Poll: do you agree with Huntington's civilizations map?

[Token]

If not, why?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTS7HviDAIxTCPVSKRXPMINoEb-gpK7C69Qgw&usqp=CAU

[Cristiano viejo]

Uruguay and Argentina are Western. Greece too.

Baltic countries, Hungary, Croatia etc are Eastern.

Basically a rare map that mixes religion with civilization.

[Mortimer]

Uruguay and Argentina are Western. Greece too.

Baltic countries, Hungary, Croatia etc are Eastern.

Basically a rare map that mixes religion with civilization.

This

[Hektor12]

Outdated concept belongs to cold war era.

Here you have current civilizations map

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3x3rPOCEAA-dJn.png

[Token]

Uruguay and Argentina are Western. Greece too.

Baltic countries, Hungary, Croatia etc are Eastern.

Basically a rare map that mixes religion with civilization.

Religion was arguably the most important factor of convergence until very recently. Religion was often used as nearly synonymous to culture.

I'm genuinely curious to hear why exactly you don't consider Croatia, Hungary and the Baltic countries as part of the West. What factors makes them different from the West and more similar to Russians?

[sean]

https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1496639299988.png

His map is based around religious identity, so orthodox countries such as Greece and Russia belong to a so-called Orthodox civilisation. He breaks down the world into several "civilisations" and analyses them and how conflict between them will be the basis for most conflicts in the 21st century.

I don't agree because he muddies the waters with East Asia. For example, South Korea is much more closer to the west than it is to China, Taiwan fucking hates the PRC, and Japan don't seem worthy of their own colour on the map. According to the theory of "band-wagoning" non-Western countries can join and accept Western values.

And there's no way the Filipinos would ever side with the Europeans, East Asians, or even the Middle Eastern people. Because all three groups have attempted to colonise, conquer, enslave, or slaughtered them. They have a better chance of them going with the Latin Americans.

Most of what he wrote was already predicted by a much better scholar, Lothrop Stoddard, in the 1920's.

[Cristiano viejo]

Religion was arguably the most important factor of convergence until very recently. Religion was often used as nearly synonymous to culture.

I'm genuinely curious to hear why exactly you don't consider Croatia, Hungary and the Baltic countries as part of the West. What factors makes them different from the West and more similar to Russians?

And what does make them Western?

[Token]

And what does make them Western?

He writes:

European Christendom began to emerge as a distinct civilization in the eighth and ninth centuries. For several hundred years, however, it lagged behind many other civilizations in its level of civilization. China under the T’ang, Sung, and Ming dynasties, the Islamic world from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, and Byzantium from the eighth to the eleventh centuries far surpassed Europe in wealth, territory, military power, and artistic, literary, and scientific achievement. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, European culture began to develop, facilitated by the "eager and systematic appropriation of suitable elements from the higher civilizations of Islam and Byzantium, together with adaptation of this inheritance to the special conditions and interests of the West.” During the same period, Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic coast were converted to Western Christianity, with Roman law and other aspects of Western civilization following, and the eastern boundary of Western civilization was stabilized where it would remain thereafter without significant change.

Obs: i'm being completely impartial here, i just want to hear other's people opinion about his work.

[Token]

I don't agree because he muddies the waters with East Asia. For example, South Korea is much more closer to the west than it is to China, Taiwan fucking hates the PRC, and Japan don't seem worthy of their own colour on the map. According to the theory of "band-wagoning" non-Western countries can join and accept Western values.
Do you think Japan and South Korea will be increasingly alligned with the West in the next decades?

[Chaos One]

Kazakhstan as "Orthodox" is pathetic.

"According to the 2009 Census, 70% of the population is Muslim, 26% Christian"

PNG is Western, but Southern Cone isn't? lol

[ixulescu]

no, it's cold war, outdated bullshit. Russia is it's own thing, the rest of the Orthodox countries are comfortable in the western camp.

[Token]

Kazakhstan as "Orthodox" is pathetic.

"According to the 2009 Census, 70% of the population is Muslim, 26% Christian"

PNG is Western, but Southern Cone isn't? lol

The impression i had while reading his book is that he is completely ignorant about Latin American nuances, so he just decided to lump them all in a quasi-Western Latam civilization and ignore it in the rest of his thesis, like how we put all of the stuff that don't interest us anymore in a box, hide it in a locker and forget about it.

[Dušan]

I am ok with that (without Kazakhstan of course).

[Aspirin]

For Europe I agree to a some degree. Is enough to look at romanian election maps to see this division between West and East.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EomJvxZXcAMDUXR.png
https://miro.medium.com/max/1294/1*Ac9Uyx55LAq3EPvJ6bZezA.png
https://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/wp-content/gallery/romania2000/2000-romania-presidential-first.gif
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKNjAg3XkAAD1A1.png
https://i.redd.it/efmlpq2sqfs01.png

[Token]

Bump

[sean]

Do you think Japan and South Korea will be increasingly alligned with the West in the next decades?

Yup. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines are all in an unofficial anti-Chinese alliance, to put the Chinese and Russian dogs back in their place.

https://i.imgur.com/pIGvIDr.jpg

80% of Chinese trade is done through sea lanes. Without proper minerals they will not be able to manufacture weapons. That's why they've been drowning Russia and Central Asia with money to build inland infrastructure.

When you build a relationship based on exploitation of resources and finances, and the friends you make are authoritarian dictators that are only interested in keeping their jobs, then it won't survive the first shock.

US military presence in Japan and South Korea keeps the East Asian economy connected to the global economy, so it pays off in the long run. Anyone on Japan's team is on the right side of history, simple as that.

[Jana]

Ofcourse I do. However Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo are part of Islamic civilisation rather than Orthodox.

[Jana]

For Europe I agree to a some degree. Is enough to look at romanian election maps to see this division between West and East.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EomJvxZXcAMDUXR.png
https://miro.medium.com/max/1294/1*Ac9Uyx55LAq3EPvJ6bZezA.png
https://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/wp-content/gallery/romania2000/2000-romania-presidential-first.gif
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKNjAg3XkAAD1A1.png
https://i.redd.it/efmlpq2sqfs01.png

Same applies to Poland.

https://i.imgur.com/K1TPZ.jpg

[Jana]

and in Croatia

red = ex commies/socialist left, blue = populist centre right/conservative

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Croatian_Parliamentary_Election_Results_2016.png

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c246bceb585c78e3aaa814a702ac7903

I don't identify with my more European (Red) part though, keep that in mind, they are miserable cucks.

