A myth of our culture.

[greyl]

"The myth of our "taker" culture is that the human being is the pinnacle of creation. We are not simply a part of the world; we are its raisons d'etre. We are here to conquer nature, to subdue it, to shape it to meet our own needs. And we have done fairly well at it. The problem is that our successes have not made us happy and they have moved the world into ecological crisis. When one looks at our consumption of medications, our suicide rates, our crime rates, our fear of our neighbors, the deterioration of our environment, it is hard to say that we have created greater happiness or fulfillment than our primitive ancestors knew.

The way our culture explains all the problems is that human beings are flawed. It is our weaknesses that keep us from creating a paradise. We are unworthy. We need supernatural salvation. We are seemingly unable to look at the relationship between our problems and our culture – to realize that the problems are not inherent in human nature, but are the products of the ways in which we have chosen to live. And when we encounter what we call "primitive" peoples who may have more fulfilling lives than we do, we either convert or exterminate them because they could not possibly have anything to teach us, since we have all the answers, and we view them as a threat."
http://www.uurockford.org/sermons/s99-22.htm

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Western cultural ideas go back a long ways

To the Greeks and possibly the Egyptians. Greek tragedies were all based on the concept of huberis (which we are seeing displayed a lot by Bushco right now), and the Egyptian hieroglyphs show one's heart being weighed by Maat (I did get that right, didn't I, gentle poster by that name?).

It does seem that cultures with the "human superiority/yet flawed" concept always triumph over other cultures where "all things are sacred". I'm not sure how much of this is because of the cultural ideas and how much is because of the difference between living in the stone age and living in the machine age. And if things go downhill climate-wise, who is to say which group(s) will survive?

[Maat]

2. HeeHee.

Yes, you did get that right; that's one thing I loved about the name (the legend). She weighed a person's heart after he died in order to determine his compassion (at least that is the way I interpreted it).

To me, it is said that the more aggressive human cultures "win out," so-to-speak; however, I believe if that is the path that is selected, the kharma earned results in significant unpleasantness for the aggressor in the end.

[greyl]

3. Yes, about 10,000 years.

Also, in the context of the OP culture doesn't mean anything like nationality, rather it includes all those in the East and West who lock up their food (to put it very simply). In that light, China, Canada, Iraq, Ghana, and the USA are essentially the same culture.