West remains theocratic, other culture(s) leading charge for humanism?

You are attempting push this racist notion that western "cultures" are morally superior to the rest of the world.

I don't think he is : the OP is using really vague concepts and terminology, and seems to abide by some outdated view (Western Middle-Ages as wholly barbaric and theocratic, and what it seems to be a positivist take on History).

It doesn't help getting his point, as it have to be struggled against to go to the core of his OP, which is not that non-Western cultures couldn't have evolved to a parallel evolution towards a greater sense of individual's right and dignity, but how these non-western tendencies could have growth on themselves and how would they differ from western process.

Eventually, if you think he's using racist tropes, you'd probably better report the thread to let moderation team judges on that.
 
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Do you expect water boarding being an issue in a society where cruel and unusual punishment is the norm?

Do you expect death penalty itself becoming controversial in a society endorsing public execution?

And please look at the underlined caveat in #1 in anticipation of responses like yours

1) it depends on where you go. Even countries do not handle that universally, politicians in Britain being able to get away with statements and ideas that the rest of Britain would tolerate based on region.

2) yes. That's how death penalties get removed in the first place.

3) I did.
[this is about principles, consensus, and legality in a culture - the very basis on which non-observance by powerful individuals, groups, and institutions within that culture can be called hypocrisy]
And I stand by my point. Depending on where and when you look at a given civilisation, you are going to get extremely different answers.
Hell, look at "buddhist culture" alone. For much of its history it has arguably been one of the most progressive religions even in its orthodox form to the point of the empress Wu funding monasteries as a refuge for women.

Many of the things you are looking for has appeared and diss appeared over human history. In our particular epoch however we are fortunate enough for these humanist values to largely be winning.
 

Fenestella

Banned
Do you expect water boarding being an issue in a society where cruel and unusual punishment is the norm?
1) it depends on where you go. Even countries do not handle that universally, politicians in Britain being able to get away with statements and ideas that the rest of Britain would tolerate based on region.
I really don't understand what you're referring to.

Do you expect death penalty itself becoming controversial in a society endorsing public execution?
2) yes. That's how death penalties get removed in the first place.
no.
method of execution called into question first, then the very concept of capital punishment
look at all the countries that (used to) have death penalty but no public execution
 
I really don't understand what you're referring to.
He's saying that there's a difference between something institutionally and/or socially technically unacceptable, and how it can be actually pretty much accepted (if not in name, at least in facts).

For exemple, pretty much everyone in western societies will agree (probably sincerely) that racism is not acceptable, but racism is still an important feature that doesn't just (and conveniently) concerns an hypocritical minority (or even hypocrisy : that's why we can talk about "integrated" or "engrained" racism)

no.
method of execution called into question first, then the very concept of capital punishment
That's far from being systematical.

You had a lot of opposition to the concept itself of death penalty before specific execution was banned (which itself was less a problem of lack of support, than compromise between opponants and supporters of death penalty).

Conversely, the abandon of death penalty can be enacted while civil society is still largely in favour of its maintain (see abolition of death penalty in France in the 80's, while it get mainly accepted at this point and went unconsitutionnal only in the late 2000's)

I think, there, you're ignoring the dialectal relationship between the "organised" and/or institutional changes and the civil society opinion. The latter doesn't have to be the proponent of such changes.
 
I really don't understand what you're referring to.
Well let me give you an example about cultural regionalism.

So I am a teacher of youths in the UK. For people such as myself, it is mandatory to have counter-radicalisation training called Prevent (in the sense of being able to read when a person under my care may be turned to a violent ideology etc).
Now if I was to go a county elsewhere, I may receive very different training or a focus of my training under the same initiative (prevent). Why? Culture.
If I was to say "terrorist" in most other regions of the UK, the general expectancy or target of such inquiry would be islamic radicals. HERE however, my training was directed towards neo-nazis and other far-right ideologies which are sustained within the local culture.
A cultural standard which elsewhere in the UK is a minority small enough to ignore is not here, and general attitudes to things such as torture, immigration etc are hence radically different.