[ixulescu]

Same applies to Poland.

https://i.imgur.com/K1TPZ.jpg

I don't know about the situation in Poland, but those maps for Romania are misleading.

The difference in the percentage of votes for the left and right is small between the regions. And the same is true for the votes in the presidential elections, usually differences smaller than 10%. This paints a pretty picture, but a questionable one.

Here's a map of the parlamentary elections from last year, with votes percentages breakdown by county:
https://hotnews.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=bfe5f787058f42098dea8ab2813ea257&extent=20.1116,44.4503,29.6312,47.321&zoom=true&scale=true&legend=true&disable_scroll=true&theme=light

[Dušan]

In cca 70% territory of Bosnia, Muslims are tiny minority - in Republika Srpska (49% of territory), and in few Croat cantons inside Federation.
It cant be considered as Muslim country in any way, only some parts of it.

[Satem]

Same applies to Poland.

https://i.imgur.com/K1TPZ.jpg

It's basing on 2007 results, recent ones look a bit blurred. It just shows the winning party so the difference is overestimated a bit

https://wbdata.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/pis_czy_opozycja-992x992.png

[Aldaris]

Lost me at lumping together MENA and Indonesia solely based on religion even though it's one and only thing they have in common, otherwise it's like a different planet. Not sure if someone from the western half of New Guinea would feel more 'in his civilization' being in Morocco than a Pole would in Belarus. That simplistic reasoning based on that one particular thing seemingly wasn't okay in case of Sub-Saharan Africa, where most people are christians, for some unknown reason. Also, Japanese were given their own category? Could go on and on with this, but you get the point. It's not even internally consistent, let alone actually consistent.

[Centurion]

No. It makes no sense to invent an "African Civilisation" which doesn't include 1/3 of Africa, namely some black African countries and at the same time to put Senegal, Albania and Indonesia in the same group just because they are muslims. Why Bosnia and Kosovo are not in the Islamic civilisation in this case? Also Phillipines are not most western than Japan or South Korea. Even if they are christian. Or otherwise we should label Congo as "western" because it is also christian.

Kazakhstan is not orthodox in majority but muslim. Israël is not islamic, but is part of Orient.

Jamaica is not shown on the map. Of course, it's neither Western neither Latin America, just like Haiti it's just an extension of Black Africa in the West Indies.

I prefer this map:


https://henrydelesquen2017.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1483029652-h2l-vs-carte-civilisations.png

[Cristiano viejo]

I prefer this map:


https://henrydelesquen2017.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1483029652-h2l-vs-carte-civilisations.png
Balkanites will kill you :heh:

[Dušan]

Balkanites will kill you :heh:

Well, his France is nowadays more Orient (islamized) than any Balkan country - Serbia, Greece, Romania or Moldova.
Just a clear fact. Nothing personal.

[Centurion]

Well, his France is nowadays more Orient (islamized) than any Balkan country - Serbia, Greece, Romania or Moldova.
Just a clear fact. Nothing personal.

France is partially islamized because of immigration. Balkan countries are fully and traditionally part of Orient.

And Orient =/= Islam. A large part of Orient is Muslim but a large part of the muslim countries are not in Orient while a large part of Orient is christian.

[Dušan]

France is partially islamized because of immigration. Balkan countries are fully and traditionally part of Orient.

And Orient =/= Islam. A large part of Orient is Muslim but a large part of the muslim countries are not in Orient while a large part of Orient is christian.

Balkan countries are part of European east, or more precise southeast.

No, we are not Western, but also we are not in same group with Morrocco, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan... WTF?!

If we are not grouped with East Europe - Russia and its neighbours, then we are separate distinct group.

[Mortimer]

Religion was arguably the most important factor of convergence until very recently. Religion was often used as nearly synonymous to culture.

I'm genuinely curious to hear why exactly you don't consider Croatia, Hungary and the Baltic countries as part of the West. What factors makes them different from the West and more similar to Russians?

They are slavic, they have been communist etc. They have authoritarian governments, and a mentality closer to russians. Thats how I see it.

[Blondie]

I don't agree with these maps because it put such countries in same group who have nothing to do with each other. For example no way that Spain is closer to Finland than to Greece. Also Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia etc are central not eastern or western, i don't think that japanese and chinese are different thir culture is very similar etc.

[Finnish Swede]

I don't agree with these maps because it put such countries in same group who have nothing to do with each other. For example no way that Spain is closer to Finland than to Greece. Also Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia etc are central not eastern or western, i don't think that japanese and chinese are different thir culture is very similar etc.

I hope that comment of yours did not mean that you would opposite put Finland east? As East here means together with Russia.

Just as the border between Russia (or Sovet Union earlier) and exactly the differences between those two countries determinates the whole existance of Finland (as a country).

In real life the differences are:

A.) bigger than those people's genetic differences.

B.) bigger than those people religion differences (Lutheran vs Orthodox).

C.) bigger than those people language differences (Finnish / Finno Ugric language vs Russian / Slavic language)

D.) bigger than those people aphabet differences (Finns Latin script vs Russians Cyrillic script)

Shortly saying the differences were big enough than Finns were willing to defense/protect their country into the last man standing (the same did not happen many countries in Europe vs Nazis). And not only men but also many women and even children helped on that on their own ways. And Finns if any knows and knew Russians beforehand via long common history. That attitude of Finns did not come from nothing. Communism was just tiny part of all that. Finns did not fight against communists or communism (mainly), they fought against Russians (and everything what that includes/represents ... or being ''East'' here).

Now any idea what it is?

As being in Sweden now (which is calculated West) ... not because of Sweden or rest of Scandinavia ... but as looking some other countries which are also always marked part of west (like you said) => I feel no automatical reason to call Finland west either. Only as it is many ways better than some of ''western'' countries. Even in the main principles/cornerstones of being ''Western'', like
* human rights,
* equality,
* democracy.
... and how those issues also really works in real (not only in papers). Or how separate / distant /independent political leadership, media and judicial system are from each others.

Nothing to adore ''west'' or be wannabe member . The main/only point still is that Finland is not similar as Russia. If that needs own color; fits better than well.

Reality is what means/counts, not cheap maps.

[Suinthila]

If not, why?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTS7HviDAIxTCPVSKRXPMINoEb-gpK7C69Qgw&usqp=CAU


No, I don't agree.

It's a map made from the point of view of an anglosaxon feeling concerning to people. In short, biased.

[Creoda]

It's a bit arbitrary, but my concept of civilisations is different from most. After the Cold War it's hard to argue for genuinely separate civilisations in Europe.

