“To progress is to succeed” a way of life that is portrayed to us by the western civilization, for many years. It all started back when the renaissance revolution began, the span between the 14th and 17th centuries and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.
In school, they taught us that it was a radical break from the past.
With faster than ever pace in technological advancements, and accompanied by the complexity of its art. Notably, Newspaper, Lifting tower, A closer look at the human anatomy, The fact that the air is round, gravity, the Sistine Chapel ceiling and many more extraordinary works by our ancestors, that gave our society a significant push to move forward.
However, what was happening with the rest of the world back then?
– For the Ottomans, it was the time of destructions war, the Turks after conquering Constantinople in 1453, went onto take Cairo in 1517, Hungary in 1526, Algiers in 1528, and besieged Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683.
The ottoman kings had always shown the desire to display their greatness aesthetically. With the beautiful designed musks and art that they created, but most of it got ruined during the wars.
– Persian Safavid Empire–established the Shi’a sect of Islam as the state religion, and led a 250-year flowering of Persian culture, particularly poetry, which several shahs wrote.
– Japan although Japanese culture appropriated many ideas from China (their system of writing, slightly modified religious practices and beliefs), along with with a social organization reminiscent of European feudalism (nobles fighting each other over land with hired hands the samurai with guns and swords)
Moreover, many more events that had been happening that shaped the civilizations on earth, that is of course, because we generally move forward. Though some civilizations have other ways in moving forward, their technological advancements might not be as good as the ‘wester n’s, but their progress might focus on something else. Some cultures even stop progressing because they have found their right place and satisfaction with a completely different way of living. Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? Take, for example, the Gaúchos – Galloping across the wild prairies of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Southeastern Bolivia, Southern Chile, and Southern Brazil are the Gaúchos. This society that by wearing free spirits are the cowboys of South America. They are bound to their horses and devoted to chasing the call of the wild (and wild cattle). They are famously brave, notoriously unruly, and renowned in legends and folklore. Gaúchos have existed for thousands of years and are one of the most romanticized cultures in the world.
With such exotic cultures like these around the world that had survived for thousands of years, I believe we don’t bear the right to call ourselves upon all. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t blame ourselves for the way we think; it is not actually in our control. Globalization is the word used to describe the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information. Countries have built economic partnerships to facilitate these movements over many centuries. Still, the term gained popularity after the Cold War in the early 1990s, as these cooperative arrangements shaped our modern everyday life.
We now have access to most of the information in the world under the tip of our fingers with international news channels, social media, search engines, and many more services provided to us. Nevertheless, such a massive amount of information is hard to handle. Moreover, the leading providers for such services are the US, mostly with Europe. The places where technological advancements and modern life energize in a fast and elegant way. Therefore it’s not shocking when we see ourselves striving for that type of lifestyle. The critical matter is to treasure our traditions and beliefs that our ancestors had fought for through time.
References:
- Boruchoff, David A. (2012), “The Three Greatest Inventions of Modern Times: An Idea and Its Public.” Entangled Knowledge: Scientific Discourses and Cultural Difference, Munster and New York: Waxmann
- Coulton, J. J. (1974), “Lifting in Early Greek Architecture”, The Journal of Hellenic Studies
- Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. (1980), The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Cambridge University Press
- Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1997), The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing
- Hall, Bert S. (1979), The Technological Illustrations of the So-Called “Anonymous of the Hussite Wars”. Codex Latinus Monacensis 197, Part 1, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag
- Lancaster, Lynne (1999), “Building Trajan’s Column”, American Journal of Archaeology
- http://worldhistory1500.blogspot.com/2009/02/renaissance-in-asia.html
- http://www.travelstart.co.ke/blog/5-fascinating-cultures-around-the-world/
- https://www.piie.com/microsites/globalization/what-is-globalization.html
Retroveens 