Likewise, this can be more extreme in such a culturally diverse country as China. The laws in Hong-kong are different to the mainland, are different to Macau, all with very different standards whilst nominally being part of the same country. The kind of corruption acceptable on the mainland for instance often gets very vocal and accepted protests in Hong-Kong. Hu Jintao's visit to Hong Kong back in 2012 got majorly protested by a significant portion of the Hong-Kong public because of several human right's violations.
Literally, trying to lump in 1 culture of country as having particular values rarely if ever makes sense, even in the sense of the caveat that you describe.


no.
method of execution called into question first, then the very concept of capital punishment
look at all the countries that (used to) have death penalty but no public execution
There isn't any universality to it.
If you look at Tang Dynasty China for instance, somewhere between Emperor Ming's Confucianism or his favourite concubine's Taoist ethics the death penalty was just outright abolished. Plenty of cruel ways prior, and then poof. Gone.
 

Fenestella

Banned
The aftermath of the murder of Lucius Pedanius is the example:

Lucius Pedanius murdered by one of his slaves, all of his innocent slaves executed "in accordance with Roman law. The common people demanded the release of the innocent, but Nero deployed the Roman army to prevent the mob from disrupting the executions."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Pedanius_Secundus

At that place and time, in terms of alleviating human suffering, the civil society and public opinion had no effect, none whatsoever.

Some might be willing to call a culture like that humanistic, I'm willing to compromise by calling it schizophrenically humanistic.
 
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Some might be willing to call a culture like that humanistic, I'm willing to compromise by calling it schizophrenically humanistic.

Then every culture is schizophrenically humanistic. Some accept slavery and abhor the death penalty, others do the opposite, another bunch embrace neither but accept ritualized suicide by immolation.

All cultures formed by people value people in one way or another. Some even hold people as valuable in and of themselves.

But cruelty is also there and done in one way or another. Acceptance has little to do with it, since each culture has its own justifications.

After all, how is that different from the practically useless outcries against dumping waste in foreign countries, or against the systematic racism in America?
 

Fenestella

Banned
Then every culture is schizophrenically humanistic. Some accept slavery and abhor the death penalty, others do the opposite, another bunch embrace neither but accept ritualized suicide by immolation.

All cultures formed by people value people in one way or another. Some even hold people as valuable in and of themselves.

But cruelty is also there and done in one way or another. Acceptance has little to do with it, since each culture has its own justifications.

After all, how is that different from the practically useless outcries against dumping waste in foreign countries, or against the systematic racism in America?
You know there were/are/will be societies where whispers, let alone outcries, against injustice and oppression carry the death penalty, don't you?
 
You know there were/are/will be societies where whispers, let alone outcries, against injustice and oppression carry the death penalty, don't you?

Of course. I live in a country where such was the case within living memory.

But again, that kind of treatment is uneven, both in time and in space. And humanism is not linear, like how the rights of women during the late medieval were better than in the early modern age that succeeded it, and how ancient Egypt was relatively free for women compared to the mad patriarchy of Rome and Greece that followed.
 
Some might be willing to call a culture like that humanistic, I'm willing to compromise by calling it schizophrenically humanistic.
I'm sorry, but at this point we're no longer using a very very vague concept of humanism, we're streching it even more at the point it can't possibly means something. As Timaeus said : we could say all cultures are like that.

You won't find any one that flatly points "we're evil people, we're all psychopaths, and that's good".

And humanism is not linear, like how the rights of women during the late medieval were better than in the early modern age that succeeded it, and how ancient Egypt was relatively free for women compared to the mad patriarchy of Rome and Greece that followed.

That said, it's largely tied up with cultural features : in the same time medieval women were relatively free, it wasn't the case in most of Arabo-Islamic world where many scholars just couldn't compute with such features, seen as an exemple on how Franks were barbaric* just as well as their flawed medical conceptions and religious-driven aggressivity.

*Which put the question of "modernism" as "progressisms". Every culture think of itself as "modern" and an embetterment of the previous ones. Progression may really be all about illusion bias in several exemples.

We can postulate, in a WI or a TL, about such cultural changes to reach what the OP ask for : how without western influences, other cultures can evolve to similar lines.
(Maybe to a point where sexism is maintained as a normal and respectable feature, but where non-vegetarianism is considered as barbaric : I don't think anyone thinks there's a determined set of "humanist" beliefs that each human culture strives for*).


*Not that you don't have a lot of parallel developments, as you don't have an infinite ammount of social possibilities. : peoples develloping states will most probably, at some point, devellop cultural features about respect of order and legality, according their own context.
 