I like that Latin America is separate from Western though.

[Suinthila]

It's a bit arbitrary, but my concept of civilisations is different from most. After the Cold War it's hard to argue for genuinely separate civilisations in Europe.

I like that Latin America is separate from Western though.


Exactly, you like, like Huntinton

[Videx]

Not really. Japan has its own category, and Europe's too simple. It's a lot more complicated than that.

[Sandman]

[QUOTE=Hektor12;7119132]Outdated concept belongs to cold war era.


Huntington's theory appeared in the early 1990s after the "Cold War".

[Blondie]

[FONT=arial]I hope that comment of yours did not mean that you would opposite put Finland east? As East here means together with Russia.]

I mean Finland has nothing to do with Spain, but they are in same group in this map. Finland is north european not eastern.

[Jana]

I mean Finland has nothing to do with Spain, but they are in same group in this map. Finland is north european not eastern.

Map is about civilizations, not regions. There is no central civilization either.

[Zeno]

No. It makes no sense to invent an "African Civilisation" which doesn't include 1/3 of Africa, namely some black African countries and at the same time to put Senegal, Albania and Indonesia in the same group just because they are muslims. Why Bosnia and Kosovo are not in the Islamic civilisation in this case? Also Phillipines are not most western than Japan or South Korea. Even if they are christian. Or otherwise we should label Congo as "western" because it is also christian.

Kazakhstan is not orthodox in majority but muslim. Israël is not islamic, but is part of Orient.

Jamaica is not shown on the map. Of course, it's neither Western neither Latin America, just like Haiti it's just an extension of Black Africa in the West Indies.

I prefer this map:


https://henrydelesquen2017.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1483029652-h2l-vs-carte-civilisations.png

Greece here objectively belongs in the "Occident" category.

[Token]

Map is about civilizations, not regions. There is no central civilization either.

Truly Central Europe is just part of the West in a civilizational sense. Nations until very recently (and arguably even today, which is the point Huntington was trying to make) felt kinship first and foremost with nations of the same religion, which after many centuries eventually led to political, economic and cultural interlockings between nations of the same religion. I'm yet to see a precise definition of this elusive central Europe, people generally can't get past the 'mix of Germanic and Slavic cultures' thing, which is extremely vague.

[Zeno]

I was taught about Huntington in International Relations in uni. It's practically a theory of how civilisation and culture affects international politics.

There's a parametre though: he bases his separation based on religions for the most part.

For Greece, we might be Orthodox by religion, but we're too Western in terms of economics and especially politics.

[Centurion]

Greece here objectively belongs in the "Occident" category.


No. The Great Shism of 1054 mark the separation between Occident and Orient. It's was the time when Occident separates itself from the rest of Christianity. In fact, the Great Shism is the birth act of Occident.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/df/93/f5df934d93b4c9062083cec4d0ed0ce8.png

Occident = European countries of Catholic and Protestant culture + their colonial extension in the Americas and in Oceania.

Greece, as every Eastern Christian countries (except those of the Russian World) belongs to Orient. In fact, Greece and the former Hellenistic civilization are the core of what is Orient today. While Maghreb, Balkans, Romania, Moldavia, Hamitic countries, the Arabian peninsula, the Caucasus and Central Asia represent the periphery of Orient.


https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/data/images/1009144-Lempire_dAlexandre_et_les_d%C3%A9buts_du_monde_hel l%C3%A9nistique.jpg

[Dušan]

Greece, as every Eastern Christian countries (except those of the Russian World) belongs to Orient.

Orthodox Balkan Slavs are either region for themselves, either one civilisation region with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, with whom share:

- Orthodox Christian religion
- Slavic language family
- Cyrillic script
- cca half of proto-Slavic autosomal genetics

We have nothing to do with Orient MENA countries. Deal with it.

[Blondie]

Truly Central Europe is just part of the West in a civilizational sense. Nations until very recently (and arguably even today, which is the point Huntington was trying to make) felt kinship first and foremost with nations of the same religion, which after many centuries eventually led to political, economic and cultural interlockings between nations of the same religion. I'm yet to see a precise definition of this elusive central Europe, people generally can't get past the 'mix of Germanic and Slavic cultures' thing, which is extremely vague.

Basically it based on the Habsburg Empire.

[Zeno]

No. The Great Shism of 1054 mark the separation between Occident and Orient. It's was the time when Occident separates itself from the rest of Christianity. In fact, the Great Shism is the birth act of Occident.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/df/93/f5df934d93b4c9062083cec4d0ed0ce8.png

Occident = European countries of Catholic and Protestant culture + their colonial extension in the Americas and in Oceania.

Greece, as every Eastern Christian countries (except those of the Russian World) belongs to Orient. In fact, Greece and the former Hellenistic civilization are the core of what is Orient today. While Maghreb, Balkans, Romania, Moldavia, Hamitic countries, the Arabian peninsula, the Caucasus and Central Asia represent the periphery of Orient.


https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/data/images/1009144-Lempire_dAlexandre_et_les_d%C3%A9buts_du_monde_hel l%C3%A9nistique.jpg

I'm not talking about religion here. But politics and economics.

[Token]

Basically it based on the Habsburg Empire.

That is one of the vague descriptions i was talking about. What about East Germany and Poland, who weren't part of the empire? Aren't they central Europe? Being under the Habsburg monarchy was never a source of a common identity. German-speaking Austrians didn't want anything to do with Slovaks or Italians and were far more aligned with their German-speaking peers of the Reich. In fact it was more the source of countless conflicts between distinct ethnic groups who didn't saw themselves as part of the same people.

[zueira]

No, I don't agree.

It's a map made from the point of view of an anglosaxon feeling concerning to people. In short, biased.

: thumb001:

[zueira]

It's a bit arbitrary, but my concept of civilisations is different from most. After the Cold War it's hard to argue for genuinely separate civilisations in Europe.

I like that Latin America is separate from Western though.

Real Western iberians, italians and greek! And British colonies are same civilization?

[Blondie]

That is one of the vague descriptions i was talking about. What about East Germany and Poland, who weren't part of the empire? Aren't they central Europe? Being under the Habsburg monarchy was never a source of a common identity. German-speaking Austrians didn't want anything to do with Slovaks or Italians and were far more aligned with their German-speaking peers of the Reich. In fact it was more the source of countless conflicts between distinct ethnic groups who didn't saw themselves as part of the same people.

