Non-Western Stupidity

While we focus here on stupidity, we must acknowledge in passing that, like the Sumerians, the ancient Egyptians must have done something right for we can pick up the story of their descendants in our own era. This is no mean tribute to the capacity of the Egyptians to survive, as their culture was contemporaneous originally with that of Sumer and later with that of Babylon—both long since gone. What they did right was find a cultural balance with their natural environment. However, the development of a concomitant sense of complacent, eternal equipoise in ages past may have contributed to their later subjugation by successive waves of aggressive Moslem and Western elements in their human environment.

By the middle of our own millennium, the condition of Egypt had become one of Egyptian tragedy and Turkish stupidity as it was then the Turks who were the dominant force there. The Ottoman-Mamluk rulers shared the same religion as the subject people but usually spoke a different language, so the ties of the rulers to the people were rather weak. In fact, the peasantry was simply considered a resource to be exploited. During the heyday of Mamluk rule (which lasted in toto from 1250 to 1517), the merchant class contributed enormously to the wealth of Egypt. However, toward the end of the fifteenth century, state intervention blunted merchant initiative and Egyptian commerce declined.

In the nineteenth century, Turkish governors pursued a goal of an export-oriented economy relying on a large influx of foreign capital. By 1875, the borrowing of money at increasingly onerous rates led to the desperate, foolish sale of Egypt's shareholdings in the Suez Canal Company to the British for only $20 million. For a short-term fix, Egypt thus lost its influence over and the extended benefits from its greatest international asset.

In this century, the quest for sustained economic development carried Egypt toward a fascistic policy of governmental planning as the state assumed an ever expanding role in the fiscal management of the country. In 1956, Gamal Nasser indulged in a self-defeating fit of patriotic bravado and nationalized foreign firms, thereby driving out much needed capital and technical expertise. The economy did develop slowly under him, but Egypt's resources were hard pressed and the gains threatened by an expanding population.

Like Nasser, who could not carry out his long-term theoretical plans in the short-term practical world, Anwar Sadat could not cope with long-term problems, like population growth, nor effect the long-range government investments needed to raise Egypt's standard of living. He was simply too idealistic and found that even his greatest short-term triumph— making peace with Israel—alienated both his supporters (the army) and his enemies (religious extremists). His assassination made him a martyr to liberalism in a land resistant to change.

Actually, the sacrifice of dynamics and the individual reached a debilitating extreme not only in Egypt but also in India. There, the commitment of fatalistic Hindus to a condition of national nirvana allowed a Moslem conquest and domination which lasted a thousand years. This conquest was probably the bloodiest in history until World War II and illustrated that the delicate balance of civilization may easily be thrown off at any time by barbarians invading from without or attacking from within. In this particular case, the Hindus permitted their strength to be wasted by internal division and war. Further, they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of this life. Most important of all pragmatically, they failed to organize their forces to protect their borders, cities, wealth and independence.

Within the general context of Indian apathy and indifference to survival, a feudal civilization was built in Mewar and some other states by warlike rajas—Indian samurai, if you will. From about 600 to about 1600, these feudal lords defended themselves and all of India as best they could, while they could, from would-be invaders. They regarded war to be the highest art, but their pride was also their tragedy as the same spirit which for a while enabled them to prevent an invasion also kept their little states divided and weakened by strife. This was a classic case of a people who could survive anything but themselves. Their militaristic schema defined their existence but created dissension and led to their demise, so all their bravery came to less than naught. Thus, Indian militarism presents a story of contrast: When it was absent, it was a fatal defensive weakness; where it was present, it was a fatal divisive strength.

For about three hundred years (ca. 700-1000), growing Indian opulence invited conquest. Hordes of Huns, Afgans and Turks hovered on the frontiers just waiting for national weakness to admit them. After a few hundred years of raiding—time enough for the Indians to have organized to defend themselves effectively against this clear and ever present danger, the real conquest began in the eleventh century with a devastating Moslem invasion that lasted for centuries. In fact, if there was stupidity on the part of the invaders, it was that they destroyed so much wealth they could have used to their advantage.

If India was a land divided by warring states before the Moslem invasion, since that time it has been a land divided by battling religions—particularly Islam and Hinduism. The resultant strife and bloodshed seems just that much sadder when one reads the religious ideals expressed by Kabir, a medieval poet. Devoid of dogma and infused with a profoundly religious spirit, he blended the best of both creeds into one with no distinctions on earth and one God in heaven. Unfortunately, his death in 1518 demonstrated his failure, as Moslems and Hindus disputed whether his remains should be buried or burned. Although his words passed largely unheeded into Indian oral tradition, they did inspire the creation of two sects which today remain jealously separate while they both worship the doctrine of the poet who tried to unite Moslems and Hindus: One sect is Moslem, the other Hindu.

As subjugated Indians sought consolation in religion, they were predisposed to accept Christianity, which happened to be compatible with many ethical precepts that they had honored for centuries. In fact, Christianity might have led to a higher standard of loving not only in India but in the world in general had it not been for the character and behavior of Christians. The contrast between their precepts and practices left many potential converts skeptical and satirical because often the missionaries could hardly be heard above the roar of Western cannons.