That's a problem, indeed. That say, we're talking about an era where Shi'a and Sunna are relatively porous to each other

It cease to be the case around the Vth s.h/mid-XIIth , while the Sunnah as a social ensemble is already existing and doesn't have the same dogmatic and exclusive definition. It seems to give us some margin, if limited.

Roughly, the civilisational area of Islam allowed scholars (in particular, but not only) to move away within the former and to establish schools on long distances, as Is'mailism and Fatimids points (even if you had a Maghribi and Ifriqiyan Sh'ia at this point)

Now, what would push mu'tazili scholars to turn as du'at...
Maybe a stronger repression of the Abbasids on what looks like as religious movements, due to some traumatism (nearl-successful coup tentative? Huge rebellion close to their cores?) and a huge suspicion on what looks as reformation schools?

From there, having a mu'tzaili da'i fleeing an uncomfortable political context and giving the climate of religious turmoil in North Africa, and the unability of Abassids to really act there (even trough proxies or vassals, as Aghlabids) : you may end with some syncretism happening relatively easily, with a large Mu'tzaili influence.

Tough we know, trough North African biographs, that many scholars from Eastern Islamic world went in Ifriqiya, including mu'tazili. Ziyadat Allah I adopted mu'tazila (more in order to imitate the Caliphe than out of huge inner pressure, of course).
One shouldn't forget about Ifriqiya's role into the connection of North Africa and Eastern Islamic world.

Now you may be suspicious as such syncretism conveniently happening : but it did happened historically!

We know, trough al-Ash'ari that the Zaidi school was closer to Mu'tazilism (apparently thanks in no small part to the relations between Wasil ibn Ata' and Zaid ibn 'Ali).
Ancient texts specifically mention that Idris was both Sh'ii AND Mu'tazili, and it's likely that if he was described as part of the Sunnah, it was due to a change of definition of Sh'ia.

"Emotionalism" isn't something that was really bound to Sh'ia at this point, non in small part because Sh'ia as a dogmatic ensemble wasn't that well defined before the XIIth century. It can be more easily jury-rigged, IMO, than with more well defined schools in Bagdad.

So, rather than Isma'ilism (altough I don't rule out at all some similar syncretism), a more powerful Zaidi or a neo-Zaidi school may simply be the key, revivided trough Mu'tazili du'at.

The key problems being that this religious turmoil would make it vulnerable, that the struggle against khariji radicalism would make orthodox teaching more influents, and the limited ressources at hand in a particularily divided Maghrib.
That said, Fatimid success story points that's possible.


Frankly, Idrisid Morroco did well until the Xth century. State organisation was rudimentary compared to what existed in Karwan, without mentioning Bagdad, but it managed to overcome periods of political division by itself.
Eventually both Fatimid and Umayyad pressure (mostly by proxy) plus khariji revolts, had to happen in the same period to end them , IOTL.

(To the point Fatimids attempted at some point to pull an Idrissid as their vassal in Maghrib against Ummayyads, as the more legit and safe choice).

Giving how Fatimids did in Africa, I'm not at all unconvinced that a neo-Zaidi school, a syncretic school, or any mix we discussed, couldn't raise as an official teaching at least in the Islamic West, and thanks to a less dogmatic ensemble than Fatimid Isma'ilism, couldn't have a more lasting influence (that IOTL Isma'ilism did, nevertheless, even if fragmentary and "hidden")



Well of course emotionalism is not limited to the Shi'i of the time nor is it tied to them now. But in many ways the Ulema of the days past were far into dubious Hadith and radical Hukm. Other than the Zayydi, almost all Shi'i of the Middle Ages were complete Kufr entities because they broke literally all forms of Tawheed. The Mu'Tazila were highly reason based and would not bend to the more radical elements of Shi'ism present of the time no matter the entity.

But I do see your point as far as the creation of the state and the possibility for a mix. Still I feel there are better options elsewhere in the world for what the poster asked than in the heartland of Islam.
 
Suppose the West remains theocratic for many more centuries, which cultures around the world are more likely to be leading the charge for humanism?

Basic criteria:
this is about principles, consensus, and legality in a culture - the very basis on which non-observance by powerful individuals, groups, and institutions within that culture can be called hypocrisy

against/ending cruel and unusual punishment, collective punishment
against/ending slavery
banning mutilation of human body
ending human sacrifice, immolation
ending public execution

It's fair to say any culture with humanistic aspiration should at least meet these criteria.

