I would not consider communism to be 'western'
(despite
> the western liberal elites who still promote it)
"But communism is very much based on a Western tradition of thinking.
It all started with Plato's ideas of the perfect society run by the
enlightened elite, was channeled through social justice movements
heavily influenced by Christian virtues of compassion, combined with
Hegelian ideas of history as having a certain direction and meaning
(also based on judeo-christian ideas of time), and then combined with
western economic ideas by Marx. I can't see any point in it which
isn't very western. "
Then compare despotic communism with democratic capitalism and see which
seems more 'western' Unless, of course, the definition of 'western' is
'everything but fundamentalist islam'
Plato was also quite at odds with other greek philosophers, including
Democritus and Aristotle. Plato ensured virtually none of Democritus books
survived. Plato and Aristotle were quite at odds with their world views, if
communsim is more based in Plato's republic idealogy of the elite ruling
class then Aristotle's idealogies are to the opposite extreme. Not to
mention the fact that even Ancient greece, the cradle of western
civilaztion, did not embrace Plato's idealogies, instead we see it as the
home of democracy. So whats more 'western', communism or democracy?
Considering modern scientific inquiry is based aristolean logic, Id see
Aristotle had far more influence on what is 'western' than Plato.
Regards,
Michael
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