In a message dated February 22, 1998, SlackerInc writes:

Thank you, Alan, for your points. I will attempt to clarify my statements.

If you examine Western European history critically, you will find that the Enlightenment, which followed the Renaissance, would have not been possible without the advent of the Renaissance. Prior to the Renaissance in Western Europe, that portion of the world was, like virtually all others, under the heavy yoke of state-enforced religious tyranny known as the Dark Ages.

An Enlightenment period - which is dominated by Reason, independence of thought, and the rational self-interest of the business venturer (i.e., by the advent of INDIVIDUALISM) - could not have ever come about in the West UNLESS it went through a period of re-examination and re-assessment. That is primarily what happened during the Renaissance: Man began to discover his value as an end in himself.

This is evidenced by the unprecedented artistic achievements produced by Renaissance masters when viewed against the bleak and tragic specimens produced by artisans and musicians of the Dark Ages. Compare a brooding, stagnant line of Gregorian Chant with the astounding polyphony of the Flemish masters. Palestrina himself was rebuked by Pope Marcellus for creating music that was too complicated to edify the church. Palestrina's music, although replete with religious texts, contained as much as six or even eight simultaneous independent melodic lines which obliterated all comprehension of the words that were sung. With a new emphasis on personal creativity and artistic independence, music was no longer a subordinate of the church, but an activity of MAN'S mind.

The primary achievement of the Renaissance was: the ratification of the secular. Prior to the Renaissance in the West, virtually all spheres of a person's life were subject to church scrutiny. It was during the Renaissance that church authority was first challenged. THIS WAS MAN'S FIRST AND NECESSARY STEP TOWARDS COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE. Although the true major accomplishment of Reason in the political realm was not fixed until the Enlightenment as Alan [SlackerInc] points out, Reason as the primary means guiding man's intellect could not transcend immediately into the political affairs of nations before first experiencing a deep, universal discovery and adoption on the level of the individual, which was initiated during the Renaissance.

As for China today, you are looking at something that will be intriguing to witness, historically speaking. Since China's closest approach to a Renaissance took place in this century with the Communist Revolution of 1949, and the slow, reluctant importation of technological and commercial influences from the West which China is now experiencing, China is having to undergo its own Renaissance and Enlightenment at an extremely accelerated pace, compared to that of Western Europe, which took centuries, and without the benefit of a John Locke or a Thomas Jefferson to guide it. Although China may have had many technological and artistic achievements in its colorful past, it is important to remember that achievements of this nature are created by individuals, not by nation-collectives as many would have us believe. In spite of those achievements, China for the last 4,000 years has been, on a political level, primarily one dynastic tyranny after another, finally culminating with its take-over by communist thugs in the middle of THIS century.

Many will attempt to correct me when I point out that Chinese philosophy is primitive in nature. By primitive, I mean: absent of Reason. At virtually every major philosophical level, traditional Chinese philosophy shares the irrationalism of any Western religion in general terms: metaphysics - subjectivism, supernaturalism; epistemology - mysticism; ethics - altruism; politics - collectivism.

The Communist Revolution in 1949 only further attests to these facts. Communism is no more than a tired, outworn SECULARIZED version of religion, identical in essential philosophical terms with every primary branch of religious philosophy, the primary difference being Communism's insertion of the State in place of religion's 'god'. You look at any nation that has succumbed to communist migration of thought and policy, and I guarantee you will find prior to such 'revolutions' a deeply mystical, religious past among the majority of its citizens. The same can be seen in the case of the Soviet Union: prior to 1917, Russia was a virtual hotbed of Orthodox Christian mysticism. The individual in such religious/mystic settings has ONE prerogative: SELF-SACRIFICE.

It is not until recently in China, with the importation of ideas from the West (specifically from America) that the individual has begun to discover his own primacy as an end in himself. Notice how other nations begin to resemble America: Individuals are now learning how to read and write on a regular basis; individuals are going to colleges and universities (where in the past you had to belong to some kind of aristocratic or nepotistic clique in order to gain an education); individuals are able to afford luxury items, such as televisions and telephones; and homes now have toilets for personal sanitary needs, where in the past all you had at best were holes in the middle of the floor, or a pit behind the stables.

However, many people in China still live this way.

I have been living with three Chinese people for the last six years of my life. Two them are quite elderly (70's). By observing them for these last six years, and throngs of other Chinese newcomers who populate San Francisco, where I live, I am thoroughly convinced that I am glad to have been born and raised in America, where man's individualism is sovereign. It was not that way for these people when they were growing up in China. In China today, women are still despised. I don't know how many reports I've heard of primitive families killing female babies upon their discovery at birth. A female child in China is STILL unwanted.

All in all, China has a long ways to go before individualism reigns there as it does here, and that, my friends, is due to its philosophy, no matter how many ornate historical art panels and pottery relics you would like to point to on their behalf.

I invite your comments.

Tindrbox

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