Re: The Fabled East

On 2005-08-03 14:13:18 -0700, "Marc-Oliver Frisch" <Derschwarm@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

It's inconsequential why people may or may not have started saying it; a global
system is in place now, and has been in place for quite a while, which gives
people good reason to say it, no matter their cultural background.

There is no historical break that suggests that the old reasons were abandoned and new reasons adopted, nor does the Prime Meridian seem to figure into how we figure the eastness or westness of other things. As such, your argument doesn't seem to go on much but repeated assertion.

Agreeing with it still doesn't count as a Eurocentric cultural assumption, which
is what you asserted in the message I initially responded to.

Without tracking back, I expect I was relating that to the larger argument, the one you aren't addressing but I was.

Its literal Eurocentrism, yes.  Because, duh, it happens to be physically
centered in Europe.  That's not what you said earlier, however, when you
suggested saying that China and Japan are in the east was inherently a cultural
assumption.

And I've provided reasons supporting the idea of that cultural assumption, ones that existed both before and after the advent of the Prime Meridian.

It's not culturally Eurocentric.  It's geographically Eurocentric, for
historical reasons.

Given that you and I don't agree on what the Prime Meridian is used to define, I'm not sure there's any mileage to be gotten out of delving into this distinction -- I disagree with you, but consider it irrelevant to the larger argument.

Besides, recognizing the cultural origins of a system and necessarily presuming
cultural assumptions in the present when someone adheres to it are hardly the
same thing.

True. Recognizing that cultural assumptions can persist, even unconsciously, and that that concept is behind a lot of objections to Eurocentic labeling however, is still worth considering, especially if we don't say that China and Japan are "in the east" because we gauge such things from the Prime Meridian rather from cultural assumptions that not only predated but gave rise to things like the Prime Meridian.

: > It's out of the context of the larger discussion, as you've pointed out
: > whenever I said anything related back to the original discussion.

It was out of the context of that particular discussion before I responded to
it.  It's still well in the context you established with your statement that
saying China and Japan are in the east was a Eurocentric cultural assumption.

So you're objecting to the fact that I called it out of context, because there's a context it's not out of. Okay. I think my meaning was clear, though -- it was out of the context to which I was referring, not out of any and all contexts.

: > I changed the thread title because we're definitely not talking about
: > "The hell is wrong with Bendis Dialogue."

We're not talking about "The Fabled East," either, which is why I'm wondering.

The title occurred to me; I used a Kipling quote and a Herman's Hermits lyric in renaming other bits. I figure as long as it's got "east" in the title, it's more accurate than the previous one, and can be considered poetic rather than purely descriptive. Sorry if you don't care for it.

: As I noted before, there's probably little left in this thread branch
: for us but reassertion, and I think that's still likely true -- the
: only new things that seem to have come up here is that it looks as if
: you're assuming that anyone who says the Prime Meridian is Eurocentric
: is looking to do away with it,

That's certainly news to me...!

In that case, there's even less new stuff than it appeared. I don't see much this time that's not restatement of something already said, either.

kdb

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Fabled East
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