When they were heard, missionaries did have some difficulty spreading the Holy Word in India because Hinduism had many more and better miracles to offer than had Christianity. Hindus were not much impressed by someone being raised from the dead, and the Europeans' claim "But this really happened" must have left them completely nonplussed. Hence, missionary work was somewhat limited by one of Christianity's strengths in that, despite all its miracles, it is better suited to use by rational beings than any other major religion but is also less appealing emotionally to potential converts steeped in superstition.

Actually, it has been through secular rather than sectarian education and technology rather than theology that the West has had its greatest impact on the Orient. Clearly, the major impact of Western ideas on Indian thought came not from religion but through liberal education. The English taught colonials British history with the intention of creating loyal subjects but unwittingly inculcated the idea of democracy and the ideals of liberty and equality in the minds of their students.

Railroads, telephones and mass media have likewise produced extensive cultural changes throughout the world. If India was reluctant to embrace industrialization, it was not only because British machines reduced Indians to poverty (while high calibre guns taught them humility) but also because of the very nature of Indian society. The caste system, which developed in and for a static, agricultural civilization, provided order but gave no opening to ability, let alone genius. It furnished neither stimulus for invention nor encouragement for enterprise. It has been undercut by the Industrial Revolution, and although it hangs on, in most Indian factories today, employees work side by side regardless of caste.

In contrast to the traditionally religious culture of India, that of China has always more philosophical and intellectual, based more on sages than saints and directed more toward wisdom than goodness. To the Chinese, the ideal is not pious devotion but mature contemplation. Most honored is he who acts in silence for true wisdom is expressed better by example than by words.

When traditional Chinese wisdom was expressed in words, it was generally consistent with the minimal standards of Buddhist ideals. Formally, there was no functional knowledge, as material possessions were valueless and empty nothingness the eternal ideal. Like Rousseau, Lao-tze (ca. 550 B.C.) wrote with more idealism than realism—with knowledge tempered by hope. In the way that urbanites romanticize nature and Jesus idealized people, Lao sweetened everything. Actually, however, sweetness was usually set aside, and the pragmatic Chinese were more likely to outwit or confound their opponents than serenely ponder philosophy.

This discrepancy between formality and function was enfranchised by Confucius (551?-479?), the Chinese philosopher par excellence who synthesized a religious philosophy of morality. The chaos of his time seemed to him a moral disorder caused by a weakening faith in ancient ways and the spread of skepticism. His remedy was a moral regeneration based on a sound family life which would lead to an ordered state. In his simple mind, knowledge would lead to sincerity, which would lead to orderly desires, which would lead to regulated families, which would lead to a successful state. As a pat, logical train of thought, this is hard to beat, but as an accurate, descriptive analysis of life, it is impossible to accept.

Confucius was, if anything, too much the philosopher, as he let his quest for a perfect system of morality mislead him into visions of inhuman ideals. Knowledge does not necessarily make people more sincere and better and may even make them phonier and worse if they merely use their knowledge to achieve subconscious, petty ends. Further, this is all the more likely in people who do not make a deliberate, fair effort to obtain objective information about the effect they are having on their environment and couple that with an effort to have a "Good" effect. Where biases remain in the perception of "Good", knowledge itself does not improve people: It just makes more probable the realization of their goals, whatever they are.

Unfortunately for China, Confucian scholars became enraptured with their ideal view of human nature and formed an anti-intellectual bureaucracy hostile to free and creative inquiry. Thought stopped as philosophy became divorced from reality and the Confucian classics came to define orthodoxy. From 1200 to 1900, when Confucianism officially molded the Chinese mind, the Chinese were forced to learn without the benefit of a functional system of thought. In the absence of a condoned schema which related to worldly events, they developed a general, undefined system of values which became too practical, too sensible, too prosaically sane and totally beyond discussion, analysis or reform. Thus, it was partially because Confucius was so completely successful in his abstract way that China had to undergo a revolution.

In contemporary China, Confucianism is clearly out and science in. This represents a triumph for both pragmatism and philosophy over the mental state which treated them as separate and unequal. The basic shift in attitude toward a modern functionalism was expressed by historian/philosopher Hu Shih early in this century when he openly scorned the "Spiritual values" of Asia and opined he found more worth in the reorganization of government and industry than in all the "Wisdom of the East". Mathematics and mechanics are both popular now in a land which underwent a Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment and Revolution and produced an Oriental Napoleon all at once.

As a revolutionary culture restrained only by the political leaders' desire to retain power, contemporary Chinese society has been built on the fault between the modern and traditional minds. The Chinese are imitating foreigners, whom they despise. They were forced to choose industrialization over vassalage, so they surrendered their own standards and accepted the worst of Western culture—particularly in architecture and music—along with its technological necessities.

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Until the Industrial Revolution, Easterners could not comprehend the zest of the West for life. They saw only superficial childishness in business and ambition, much as Westerners saw only inertia and stagnation in the East. Now, while the East is moving to adopt Western technology, we remain adamant in our refusal to look ultimates in the face. Perhaps it is time we ask ourselves "Why?"

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