There are no vague descriptions. Germany is western euro country in every way not central european, Southern Poland was part of the Empire, and i didn't say only these ex A-H areas are central europeans, i said this whole thing is mostly based on the Habsburg Empire. The eastern parts of medieval Western World (it means catholic countries) got eastern influences from russians, ottomans and they were invaded by them. The result is a very unique area what is no longer really western but still not eastern this area is Poland, (Great) Hungary and later Habsburgs organized most of these areas into Empire, that's why i said it's based on the Habsburg Empire. About ethnicites you are totally wrong because before Napoleon and the creation of nationalism the european identity was based on religions and classes as nobles, peasants, kings etc, not on modern national identity, so before that the peoples of Monarchia didn't care about nationality or spoked language, this whole thing is started only in 19. century and the Habsburg Empire is more more older.
So what is Central Europe? There are many factors firstly the geography, secondly the common historical past inside the Empire, the common austro-hungarian (influenced by slavs) and catholic culture, if you go to Czechia, South Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia you will see the behaviour/culture of peoples is almost same, just like the living standards, or the architecture and many other thing, the only difference is the spoked language. The core of Central Europe is Krakkow-Prag-Bratislava-Wien-Budapest-Zagreb line, even though austrians are partly (or maybe more) western by genetic and culture. Central europeans are poles, czechs, slovaks, hungarians, slovenes, croats, and partly central europeans are austrians, transylvanian romanians, serbs in Vojvodina. I hope now everything is clear.

[Tenma de Pegasus]

No, me and 90% of Latin Americans know that Latin America and Eastern Europe are western.

He exclude these regions only based on economy.

[Tutankhamun]

No, a map with a biased Anglo-Saxon view.

[Alexandro]

No. This is a typical Anglo that does not know anything about Latin America, also Greece (and the Balkans in general) may differ in religious matters but geopolitically and socially they are quite western indeed.

[Mejgusu]

Putting the whole Islamic world inside one cultural sphere is a typical dumb thinking. There is no way that SE-Asia and Somalia have the same culture/civilization. There is an Arab, Iranic, Turkic, Caucasian, South Asian, Maghrebi etc cultural spheres inside this area. There are often flowing transitions but this map is obviously created by a pseudo scientist who didn’t even know 90% of the names of all this countries. Also this „East and West“ thinking of Europeans can be very inaccurate too.

[Smeagol]

I prefer Spengler's classification.

[Centurion]

I'm not talking about religion here. But politics and economics.

Politically and economically, Greece and muslim/orthodox Balkans are in the bottom of Europe, far behind western standards. Many politicians thought that it was a mistake to admit them in European Union. While the countries which has been submitted to USSR but were traditionally part of Occident (V4 countries, Baltic countries, Slovenia and Croatia) have no reached the standards of western Europe, or close.


Orthodox Balkan Slavs are either region for themselves, either one civilisation region with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, with whom share:

- Orthodox Christian religion
- Slavic language family
- Cyrillic script
- cca half of proto-Slavic autosomal genetics

We have nothing to do with Orient MENA countries. Deal with it.


Russia is Eurasian, not European. The majority or Russian today identify as Eurasian, not European and certainly not as Occidental. So they are clearly different from Balkanites and Ukraine and Belarus belong to the Russian world just like Japan and Korea belong to the Chinese world. Yes, there's differences between Balkanites and Arabs, just like there's differences between Arabs and Turks. It doesn't prevent that all of these people, Balkanites, Greeks, Arabs and Turks belong to Orient.

[Dušan]

It doesn't prevent that all of these people, Balkanites, Greeks, Arabs and Turks belong to Orient.

What a troll. :bowlol:

Enjoy the pure WESTERN athmosphere.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvxR4UbETA

I cant see that in my oriental city! :coffee:

[zueira]

No. This is a typical Anglo that does not know anything about Latin America, also Greece (and the Balkans in general) may differ in religious matters but geopolitically and socially they are quite western indeed.

Western origins: greece and latins ( italians and iberians)! North europeans are barbarians: celts and germanics people!

[Centurion]

What a troll. :bowlol:

Enjoy the pure WESTERN athmosphere.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvxR4UbETA

I cant see that in my oriental city! :coffee:


Only a part of the muslims rioters in France belong to Orient. A large part of them belong to Black Africa or even to the Indian World (namely the Pakistani). So nothing especially Oriental about France. Not more than England is Indian with its Indian and Pakistani or Germany is Oriental with its Turks. These countries are simply multicultural but are the birth place and the center of Occident. And ethnic French, unlike Balkanites are not Orientals.

Again, Orient =/= Islam. The Gregorian Reform separates Occident from the rest of Christianity but Christianism is initially an oriental religion and the south-east part of Europe which remained Orthodox or Eastern Christian remained Oriental, just like Armenia or Ethiopia.

[Dušan]

Only a part of the muslims rioters in France belong to Orient. A large part of them belong to Black Africa or even to the Indian World (namely the Pakistani). So nothing especially Oriental about France. Not more than England is Indian with its Indian and Pakistani or Germany is Oriental with its Turks. These countries are simply multicultural but are the birth place and the center of Occident. And ethnic French, unlike Balkanites are not Orientals.

Again, Orient =/= Islam. The Gregorian Reform separates Occident from the rest of Christianity but Christianism is initially an oriental religion and the south-east part of Europe which remained Orthodox or Eastern Christian remained Oriental, just like Armenia or Ethiopia.

Balkanites are not Orientals, in terms that are in same group with Turks and Arabs.
Balkanites are Southeast Europeans, with genetic, religion and language ties with East Europeans.

Orthodox Balkanites have nothing in common with MENA Muslim world. Only Bosnian Muslims were part of that, until Tito rule when they got europeanized.

[Hamilcar]

Do you really think the opinions of TA members worth something in comparison to the opinion of a respected Harvard Professor ?

[Dušan]

This is good video with differences between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, only some 10 km away from each other. Video 80 years ago.

First part Bosnian Muslims, from 3:45 Bosnian Serbs (with two Gypsy Mortimer musicians)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSx2QKiOrU

Two completly different worlds.

[Centurion]

Balkanites are not Orientals, in terms that are in same group with Turks and Arabs.
Balkanites are Southeast Europeans, with genetic, religion and language ties with East Europeans.

Orthodox Balkanites have nothing in common with MENA Muslim world. Only Bosnian Muslims were part of that, until Tito rule when they got europeanized.

