I’m strictly hands-off on most things.
Merely noting that the academic discipline of Comparative Civilizations is often a political boondoggle says so much about our Western Civilization. You would think that folks recognized there is no way to be truly objective; you have to start where you are. The idea is to compare what else is out there or has been out there with what you have now. Sometimes there is enough information that you can actually embrace at least some of what you discover that is otherwise foreign to you. The ultimate perversion is to pretend your own is somehow the human default, and that all the others would naturally wish to be like yours.
So you might realize that the question comes down to a priori arguments about what ought to be. This is that mental territory in some folks’ heads that includes things not open to discussion. Perhaps you have experienced the shock, horror, rejection and even some vindictive retribution for stating the obvious, in which you question the validity of something “everyone knows.”
Yes, there are some things you can examine and decide pretty easily that you don’t need to go there. It’s not impossible to sense areas of inquiry that just don’t jingle your wiring. The problem is when we allow someone else to close off avenues of exploration before we even get the chance to decide. Perhaps during the height of the Age of Enlightenment (generally 1650-1780) you would have folks calling for the broadest possible inquiry into human knowledge, but that really didn’t last long. Indeed, one could argue that this was largely sentimental, as most of the leading lights of the Enlightenment were not themselves that open to variations outside their own range of assumptions. Sometimes it devolved into intellectual excuses for unlimited hedonism, as if the only thing worthy of exploration was any vice previously forbidden.
Where it went wrong was mandating that someone open themselves up to the abusive explorations of others. “You simply must try this!” In other words, the exploration became a sort of god and you were required to bow down at the altar. There was precious little real freedom, despite the propaganda. All the freedom was reserved the “enlightened.”
This is the ultimate evil of Western Civilization: The mythology of objective truth. If truth can be objectified, reason becomes a deity. Of course, then we automatically have some elite that must decide for us what is reasonable and true. “We assert it is possible to be objective and we are the ones who get to decide what it means.” If it is objective, then no one living can justify rejecting it. At some point, compelling others to embrace the results of your reasoning is an obvious necessity. Reason: Ideas so good that violence is justified in forcing people to dissolve themselves into them.
So it would shock Westerners to realize that some civilizations possessed no concept for “orthodoxy” (right thinking). Take the broad collection of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) civilizations, for example. Sure, those other civilizations did have some basic assumptions, but it seems they did a better job of giving you room to differ. It was partly because they seemed to be aware that they did hold assumptions and might have even chosen them consciously. That others might take a different approach didn’t rattle them.
So a conquering emperor would say, “This is how we approach things. Be aware of it.” Then he would simply demand a certain level of tribute. He would also invest a lot in defending his ownership of the people in terms of protecting them from outside raiders. It was simply inexcusable to take tribute on any other terms. A major position in any imperial court was providing a very realistic assessment of what kind of taxation was bearable on any given population. It was seldom more than ten percent, and often less. You can’t shear the sheep if they are starving, defenseless and dying. The value of people outranked most other values.
Rulers in that ancient tradition were generally loathe to wipe folks out entirely. Have you noticed in Scripture how the Hebrews generally failed to finish the job, even when they were all too certain their God demanded it? Perhaps you could argue it was too much work for them, compared to today’s weapons of mass destruction. However, there is ample evidence of a distinct moral repulsion for it in the literature of other ANE civilizations.
Westerners talk a good game, but would not hesitate to commit genocide once a particular population had been sufficiently demonized. That is, Western plutocrats, who are generally in control of the narrative seem eager to stir up that level of hatred. Unlike the ANE, we have a broad class of plutocrats who avoid being identified and interviewed, so we get most of our information from their servants who are less cagey. Perhaps some of them are actually inside members; it’s hard to know. In the ANE, even those working behind the scenes were well-known if you bothered to ask. Given the way so much was invested in symbolism, one would be forced to publicly self-identify in order to wield any power. The West is far more dishonest about it.
In fact, by comparison, the West is so deeply and inherently false that Westerners cannot imagine an entire civilization that genuinely frowned on deception. We have a large tradition of pretending that honesty is good and honorable, but that’s just part of how fake the West is. Such bogus notions of honor are forced on the serfs; the West is inherently dehumanizing. Frankly, the ANE tendency to promote an awakened sensory heart versus the West denying such a thing exists means the ANE folks were more likely to catch you in a lie. You would think some early Western intelligentsia made it a point to destroy the notion of a sensory heart just so they could more easily keep their power and control.
This seems to be a signal psychosis of Western plutocrats. They dread the idea folks might start deciding things for themselves. This is one of those a priori things in Western social mythology: “Somebody has to be in charge.” They deny that spontaneous customary social stability is even possible. In their minds, human life would come to a halt and people would simply start dropping dead in the streets if the plutocrats weren’t there to tell them all how to breathe and when to do it.
By no means do I promote libertarian individualism, because that’s just another flavor of the same Western mythology. It cannot happen that way. The fundamental question is not whether men shall have a government, but of what type. If you start with utter chaos, it won’t take long for survivors to clamor for a government; it’s instinctive. The question is what we assume such a government will do, what it will control, etc. Yours truly has self-consciously chosen to favor the revelation of God in the Bible, and prefers the image of ANE shepherd as family head of household. God says there will be a government, and if you don’t choose the one He recommends, you’ll end up with something far worse.
Perhaps this helps explain my self-conscious rejection of anything that smells of orthodoxy in my religious teaching.
