11-10-2005, 07:09 AM
Another Yankee with a confused memory of events that just happened not too much in the distant past
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/MarxismIntern.../2005/04/19#a23
Typical of his jaundiced view of India
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India, on the other hand, remained suffocated by an ancient caste system and the worst features of British imperialism, its population infused with the top-down mentalities of an insouciant and browbeaten people.  Today, India struggles to achieve the status of economic powerhouse, but history is stacked against it. As Martin Wolf recently pointed out, "[China & India] are heirs of great civilizations.  But China's civilization is inseparable from its state, while India's is inseparable from its social structure, above all from the role of caste."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is of course a ulta pulta reading of reality. China's ancient civilization has been pretty much eradicated thanks to Mao and Lenin and Marx. For all practical purposes there remains very little of it left, unless you count the Great Wall as a civilizational artifact. The fact remains that China has demonstrated tangible progress and is well on the way to becoming the economic superpower of the twenty first century. But in many respects China is also sterile. There is no great creativity there,merely a superb demonstration of the capability to adapt to a fast changing world. I do not see an outpouring of literature, of creative inventions, of world statesman or world class architects,, simply a determination to excel by the yard stick set by the west.
And yet the achievements of China are not to be minimized.And i doff my hat in admiration of China and the giant steps she has taken from a backward poverty stricken land to a gleaming collection of metropolis that would be the envy of any country.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/MarxismIntern.../2005/04/19#a23
Typical of his jaundiced view of India
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India, on the other hand, remained suffocated by an ancient caste system and the worst features of British imperialism, its population infused with the top-down mentalities of an insouciant and browbeaten people.  Today, India struggles to achieve the status of economic powerhouse, but history is stacked against it. As Martin Wolf recently pointed out, "[China & India] are heirs of great civilizations.  But China's civilization is inseparable from its state, while India's is inseparable from its social structure, above all from the role of caste."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is of course a ulta pulta reading of reality. China's ancient civilization has been pretty much eradicated thanks to Mao and Lenin and Marx. For all practical purposes there remains very little of it left, unless you count the Great Wall as a civilizational artifact. The fact remains that China has demonstrated tangible progress and is well on the way to becoming the economic superpower of the twenty first century. But in many respects China is also sterile. There is no great creativity there,merely a superb demonstration of the capability to adapt to a fast changing world. I do not see an outpouring of literature, of creative inventions, of world statesman or world class architects,, simply a determination to excel by the yard stick set by the west.
And yet the achievements of China are not to be minimized.And i doff my hat in admiration of China and the giant steps she has taken from a backward poverty stricken land to a gleaming collection of metropolis that would be the envy of any country.