I said that Balkanites, Turks and Arabs are Orientals, not that they were in the same ethnic group. It simple doesn't matter. The Orthodox and Byzantine world has always been part of Orient and Balkanites belong to it. The fact that there's diverse ethnic groups and religion inside Orient don't change anything to this fact.

MENA muslims are part of Orient but don't define it. In fact, Orient was mostly Christian, Zoroastrian, Polytheist etc long before Islam even appeared.

[Centurion]

This is good video with differences between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, only some 10 km away from each other. Video 80 years ago.

First part Bosnian Muslims, from 3:45 Bosnian Serbs (with two Gypsy Mortimer musicians)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSx2QKiOrU

Two completly different worlds.

We could do similar videos to compare Muslim and Christian Lebanese, Palestinian and Jews or even Iranians before and after the islamic revolution. Orient is the birthplace of the three Abrahamic religions. Eastern Christians, many Muslims and the Jews belong to it despite their differences.

[Cristiano viejo]

Do you really think the opinions of TA members worth something in comparison to the opinion of a respected Harvard Professor ?

Yes.

[Joso]

No,
The map should be like this: Japan=blue, the rest=pink.

[Hektor12]

MENA muslims are part of Orient but don't define it. In fact, Orient was mostly Christian, Zoroastrian, Polytheist etc long before Islam even appeared.

Painfull for some people but %100 true fact. They tend to kick everything "uncool" to orient and feel themselves a part of "better" west. Top level ignorance to self-history and culture.

[Dušan]

Painfull for some people but %100 true fact. They tend to kick everything "uncool" to orient and feel themselves a part of "better" west. Top level ignorance to self-history and culture.

I am proud to be Orthodox EASTERN Christians.
Eastern Christianity has nothing with islam, as you can see in video above in Bosnia.
Two different worlds.

There are Eastern Orthodox culture and Muslim culture. They are separate and not similar.

[Hektor12]

Eastern Christianity has nothing with islam, as you can see in video above in Bosnia.
Two different worlds.

Yes, east christians are not muslims thakfully we know that for very long time.

No, two sides of the same world. If you paint half of your shit to black and the other half to white, they dont become different things, theyre still shit and they smell shit.

[Dušan]

Yes, east christians are not muslims thakfully we know that for very long time.

No, two sides of the same world. If you paint half of your shit to black and the other half to white, they dont become different things, theyre still shit and they smell shit.

No, Eastern Christians are different from both Muslims and western Christians.
Eastern Christians have their own distinct culture.

[Varda]

This is good video with differences between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, only some 10 km away from each other. Video 80 years ago.

First part Bosnian Muslims, from 3:45 Bosnian Serbs (with two Gypsy Mortimer musicians)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSx2QKiOrU

Two completly different worlds.

Really different words at a distance of only several km. Even their faces are different - that Serbs from Ilijaš look fully European, and Bosniaks/Muslims from Sarajevo look Anatolian/Levantine shifted.

[Moje ime]

No, Eastern Christians are different from both Muslims and western Christians.
Eastern Christians have their own distinct culture.

Don't feed the trolls. They are talking and repeating here completely mindless things not worth replying and wasting time on that.

[Hektor12]

Eastern Christians have their own distinct culture.

Bro dont waste your time brawling me. Im well aware of the strict differences, yet similarities exist at great range. Culture is not only religion. As in the west, there are many fractions from hardest catholics to lutherans and anglicans, yet most of them share distinctive similarities and mentality.

[Sandis]

Uruguay and Argentina are Western. Greece too.

Baltic countries, Hungary, Croatia etc are Eastern.

Basically a rare map that mixes religion with civilization.

Baltic countries, Hungary, Croatia are Catholic and Protestant.
We are not Orthodox nor Eastern.

[Centurion]

I am proud to be Orthodox EASTERN Christians.
Eastern Christianity has nothing with islam, as you can see in video above in Bosnia.
Two different worlds.

There are Eastern Orthodox culture and Muslim culture. They are separate and not similar.

By following this logic we should say that Christian Lebanese and Muslim Lebanese are not part of the same civilization. Greeks and Balkanites are very similar as they are all Indo-European peoples, some are Muslim and some others are Christians but religion is just one aspect of civilization, religion alone don't define a civilization and both Eastern Christian and Muslim are part of Orient. Croatians, however, are Catholic and therefore belong to Occident as the Great Schism of 1054 is what defines the true separation between Occident and Orient.

[zueira]

No. This is a typical Anglo that does not know anything about Latin America, also Greece (and the Balkans in general) may differ in religious matters but geopolitically and socially they are quite western indeed.

A Germanic barbarian reaches down to the ground, picks up a Roman helmet, puts it on and declares, "We are Romans now!"

Ever since, Northern European-descent men (Americans, Canadians, Aussies, etc) have been pretending to be the Romans their barbarian ancestors destroyed.

[Creoda]

Real Western iberians, italians and greek! And British colonies are same civilization?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

The Western world, also known as the West, refers to various regions, nations and states, depending on the context, most often consisting of the majority of Europe,[a] Northern America and Australasia.[5] The Western world is also known as the Occident (from the Latin word occidens, "sunset, West"), in contrast to the Orient (from the Latin word oriens, "rise, East") or Eastern world. It might mean the Northern half of the North–South divide. [B]Western culture is commonly said to include: Australia and New Zealand, Canada, all European member countries of the EFTA and EU, the European microstates, the NATO military alliance, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[7][8]
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fnvXT-YIFsE/maxresdefault.jpg

[Gauthier]

No, I don't agree.

It's a map made from the point of view of an anglosaxon feeling concerning to people. In short, biased.


I wonder how he came to this conclusion in regards to Latin America. Is there a checklist?

Or was it like: Brown-black people live there, they speak spanish, yes, put them all together, fuck it. :lol:

[zueira]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fnvXT-YIFsE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Union haahahahaha british colonies?

A Germanic barbarian reaches down to the ground, picks up a Roman helmet, puts it on and declares, "We are Romans now!"

Ever since, Northern European-descent men (Americans, Canadians, Aussies, etc) have been pretending to be the Romans their barbarian ancestors destroyed.

[zueira]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fnvXT-YIFsE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Union haahahahaha british colonies?

A Germanic barbarian reaches down to the ground, picks up a Roman helmet, puts it on and declares, "We are Romans now!"

Ever since, Northern European-descent men (Americans, Canadians, Aussies, etc) have been pretending to be the Romans their barbarian ancestors destroyed.

[Tutankhamun]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Union haahahahaha british colonies?

