Western Civilization
Some thoughts on where we are and how we got there.
Just to fire you up- I happen to agree that Christianity and the monogamy that is woven tightly into it are the reason European, and later, American civilization became ascendant. A quote from the comments:
whiskey_199 said...
I would argue the reverse Aenea. That Europe is central. Without it and Europeans, in their former state, the world is doomed to poverty and misery and repeating the cycle of Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Hittites, etc. Flower, boom, decay, die. With the same misery, poverty, disease, lack of knowledge, and so on that characterized life outside of Europe circa 1500-present.
Europe, and Europe alone had the engine of prosperity: monogamy. Now it is true that most of humanity lacked that, and resembled a pride of lions, with the big man hoarding all the females (and wealth) and many long to return to that state. Among them many women it is safe to say.
Europe, and Europeans, were totally unlike ANYTHING that had came before. More cooperative. Less Big-Manish. Far more freeholder-ish. Spreading wealth and power DOWNWARD. Without Europe and Europeans, we'd see humanity living in something approximating the level of technology of 1200. Perhaps less than that. With a bit of fireworks.
China invented gunpowder, printed money, printing itself (the basics), and the first modern fleet of sailing ships. And did nothing with it because all that knowledge was locked up in Eunuchs and died with them. Whereas Europe took Chinese gifts and constantly improved upon them (for the benefit of family craftsmen and their sons) to the point where each generation, guns or printing or navigation (and ships themselves) were qualitatively better than before, and available in far greater numbers.
It isn't guns, germs and steel (Europe was province of ill-smelling barbarians who accomplished pretty much nothing before monogamy). Or Civic Militarism (Hanson). Europe was the punching bag for Vikings and Muslims before monogamy really took hold.
The explanation is cultural. It's decisive. China by contrast along with Islam have given the world relatively nothing. How can they with a few Emperors and a mass of Eunuchs.
Ouch. But it needs to be said.