Western Civilization: Anatomy and Pathology
Johan Galtung
In this article, the author assumes that Western civilization (found in and Eastern Europe, North America, USSR, Muslim societies) has been dominant world, he explores positive negative effects of civilizational penetration on Hindu, Sinic Nipponic traditions. Approaching investigation from a cosmological perspective, argues civilizations are incessant interaction – lending, borrowing, sending, receiving, imposing submitting as people, things ideas move space time. The consequences twofold: (1) it gives rise to similarities deep structures ideologies otherwise dissimilar civilizations; (2) could mitigate dominance one across Applied penetration, analysis suggests during period expansion, transmits its central themes unable resist through isolation (the case) or economic-military countermeasures case). (Hindu is class apart, since extraordinary richness enables both absorb modify external influences.) As becomes overextended, enters contraction marked by some openness expansion mode. This process iterative. concludes European American aspects inner West) while Islam, East Soviet forms expanding, remaining occidentalizing. Thus, West, which basically dominance-oriented exploitative mode, may now be ready enter dialogue with less aggressive cosmologies, potentially important for global civilization.
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political