A Germanic barbarian reaches down to the ground, picks up a Roman helmet, puts it on and declares, "We are Romans now!"

Ever since, Northern European-descent men (Americans, Canadians, Aussies, etc) have been pretending to be the Romans their barbarian ancestors destroyed.

It reminded me of one thing

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/862/130/f6f.jpg

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/873/647/a81.png

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/850/993/6eb.png

[zueira]

It reminded me of one thing

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/862/130/f6f.jpg

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/873/647/a81.png

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/850/993/6eb.png

"western civilization" in germanic dreams: north europeans and colonies hahahahaha

[Creoda]

The Pakistani-Peruvian Axis
Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time | 1966 | Carroll Quigley

The Pakistani-Peruvian Axis

The problem of finding constructive patterns for Latin America is much more difficult than the problem of finding constructive priorities. One reason for this is that the unconstructive patterns that now prevail in Latin America are deeply entrenched as a result of centuries, even millennia of persistent background. In fact, the Latin American patterns that must be changed because today they are leading to social and cultural disruption are not really Latin American in origin, or even Iberian for that matter, but are Near Eastern and go back, for some of their aspects for two thousand or more years. As a general statement, we might say that the Latin American cultural pattern (including personality patterns and general outlook) is Arabic, while its social pattern is that of Asiatic despotism. The pattern is so prevalent today not only in in Latin America, but in Spain, Sicily, southern Italy the Near East, and in various other areas of the Mediterranean world (such as Egypt), that we might call it the “Pakistani-Peruvian axis.” For convenience of analysis, we shall divide it into “Asiatic despotism” and the “Arabic outlook.”

We have already indicated the nature of Arabic despotism in connection with traditional China, the old Ottoman Empire, and czarist Russia. It goes back to the archaic Bronze Age empires, which first appeared in Mesopotamia, Egypt, The Indus Valley and northern China before 1000 BC. Basically, such an Asiatic despotism is a two-class society in which a lower class, consisting of at least nine-tenths of the population supports an upper, ruling-class consisting of several interlocking groups. These ruling groups are a governing bureaucracy of scribes and priests associated with army leaders, landlords and moneylenders. Such an upper class accumulated great quantities of wealth as taxes, rent, and interest on loans, fees for services or simply financial extortions. The social consequences were either progressive or reactionary, depending on whether this accumulated wealth in the possession of the ruling class was invested in more productive utilization of resources or was simply hoarded and wasted. The essential character of such an Asian despotism rests on the fact that the ruling class has legal claims on the working masses, and possesses the power (from its control of arms and the political structure) to enforce those claims. A modified Asiatic despotism is one aspect of the social structures all along the Pakistani-Peruvian axis.

The other aspect of the Pakistani-Peruvian axis rests on its Arabic outlook. The Arabs, like other Semites who emerged from the Arabian desert at various times to infiltrate neighboring Asiatic despotic cultures of urban civilizations were originally nomadic tribal peoples. Their political structure was based on blood relationships and not on territorial jurisdiction. They were warlike, patriarchal, extremist, violent, intolerant and xenophobic. Like most tribal peoples, their political structure was totalitarian in the sense that all values, all needs all meaningful human experience was contained within the tribe. Persons outside the tribal structure had no value or significance, and there were no obligations or meaning associated in contacts with them. In fact, they were hardly regarded as human beings at all. Moreover, within the tribe, social significance became more intense as blood relationships became closer, moving inward from the tribes through clans to the patriarchal extended family. The sharp contrast between such a point of view and that associated with Christian society as we know it can be seen in the fact that such Semitic tribalism was endogamous, while the rule of Christian marriage is exogamous. The rules, in fact, were directly antithetical, since Arabic marriage favors unions of first cousins, while Christian marriage has consistently opposed marriage of first or even second cousins. In traditional Arabic society, any girl was bound to marry her father’s brother’s son if he and his father wanted her and she was not usually free to marry someone else until he had rejected her (sometimes after years of waiting).

In such traditional Arabic society, the extended family, not the individual, was the basic social unit; all property was controlled by the patriarchal head of the family and, accordingly, most decisions were in his hands. His control of the marriage and of his male descendants was ensured by the fact that a price had to be paid for a bride to her family, and this would require the patriarch’s consent.

Such a patriarchal family arose from the fact that marriage was patrilocal, the young couple residing with the groom’s father so long as he lived, while he continued to live with the groom’s paternal grandfather until the latter’s death. Such a death of the head of an extended family freed his sons to become heads of similar extended families that would remain intact, frequently for three or four generations, until the head of the family dies in his turn. Within such a family each male remains subject to the indulgent, if erratic, control of his father and the indulgent, and subservient care of his mother and unmarried sisters, while his wife is under the despotic control of her mother-in-law until her production of sins and the elimination of her elders by death will make her, in turn a despot over her daughters-in-law.

This Arabic emphasis on the extended family as the basic social reality meant that larger social came into existence simply by linking a number of related extended families under the nominal leadership of the patriarch who, by general consensus, had the best qualities of leadership, social dignity and prestige. But such unions, being personal and essentially temporary, could be severed at any time. The family units tended to make all political relationships personal and temporary, reflections of the desires or whims of the leader and not the consequence or reflection of any basic social relationships. This tended to prevent the development of any advanced conception of the state, law, and the community (as achieved, for example, by the once tribal Greeks and Romans). Within the family, rules were personal, patriarchal, and often arbitrary and changeable, arising from the will and often from the whims of the patriarch.

This prevented the development of any advanced ideas of reciprocal common interests whose interrelationships by establishing a higher social structure, created, at the same time, rules superior to the individual, rules of an impersonal and permanent character in which law created authority, and not, as in the Arabic system, authority created law (or at least temporary rules). To this day, the shattered cultures along the whole Pakistani-Peruvian axis have a very weak grasp of the nature of a community or of any obligation to such a community, and regard law and politics as simply personal relationships whose chief justification is the power and the position of the individual who issues the orders. (emphasis mine - WD The state, as a structure of force more remote and therefore less personal than the immediate family is regarded as an alien system to be avoided and evaded simply because it is more remote (even if of similar character) then the individual’s immediate family.

This biological and patriarchal character of all significant social relationships in Arab life is reflected in the familiar feature of male dominance. Only the male is important. The female is inferior, even subhuman, and becomes significant only by producing males (the one thing, apparently, that the male cannot do for himself). Because of the strong patrilocal character of Arab marriage, a new wife is not only subjected sexually to her husband, she is also subjected socially and personally to his family, including his brothers and above all, his mother (who has gained this position of domination over other females in the house by having male children). Sex is regarded almost solely as a physiological relationship with little emphasis on the religious, emotional or even social aspects. Love, meaning concern for the personality or developing potentialities of the sexual partner, plays little role in Arabic sexual relationships. The purpose of such relationships in the eyes of the average Arab is to relieve his own sexual desire or to generate sons.

