Urban, Jeff

Anti-Primitivism and the Decline of the West the Social Cost of Cultural Ignorance Volume Two: The Failure of Christianity, Progress, and Democracy

1993 0-7734-9857-5
The work explains that the West obliterated primitive civilizations everywhere in the names of Christianity and Progress. They were not exterminated -- or better, absorbed -- in the name of democracy, because the latter was for the white man only and was thought too exotic for the primitive to grasp. From a scholarly point of view, if the idea of Progress has failed, it will eventually cause the failure of democracy. That idea has to be dealt with on at least three levels, i.e., the Third World where there are almost no prospects; Russia and eastern Europe where success with a free market economy is dubious; and, finally, here at home where, under democracy and diverse ethnic and religious groups, we seem unable to solve basic and vital issues. Any librarian whose collection includes Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West and Edward Said's Orientalism will want to add the present work.

Anti-Primitivism and the Decline of the West. The Social Cost of Cultural Ignorance; The Primitive and the Supernatural

1993 0-7734-9855-9
Explains that the West obliterated primitive civilizations everywhere in the names of Christianity and Progress. They were not exterminated -- or better, absorbed -- in the name of democracy, because the latter was for the white man only and was thought too exotic for the primitive to grasp. From a scholarly point of view, if the idea of Progress has failed, it will eventually cause the failure of democracy. That idea has to be dealt with on at least three levels, i.e., the Third World where there are almost no prospects; Russia and eastern Europe where success with a free market economy is dubious; and, finally, here at home where, under democracy and diverse ethnic and religious groups, we seem unable to solve basic and vital issues.