One of the themes at TOO is the uniqueness of the West, which basically comes down to individualism. The great achievement of the West has been the construction of civil societies where allegiance to family, kin, and religious sect are minimized. In Western societies, the personal qualities of the individual (character, intelligence, talent) rather than these parochial allegiances are the standard of personal evaluation and in making alliances.

To be sure, the individualism at the heart of Western societies has never been perfect. There is a constant battle against nepotism, and such societies are threatened by groups such as Jews, where ethnic networking (i.e., ethnic nepotism by any other name) continues to be a major theme.

I thought about this in reading a Washington Post article on the Syrian civil war (“Syrian conflict’s sectarian, ethnic dimensions growing, U.N. warns“). Syria, like Iraq, is a typical Middle-Eastern society divided along ethnic and religious lines.

The 21-month-old civil war in Syria is rapidly devolving into an “overtly sectarian” and ethnic conflict, a U.N. investigatory panel has concluded, raising the specter of reprisal killings and prolonged violence that could last for years after the government falls. … “In recent months, there has been a clear shift” in the nature of the conflict, with more fighters and civilians on both sides describing the civil war in ethnic or religious terms. …

Many of the rebel fighters interviewed by the panel — including defectors and foreign volunteers — described themselves as loyal to Islamist militias or ­ethnic-based movements, and not to the opposition Free Syria Army, the report’s authors found. Civilians, likewise, are increasingly being drawn into the opposing camps, they said.

“Feeling threatened and under attack, ethnic and religious minority groups have increasingly aligned themselves with parties to the conflict, deepening sectarian divides,” the report stated.

A report from the Foreign Policy daily email summary notes the involvement of al Qaeda:

The most severe division is between Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect, a Shiite Muslim minority. However other sects are increasing getting pulled into the conflict. Many opposition fighters interviewed in the inquiry were aligned with Islamist militias rather than the Free Syrian Army. Additionally, al Qaeda is capitalizing on deteriorating conditions in Syria and is building its presence.

In other words, there are not two sides in the fighting, but many sides reflecting the fractionated nature of a typical Middle Eastern society. These divisions have always been there; and ultimately, with the exception of the Sunnis and Shiites who are entering the country for religious reasons, the divisions are based on ethnicity. As predicted by the evolutionary psychology of group conflict, these differences become exacerbated in times of threat.  People retreat into their ethnic enclaves and are forced to choose sides. Read more

The Hellenistic World

Europe’s connectedness has created much confusion and opened the door for the imposition of a Trotskyite program claiming that Europe’s history was dictated by developments occurring elsewhere. But I wish to argue that Europe, despite its many connections, external influences, internal changes, and colonization of non-White areas, was until recently, before the imposition of open borders and mass immigration, a clearly identifiable area historically, geographically and ethnically. Let me start with the Hellenistic world, a vast area testifying to the vigor of the West yet hardly “Western” beyond small segments of its territorial/demographic potpourri.

Western Civ textbooks always include a full chapter on the Hellenistic era to describe a period of about three centuries, roughly from 323 BC to 30 BC, during which time, Greek culture, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, was brought over a remarkably wide area from its small Hellenic homeland — to Egypt and far into East Asia. The significance of the Hellenistic era, however, does not consist in the vast areas and diverse peoples it covered, but in the high cultural accomplishments this period saw in literature, art, science, medicine, and philosophy led by ethnic Greek individuals, particularly in the cities of Alexandria and Pergamum. The new schools of philosophy, Epicureanism, and Stoicism were actually centered in Athens. Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC), Archimedes (287-212 BC), the author of Euclid’s Elements (early in the third century BC), Eratosthenes of Cyrene (275-195), including the characteristics of Hellenistic sculpture and literature, were all Greek.  Although the four Hellenistic kingdoms which emerged as the successors to Alexander (Macedonia, the Seleucid kingdom in Mesopotamia, the Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt, and the kingdom of Pergamum in western Asia Minor) involved a clash and fusion of different cultures and ethnic groups, the political elites and high culture of these kingdoms were thoroughly Greek. The Greek/Macedonian rulers of these kingdoms encouraged the spread of Greek colonists to the Near East; with the result that cities were created replicating the architecture and political institutions of the Hellenic homeland. Many of these new urban centers were completely dominated by Greeks, while natives remained cut off from all civic institutions. A group of Greeks who broke away from the Seleucids carried Hellenistic culture as far to the east as the Indus valley, creating an Indo-Bactrian society. Read more