Thornton intro

migration

1. What is the point of the discussion pages 1-2? Freedom and democracy connect to advantages of science and technology; antibotics yet also advanced weaponry. Yield great benefits but also great dangers. Can one have one without the other?
2. [on pages 2-3] Greek values are defective ==> imperialism, suppression of women, slavery, oppression. Not worthy of admiration or study. Western values, derived in part from the greeks have the same characteristics. Greek values ==>western values; but western values are defective, therefor Greek values are, too. But we need to separate the historical reality of the Greeks from their ideas and the influence of those ideas. Greek ideals still shape out culture.
3. The conflict with multiculturalism and postmodernism.
• Multiculturalism. [bottom4] locates identity in ethnic particularlity and denies liberal notion of universal human nature. The latter is oppressive. MC suggests that all cultures are equal, cultures are not good or evil, but constructed to serve local interests. Inflicting western values of democracy and freedom is oppressive
4. Uniqueness? Is Greek culture derivitive? Where else was democracy developed? [6] Most importantly, unique and significant because SSR at bottom of 6.
   • The argument Th makes is subtle but can be reconstructed without too much effort.
     • Greek culture has influenced Western Culture because the values of the former persist
     • they persist for better or worse because the Greeks employed sustained self-conscious reflection to analyze rationally
     • not just to analyze the universal and the humanistic but also nature [science] and society.
   • Moreover , and in contrast to other societies, the Greeks were very curious about ''others'. Note the secondary thesis at the top of 8.
5. Before freedom could be identified as a natural right of all human beings it had to be identified as a good worth fighting for. ==> then a good for all.
6. the Post modernist debate. The Greeks at too different, too alien, too ''other'' ?
   • identity only with local power structure
   • sexual behavior served to position social actors...[bottom8-9] ==>the reign of phallus. Cannot admire the Greeks for the sexist behavior.
   • minimizes the value of rationalism and science. Note page 10: a sense of universal humanity possible through rationalism??? The abolition of slavery the consequence of reason and common humanity.
7. the essential ideas of the west, have their origins among the Greeks, but [12] they may also lead to humanity's undoing