Yeah sure. Eastern 'civilizations' were so much better than Western 'nations.' Except...

The new issue of Noēma summarizes views of Portuguese diplomat Bruno Maçães - that the western version of the nation state is less wholesome than eastern traditions of homogeneous, over-arching ‘civilization.’ I must comment, but do read the linked essay’s persuasive elements! Having been a bit of a hippy, I know many east-origined guilt trips can serve up constructive criticism! We are better because of Gandhi, for example.

But ‘civilization’ is no better than a nation state when it is used - as do PRC Wolf Warriors - to justify their Chung Kuo (central kingdom) right to dominate all neighbors, suppress their languages and enforce homogeneity, as the Han did for 3000 years, all under the guise of wise centrality.

Boiled down, Maçães’s essay contains mostly incantatory assertions and few verifiable facts. So here is one --

Every society that developed agriculture also adopted feudalism, rule by kings and owner-lords and their priests, who concocted reasons to ordain that power and ownership be passed to spoiled, inheritance-brat sons.

It boils down to the same male reproductive strategy that’s pervasive across nature. Enforced - in our case - with swords. We are all descended from the harems that were collected by such men.

And nowhere was harem-gathering more intensely pursued than in the ‘wise civilizations’ of the East. Ponder that eight percent of Chinese males descend from Ghengiz Khan. And all Indian kingdoms made it an intense royal pursuit- huge seraglios guarded by mutilated eunuchs. (Shah Jehan built the Taj Mahal to honor his beloved Mumtaz... but he also sired scads of lesser harem princes and princesses... and slaves.)

And I won’t even get into caste systems.

Sorry, but useful guilt trips and critiques (such as Noēma just published) aside, I do have to ask: ‘Has any society made an asserted effort to escape from feudalism’s clutches? To moderate the male reproductive impulse enough to foster instead egalitarian opportunity and flat-fair-creative competition?’ Oh, and rights for women?

There has been just one. It gave you and me everything, including the power to usefully criticize it. And few of you - nor I - would have lasted long in any of those superior civilizations of the East.

Want irony? An end to bickering nation states has long been in the offing, as some nations adopted inclusion as a premise. Expansion through inclusion, education, rights, plus vigorous inter-generational criticism, inherently strengthens a nation vs its rivals.*

So, keep your eye on the European Union or EU which is as ‘civilizational’ as it gets, subsuming nation states into a a new kind of body, based on diversity and loose tolerance, that may amaze us all, as the “E” stands for “Earth.”**

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*Which is why those rivals are weakening every enlightenment strength, through their puppets atop the US government.

** As portrayed in EARTH.

https://www.noemamag.com/from-the-trap-of-geopolitics-to-a-geo-civilizational-paradigm/Yeah, sure. Eastern ‘civilizations’ were so much better than