Which culture(s) would emerge as the champion(s) of humanism and when?

First, I think you have a difficulty here of concept. Setting up one's personal bad guys/good guys dichotomy of the present day as some age-old Manichean struggle can be very appealing, but also not very accurate. Enough of culture is the unintended consequence people who intended something diametrically different or completely opposed to what actually happened.

And so one has the concept, in the West, of the law as a higher thing, not bound to the dictates of the King or the state having it's first glimmering of the Gregorian reforms of the 11th. This was not Hildebrand, latter Gregory's intention. He wanted the Pope to the be the sole master of the church; the idea that cannon law thus could not be exercised by bishops and priests who were creatures of the secular order was a means to that end. The concept of the rule of law went in many places, to ends including totalitarianism amongst others, before it turned into the Enlightenment's concept of the rule of law.

Or the Scientific Revolution. The Lutherans and the Calvinist who fought for sola scriptoria did not thing that it would turn into modern science. But they had the effect of limiting Christian doctrine to what was in the book, and claiming that human reason alone could determine theology. This left the door open for a much harder look at the natural world, we get Natural philosophers, and then people are off to the races. The original Lutherans and Calvinists would probably look at askance at what they birthed.

The Enlightenment itself, well, if there was one monument to the mind a Jesuit education can build it's Voltaire. And as far as hypocrisy, well, humanism, any human doctrine really as an antidote to that is quite a tall order. Humanism in European history has taken in Russian aristocrats moved to tears about the rights of man whilst using there serfs as mounting blocks; people seeking Rousseau-esque pastoral simplicity with just great gobs of money; white kids who are the beneficiary of centuries of prior efforts proclaiming their libertarianism for all of Reddit to hear. The same humanists who extol reason's power to end bigotry will say that Muslim kids never *just* build clocks, because Muslims are always so tricky.

I think it's a hard road to show how another culture could win a Manichean war that does not exist; or do so whilst being hermetically sealed off from other cultures in a way that is not possible.
 

Fenestella

Banned
There isn't any universality to it.
If you look at Tang Dynasty China for instance, somewhere between Emperor Ming's Confucianism or his favourite concubine's Taoist ethics the death penalty was just outright abolished. Plenty of cruel ways prior, and then poof. Gone.
Any example other than this dubious one?

It's dubious at best. Why?
All you have is “天宝六年(747CE),上慕好生之名,故令应绞斩者皆重杖流岭南,其实有司率杖杀之", talking about moratorium of executions, Caning plus banishment instead of hanging or beheading; but the loophole is far too big:“其实有司率杖杀之" talking about executions before sentencing.

Not to mention the absence of corroborating attestation (“未知本于何书") pointed out by Shen Jaben(沈家本).

And I don't believe for a second that the moratorium applied to individuals convicted of high treason. Why?
In the context of monarchic china, the list of unpardonable crimes (不赦之罪) were literally unpardonable, and high treason topped that list. Convictions entailed executions.
Only treasonous rebels (逆贼) having military and political leverage who reconciled with the regime (招安) had a chance of avoiding conviction.

Yes, Tang treated its citizenry better than any other dynasty.
But no moratorium on executions.
 
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Fenestella

Banned
The same humanists who extol reason's power to end bigotry will say that Muslim kids never *just* build clocks, because Muslims are always so tricky.

I think it's a hard road to show how another culture could win a Manichean war that does not exist; or do so whilst being hermetically sealed off from other cultures in a way that is not possible.
excuse me
the victim of bigotry after surviving the multiple hour police custody unscathed, had an audience with the head of state, not to mention the solidarity standing with him.
such culture is somehow as evil as the cultures of inquisitions, death camps, gulags?
 

Fenestella

Banned
I'm sorry, but at this point we're no longer using a very very vague concept of humanism, we're streching it even more at the point it can't possibly means something. As Timaeus said : we could say all cultures are like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Pedanius_Secundus

Can't you see the potential gradation of evil there?

Society E: public opinion has zero effect, 400 innocent slaves are executed
Society F: public opinion has some effect, some innocent slaves are spared
Society G: authorities yield to public opinion, all innocent slaves are spared
Society H: authorities are never to execute any innocent slave in the first place
.....

Society N: no slave there
 
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