"In medieval warfare, the rules of European chivalry required, as those of dynastic Chinese martial arts did, that honorable combat be personal and bodily. Arrows were considered cowardly by medieval Europeans, as firearms were by dynastic Chinese up to the 19th century.
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Western military prowess, with its arsenal of smart bombs and weapons of mass destruction ready for deployment to impose its will on others, is not a march toward modernity, but a retreat toward barbarism. A civilization built on militarization of the peace remains a barbaric civilization. What Western militarism has done is to abduct modernity as synonymous with Western civilization, depriving human civilization of an evolving process of cultural diversity. The effect of this abduction of modernity has been profound and comprehensive." The Abduction of Modernity (part 1)
"The history of Christianity, the main thread of Western history, is a continuing saga against modernity. The US "war on terrorism" itself is a continuation of this resistance in its emphasis on force rather than understanding. By abducting the concept of modernity as a monopoly of the West, Western scholars obstruct true modernity in a diverse world. Modernity is defined by the West as a collection of Western values arbitrarily deemed universal - the secular culture of circular rationality, materialist science, alienating individualism, technical innovation, amoral legalism, selective democracy and exploitative capitalism that Western imperialism has spread worldwide in different forms and to varying degrees..."(part 2)
timeline of Chinese, Islamic, Western, 'civlization'/development
by Henry C K Liu
Asia Times Jul 9, 2003