Such sons are brought up in an atmosphere of whimsical, arbitrary personal rules where they are regarded as superior beings by their mothers and sisters and, inevitably, by their father and themselves simply on the basis of their maleness. Usually they are spoiled, undisciplined, self-indulgent and unprincipled. Their whims are commands, their urges are laws. They are exposed to a dual standard of sexual morality in which any female is a legitimate target of their sexual desires, but the girl they marry is expected to be a paragon of chaste virginity. The original basis for this emphasis on a bride’s virginity rested on the emphasis on blood descent and was intended to be a guarantee and was intended to be a guarantee of the paternity of the children. The wife, as a child producing mechanism, had to produce the children of one genetic line and no other.

The emphasis on the virginity of any girl who could be regarded as an acceptable wife was carried to extremes. The loss of a girl’s virginity was regarded as an unbearable dishonor by the girl’s family, and any girl who brought such dishonor on a family was regarded worthy of death at the hands of her father and brothers. Once she is married, the right to punish such a transgression is transferred to her husband.

To any well-bred girl, her premarital virginity and the reservation of sexual access to her husband’s control after marriage (her “honor”) have pecuniary value. Since she has no value in herself as a person, apart from her “honor,” and has little value as a worker of any sort, her virginity before marriage has a value in money equal to the expense of keeping her for much of her life since, indeed, this is exactly what it is worth in money. As a virgin, she could expect the man who obtained her in marriage to support her as a wife. As a matter of fact, her virginity was worth much less than that, for in traditional Arabic society, if she displeased her husband, even if she merely crossed one of his whims, he could set her aside by divorce, a process very easy for him, with little delay or obligation, but impossible to achieve on her part, no matter how eagerly she might desire it. Moreover, once her virginity was gone, she had little value as a wife or a person, unless she had mothered a son, and could be passed along from man to man, either in marriage or otherwise, with little social obligation on anyone’s part. As a result of such easy divorce, and the narrow physiological basis on which sexual relationships are based, plus the lack of value of a woman once her virginity is gone, Arab marriage is very fragile, with divorce and broken marriage about twice as frequent as in the United States. Even the production of sons does not ensure the permanence of the marriage, since the sons belong to the father whatever the cause of marriage disruption. As a result of these conditions, marriage of several wives in sequence, a phenomenon we associate with Hollywood, is much more typical of the Arab world, and is very much more frequent than the polygamous marriage, which while permitted under Islam, is quite rare. Not more than 5 percent of married men in the Near East today have more than one wife at the same time, because of the expense, but the number who remain in a monogamous union until death is almost equally small.

As might be expected in such a society, Arabic boys grow up egocentric, self-indulgent, undisciplined, immature, and spoiled, subject to waves of emotionalism, whims, passion and pettiness. The consequence of this for the whole Pakistani-Peruvian axis will be seen in a moment.

Another aspect of Arabic society is the scorn of honest, steady manual work, especially agricultural work. This is a consequence of the fusion of at least three ancient influences. First, the archaic bureaucratic structure of Asiatic despotism, in which the peasants supported the warriors and scribes, regarded manual workers, especially tillers of the soil, as the lowest layer of society, and regarded the acquisition of literacy and military prowess as the chief roads to escape from physical drudgery. Second, the fact that Classical Antiquity, whose influence on the subsequent Islamic civilization was very great, was based on slavery, and came to regard agricultural (or other manual) work as fit for slaves, also contributed to this idea. Third, the Bedouin tradition of pastoral, warlike nomads scorned tillers of the soil as weak and routine persons of no real spirit or character, fit to be conquered or walked on but not to be respected. The combination of these three formed the lack of respect of manual work that is so characteristic of the Pakistani-Peruvian axis.

Somewhat similar to this lack of respect for manual work are a number of other aspects of traditional Arab life that have spread the length of the Pakistani-Peruvian axis. The chief source of many of these is the Bedouin outlook, which originally reflected the attitudes of relatively small group of the Islamic culture but which, because they were a superior, conquering group, came to be copied by others in the society, even by the despised agricultural workers. These attitudes include lack of respect for the soil, for vegetation, for most animals, and for outsiders. These attitudes, which are singularly ill-fitted for the geographic and climatic conditions of the whole Pakistani-Peruvian area, are to be seen constantly in the everyday life of that area as erosion, destruction of vegetation and wild life, personal cruelty and callousness to most living things, including one’s fellow men, and a general harshness and indifference to God’s creation. This final attitude, which well reflects the geographic conditions of the area, which seem as harsh and indifferent as man himself, is met by those men who must face it in their daily life as a resigned submission to fate and to the inhumanity of man to man.

Interestingly enough, these attitudes have successfully survived the efforts of the three great religions of ethical monotheism, native to the area, to change these attitudes. The ethical sides of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam sought to counteract harshness, egocentricity, tribalism, cruelty, scorn of work and of one’s fellow creatures, but these efforts, on the whole, have met with little success throughout the length of the Pakistani-Peruvian axis. Of the three, Christianity, possibly because it set the highest standards of the three, has fallen furthest from achieving its aims. Love, humility, brotherhood, cooperation, the sanctity of work, the fellowship of community, the image of man as a fellow creature made in the image of God, respect for women as personalities and partners of men, mutual helpmates on the road to spiritual salvation, and the vision of our universe, with all of its diversity, complexity, and multitude of creatures, as a reflection of the power and goodness of God – these basic aspects of Christ’s teachings are almost totally lacking throughout the Pakistani-Peruvian axis and most notably absent on the “Christian” portion of that axis from Sicily, or even the Aegean Sea, westward to Baja California and Tierra del Fuego. Throughout the whole axis, human actions are not motivated by these “Christian virtues,” but by the more ancient Arabic personality traits, which become vices and sins in the Christian outlook: harshness, envy, lust, greed, selfishness, cruelty, and hatred.

