http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324798904578527552326836118.html
An insightful and controversial article by Niall Ferguson
Monday, June 10, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Last Summer and Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Fergson
It took me longer than necessary to return to the blog. After not having written for a while, it just became a little awkward for me to resume blogging, and so I kept putting it off. Half a year of no blogging became a year, which became almost two years. However, with quite some time at my disposal until work starts at the end of June, and with the amount of thinking and learning I have been doing recently, I decided to shake off the slothfulness and get back into the habit of record keeping.
A lot has happened since my last post. Since then, I have traveled to two continents and five countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Peru and Chile). Seeing other corners of the world and learning and interacting with different peoples were not only eye-opening and educational, but those experiences also instilled a renewed sense of gratitude and added zest to my life. My recent trip to Peru was a particularly valuable experience which enabled me to witness a culture that is entirely different from my own, livelihoods that were unbeknownst to me, and a history that I was unfamiliar with.
Four years of college also came to an end (or I should say, the life after college has finally begun). Over the last two years at Penn, I have taken some challenging classes, attended interesting lectures by professors and guest speakers, become a leader, gained professional experience, expanded my professional network, and forged new invaluable friendships, as well as solidifying existing ones. As a lazy academic, I don't expect to miss schooling all that much for a while; however, saying goodbye to my friends, mentors and instructors was the most difficult part of graduation (commencement) for me. Yet, I am much looking forward to moving on, knowing that my old relationships and experiences will never cease to be part of my life.
I took a very interesting Anthropology seminar called Globalization and Health this past semester. The class discussed some of the important issues in global health and health intervention, drawing from a variety of ethnographic and historical writings, medical journals and ethical analyses. I found the class fascinating because culture, value and history become inseparable from public health in the global realm (versus local intervention). One of the salient issues throughout the semester was the benefactor-beneficiary relationship, which historically has been synonymous to the West-the Rest. Although we never reached a consensus on the justifications for health intervention, it seems as though most of us, as members of "Western" economics, had some type of moral obligation to intervene. Further, the haves' provision for the have-nots makes health intervention inevitably inseparable from (bio)politics.
Dr. Niall Ferguson's Civilization (BBC also produced a documentary series of the same title) provides a historical explanation for the "Western dominance" that characterizes the history of human civilization. He traces history, science and politics to unravel the course of events that led to the Western ascendancy, through a strictly objective and scholarly analysis. He argues that the West's historical dominance can be attributed to the six "killer applications" that the Rest lacked. These were namely: 1) Competition, 2) The scientific revolution, 3) The rule of law and representative government, 4) Modern medicine, 5) The consumer society, and 6) The work ethic.
I don't think that Dr. Ferguson's intention was to demonstrate Western superiority or to patronize the Rest. Rather, he praises the rapid economic development achieved by the Asian tigers, and the superior mathematical and scientific aptitude demonstrated by East Asian students. Additionally, Dr. Ferguson asserts that not only has the Rest been able to "download the killer applications" but countries such as China has also become an inalienable superpower in the global economy, ushering us into an age of cultural, economic and political collaboration between the West and the Rest. He cannot be more right on that point. However, some of his statements left me wondering and even slightly confused. For one, he concludes the book with: "Today, as then, the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity - and by the historical ignorance that feeds it." Perhaps it's just the phrasing, but this sentence almost draws a divide between Western and Rest-ern civilizations, which completely defeats the purpose of this wonderful book. I feel like "The biggest threat to human civilization is posed by our own pusillanimity - and by the historical ignorance that feeds it" would have done better justice to this book, for historical ignorance and cultural supremacism are destructive to the "West" and the "Rest" alike.
A lot has happened since my last post. Since then, I have traveled to two continents and five countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Peru and Chile). Seeing other corners of the world and learning and interacting with different peoples were not only eye-opening and educational, but those experiences also instilled a renewed sense of gratitude and added zest to my life. My recent trip to Peru was a particularly valuable experience which enabled me to witness a culture that is entirely different from my own, livelihoods that were unbeknownst to me, and a history that I was unfamiliar with.
Four years of college also came to an end (or I should say, the life after college has finally begun). Over the last two years at Penn, I have taken some challenging classes, attended interesting lectures by professors and guest speakers, become a leader, gained professional experience, expanded my professional network, and forged new invaluable friendships, as well as solidifying existing ones. As a lazy academic, I don't expect to miss schooling all that much for a while; however, saying goodbye to my friends, mentors and instructors was the most difficult part of graduation (commencement) for me. Yet, I am much looking forward to moving on, knowing that my old relationships and experiences will never cease to be part of my life.
I took a very interesting Anthropology seminar called Globalization and Health this past semester. The class discussed some of the important issues in global health and health intervention, drawing from a variety of ethnographic and historical writings, medical journals and ethical analyses. I found the class fascinating because culture, value and history become inseparable from public health in the global realm (versus local intervention). One of the salient issues throughout the semester was the benefactor-beneficiary relationship, which historically has been synonymous to the West-the Rest. Although we never reached a consensus on the justifications for health intervention, it seems as though most of us, as members of "Western" economics, had some type of moral obligation to intervene. Further, the haves' provision for the have-nots makes health intervention inevitably inseparable from (bio)politics.
Dr. Niall Ferguson's Civilization (BBC also produced a documentary series of the same title) provides a historical explanation for the "Western dominance" that characterizes the history of human civilization. He traces history, science and politics to unravel the course of events that led to the Western ascendancy, through a strictly objective and scholarly analysis. He argues that the West's historical dominance can be attributed to the six "killer applications" that the Rest lacked. These were namely: 1) Competition, 2) The scientific revolution, 3) The rule of law and representative government, 4) Modern medicine, 5) The consumer society, and 6) The work ethic.
I don't think that Dr. Ferguson's intention was to demonstrate Western superiority or to patronize the Rest. Rather, he praises the rapid economic development achieved by the Asian tigers, and the superior mathematical and scientific aptitude demonstrated by East Asian students. Additionally, Dr. Ferguson asserts that not only has the Rest been able to "download the killer applications" but countries such as China has also become an inalienable superpower in the global economy, ushering us into an age of cultural, economic and political collaboration between the West and the Rest. He cannot be more right on that point. However, some of his statements left me wondering and even slightly confused. For one, he concludes the book with: "Today, as then, the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity - and by the historical ignorance that feeds it." Perhaps it's just the phrasing, but this sentence almost draws a divide between Western and Rest-ern civilizations, which completely defeats the purpose of this wonderful book. I feel like "The biggest threat to human civilization is posed by our own pusillanimity - and by the historical ignorance that feeds it" would have done better justice to this book, for historical ignorance and cultural supremacism are destructive to the "West" and the "Rest" alike.
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