[Creoda]

Mexican National Character and Circum-Mediterranean Personality Structure


CARROLL QUIGLEY

Georgetown University



Martin Needler's article on "Politics and National Character: the Case of Mexico" (1971) is perfectly correct as far as it goes, but it must be pointed out that the personality traits which he identifies as Mexican are products of a considerably wider and much older cultural entity. Mexico is a peripheral and very distinctive example of the Latin American cultural area which is itself a peripheral and somewhat distinctive example of the Mediterranean cultural area. Some time ago I identified the whole cultural area and the personality structure it tended to produce as aspects of "the Pakistani-Peruvian Axis" (1966:1112-1122, reprinted as 1968:452-463). If I am correct in this, Needler is parochial in attributing "Mexican national character" to a combination of "the Indian's fatalism and the proud self-assertion of the Spaniard" (Needler 1971:757).



A broader view of this subject would show that Mexico is a peripheral example of the "Pakistani-Peruvian cultural area" and that Mexican national character is merely a local variant of the personality structure of this larger area. That is why Silverman's picture of south Italian personality is so similar to Needler's idea of Mexican character (Silverman 1968).



This Mediterranean personality type is marked by various traits mentioned by Needler: low self-esteem, fatalism, defeatism, distrust of all persons outside a narrow kin group, pessimism, preoccupation with death, self-assertion, and machismo. These traits, however, should be associated in clusters and correlated with other cultural manifestations such as: (1) low respect for manual work, especially for agricultural work; (2) higher esteem for urban residence than for rural living, associated with neglect of the countryside, damage to natural vegetation, and much cruelty to animals, especially to domestic animals; (3) emphasis on honor, both personal and family, as a chief aim of life; (4) dietary customs which mix protein and vegetables within a nest or container of starch, on the same plate and in the same mouthful, unlike the core of Western civilization, which tends to segregate these three kinds of food, on the same plate or even into separate dishes. The personality traits of this larger area tend to cluster about two points: (1) The restriction of personal trust and loyalty within the kinship group (usually the extended or nuclear family) with a consequent inability to offer loyalty, trust, or personal identification to residential groups (villages, neighborhoods, parishes), voluntary associations, religious beliefs, or the secular state, resulting in large-scale lack of "public spirit," combined with "corruption," and paralysis of these other kinds of associations. (2) The combination of powerful patriarchal social tendencies with female inferiority (except as a mechanism for producing sons) leads to many psychological ambiguities: strong emphasis on female premarital virginity (both as a symbol of family honor and as an economic good), segregation of the sexes in social life, fear of women as a threat men's virility (witches and belief in "the evil eye"), the need to demonstrate male virility by social "touchiness" and other behavior, including fantasies of demonstrations of male dominance over bulls, other men, and unattached women.



In the last generation or two, we have had numerous local studies of the culture-and-personality type dealing with portions of this wide area (Pitt-Rivers and Kenny on Spain; Banfield, Moss, Cancian, Silverman, and others on Italy; Campbell, Kavadias, Kanelli. and others on Greece; and numerous studies of the Near East or North Africa). Many of these consider the personality types they observe as consequences of local conditions of economic, national, religious, or historic origin. A few have seen the wider range of what they observe. Thus Balikci (1966:164) wrote, "Behind obvious cultural differences, many Mediterranean societies share certain basic cultural patterns... [with] basic cross-cultural similarities in regard to sex behavior, certain family roles, the position of the family in society, and the dichotomy of kinsmen and strangers." Opler (1970:866) recognizes both the areal spread and the deep historical roots of these traits when he writes, "The Southern Italian family is in great measure understood if one considers it as a peasant society, as a circum-Mediterranean type, as one influenced by Roman history or even by the earlier pagan Classic Greek, or later Hellenistic traditions."



What I wish to emphasize is that this personality structure is geographically wider than the Mediterranean, since it extends to Latin America, and is the consequence of historical experience going back even earlier than the ancient Greeks. There are works (Peristiany 1966) which see some of the geographic range, but from both points of view, the most suggestive work is Raphael Patai's Golden River to Golden Road (1962), whose original title (now abandoned in a 1971 edition) shows that his attention extends from Rio de Oro to Samarkand.



The Pakistani-Peruvian axis does not now demark the area of a functioning society or civilization. This is one of the chief keys to its personality types. It is now largely an area of debris of traits and peoples surviving from the wreckage of deceased civilizations. The existing traits have historical origins covering thousands of years. For example, the diet, sexual symbolism of bull and "eye," architecture, and other traits come from the archaic cultures before 600 B.C., including Minoan Crete; the urbanism and low esteem for manual labor derive from Classical Mediterranean society; while the emphasis on honor, female inferiority, and kinship groups flow from pastoral invaders, both from the northern grasslands (Indo-European) and the southern grasslands (Semites).



Other traits, such as fatalism, distrust of strangers, cynicism toward the state or the local community, come from the difficulties of farming in the Mediterranean environment or from Mediterranean history. Historically the Mediterranean has passed through three distinct experiences: (1) as a frontier area of cultural diffusion from Western Asia during the Archaic period (4500-600 B.C.); (2) as the central backbone of Mediterranean civilization in the Classical period (600 B.C.-A.D. 600), and (3) as a boundary conflict area between the three post-Classical civilizations (Byzantine, Western, and Islamic) since A.D. 600. The shift from the second to the third of these was so disruptive of community life in the area from the Golden River to the Golden Road that its problems have not been solved since, especially in view of the social and ethical failures of the two post-Classical religions, Christianity and Islam, on either side of the line from Tangier to Batum. These failures of religion, whose consequences were clearly seen by Christ and Mohomet, made it impossible to create any religious, territorial, or social community, and forced living patterns back toward the "amoral familism" of the extended family. In extreme cases this broke down further to amoral nuclear familism or even to amoral individualism. This basic outlook and personality type was given a distinctive twist in the Iberian peninsula, from Saracen and anti-lslamic influences. The export of this distinctive type to America and the changes made in it by the shattering of American Indian cultures gives us the distinctive Latin American personality patterns which Needler (1971) sees as "Mexican national character." These patterns have been modified in various circumstances by the "culture of poverty ," by modem industrialism and nationalism, by various nineteenth century ideologies such as Marxism, and by other influences, but the basic Pakistani-Peruvian outlook is still identifiable. What is distinctly Mexican, and potentially revolutionary, is the new political ideology which Needler reports thus: "the cynicism and alienation of Mexican respondents. . . did not extend to two elements of the political system: the president himself and the idea of the Mexican Revolution" (1971:760). Any discussion of Mexican national character should recognize the revolutionary implications of these exceptions and the remote sources of the other aspects of Mexican personality.

[zueira]

another Anglo author writing about the Latin world? :picard1:4 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Union