Post by pieter on May 22, 2024 15:48:42 GMT -7
Folks,
I think that we are living in a time of "The Decline of the West", like "Der Untergang des Abendlandes" two-volume work written by Oswald Spengler, the end of a great Occidental era, the time of the Abendland ("evening land") that lasted maybe, more than 2,0000 years, starting in the Greco-Roman civilization, and ending in the present Anglo-American world, with the EU, the UK, the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia included. The 'Occident' ('The West') is fading away, because it's Christian foundation is fading away by secularization, a typical Native European variety is being replaced by a Western European monoculture with no foundation, with a bad Collective Euro-English language (not British, nor American English, but a Continental European slang).
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German polymath, whose areas of interest included history, philosophy, mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best known for his two-volume work The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918 and 1922, covering human history. Spengler's model of history postulates that human cultures and civilizations are akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable, and deterministic lifespan.
Europeans are bad in their own grammar and spelling, forgetting their own history, heritage and culture, because a lot of European culture is linked to Churches, Cathedrals, church communities, old Christian (Roman Catholic) art and even language which is hugely influenced by the Bible translated into National European languages. For instance the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Statenvertaling (Dutch: States Translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Dutch) or Statenbijbel (States Bible) has had a huge impact on the Dutch language, and thus the General Dutch, Dutch Calvinists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, agnostic people, secular humanists, atheists, Muslims, Hindu's, migrant christians, Buddhists and the minority of old Germanic Pagan believers speak.
The Statenvertaling (Dutch: States Translation) or Statenbijbel (States Bible) was the first translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Dutch. It was ordered by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618, financed by the government of the Protestant Dutch Republic and first published in 1637.
The first complete Dutch Bible had been printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt. Like other existing Dutch Bibles, however, it was merely a translation of other translations. Furthermore, the translation from Martin Luther was widely used, but it had a Lutheran interpretation. At the Synod of Dort in 1618/19, it was therefore deemed necessary to have a new translation accurately based on the original languages. The synod requested the States General of the Netherlands to commission it.
Title page of the original 1637 Statenvertaling (States Translation).
Linguistically, musically, theatrically, in literature, poetry, scientific texts, in old and newer Dutch texts, letters, Biographies, Autobiorgraphies, Memoires, Diaries, essays, articles, motions, amendments, and Case law in Dutch. So the Christian layer of civilizations is fading away in Western-Europe (not only the Netherlands), but with it also the sense of older layers of Greek-, Roman-, Carolingian (Franconian), Romanesque architecture and art, Gothic architecture and Art (our great French-, Belgian- and German Cathedrals), the civilization the Renaissance era brought us from Italy and the Germanic lands (The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which developed from the Italian Renaissance).
Italian Renaissance had an influence on all of Europe and attracts until today millions of tourists to Italy each year.
The Ghent Altarpiece (interior view) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, completed 1432. Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps. From the last years of the 15th century, its Renaissance spread around Europe. Called the Northern Renaissance because it occurred north of the Italian Renaissance, this period became the German, French, English, Low Countries and Polish Renaissances, and in turn created other national and localized movements, each with different attributes.
And next to that Greco-Roman civilization and Renaissance heritage and richness of European culture are our great European thinkers; Pythagoras of Samos (Ancient Greek: Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, romanized: Pythagóras ho Sámios, lit. 'Pythagoras the Samian', or simply Πυθαγόρας; Πυθαγόρης in Ionian Greek; c. 570 – c. 495 BC), Plato (Ἀριστοκλῆς; c. 427 – 348 BC), Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs ; 384–322 BC), Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543), Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October c.1466 – 12 July 1536),
Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Polish Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), Baruch (de) Spinoza(24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1 July 1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716), Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), Sir Isaac Newton FRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832), the Polish scientist Rudolf Stefan Jan Weigl (2 September 1883 – 11 August 1957) known for creating the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus, Søren Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855), Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962), Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) and many other Westerners that shaped the West is fading away slowly too.
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650): 58 was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholic.
Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin. As a forerunner of the Age of Enlightenment, Spinoza significantly influenced modern biblical criticism, 17th-century rationalism, and Dutch intellectual culture, establishing himself as one of the most important and radical philosophers of the early modern period. Influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, René Descartes, and heterodox Christian thinkers, Spinoza was a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age.
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern Western philosophy, being called the "father of modern ethics", the "father of modern aesthetics", and for bringing together rationalism and empiricism earned the title of "father of modern philosophy".
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath and writer, who is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day. Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and color.
People in the USA have no idea how fast Europe is changing due to secularization, half Americanization, mass immigration of non-Western, non-European aliens to Europe, and due to the fact that Western-Europeans forget their heritage, past, customs and traditions fast, because few people are interested in that. New materialism and consumerism replaced old values and traditions. The knowledge of their European history is minimal with many people. Give the masses 'Bread and Games' is what the old Romans said and that is the case today in Europe. However many Muslims do remember where they come from, what their traditions and customs are and what their background is. And I don't blame them.
Muslims in Western Europe are better at sticking to their religion, their (Turkish or Moroccan) heritage, traditions and Turkish, Berber, Arab or Kurd languages and customs than the native European Western majorities they live amongst. From the other side you see some Native Europeans converting to Islam. The strong religious identity and culture of Islam seems to be attractive to these Native Europeans whom converted. Some of them came from Christian backgrounds and some of them were Atheist. In that way they created their ethno-religious pillars, neighborhoods, mosques and cultural organizations based on the Turkish, Arab, Berber, Kurd, Urdu, Pharsi, Bosnian or African languages (Somalian, Sudanese, Eritrean, Nigerian, Ethiopian or Malian)
Another point, non Western continents, countries and Powers are growing on other continents and in Europe as well with their enormous influence. I think about China and India. Chinese and Indian multinationals, large companies (both state and private) are penetrating Europe. From Tata Steel (Indian) in the Netherlands to the Chinese take over of the Swedish company Volvo, and the fact that Huawei and Tik Tok (Both Chinese) are conquering Europe. Russian influence is there as well, but not as large as the Indian and Chinese influence. In the same time Japan and South Korea are very influential on the European car and electronics markets as well with their Hyundai/Kia, Toyota, Honda, Susuki, Mitsubishi, Sony, Sharp Corporation, Panasonic, Technics (brand), Kawasaki, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Comme des Garçons (a Japanese fashion label based in Paris founded by Rei Kawakubo) brands.
Pieter
I think that we are living in a time of "The Decline of the West", like "Der Untergang des Abendlandes" two-volume work written by Oswald Spengler, the end of a great Occidental era, the time of the Abendland ("evening land") that lasted maybe, more than 2,0000 years, starting in the Greco-Roman civilization, and ending in the present Anglo-American world, with the EU, the UK, the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia included. The 'Occident' ('The West') is fading away, because it's Christian foundation is fading away by secularization, a typical Native European variety is being replaced by a Western European monoculture with no foundation, with a bad Collective Euro-English language (not British, nor American English, but a Continental European slang).
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German polymath, whose areas of interest included history, philosophy, mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best known for his two-volume work The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918 and 1922, covering human history. Spengler's model of history postulates that human cultures and civilizations are akin to biological entities, each with a limited, predictable, and deterministic lifespan.
Europeans are bad in their own grammar and spelling, forgetting their own history, heritage and culture, because a lot of European culture is linked to Churches, Cathedrals, church communities, old Christian (Roman Catholic) art and even language which is hugely influenced by the Bible translated into National European languages. For instance the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Statenvertaling (Dutch: States Translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Dutch) or Statenbijbel (States Bible) has had a huge impact on the Dutch language, and thus the General Dutch, Dutch Calvinists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, agnostic people, secular humanists, atheists, Muslims, Hindu's, migrant christians, Buddhists and the minority of old Germanic Pagan believers speak.
The Statenvertaling (Dutch: States Translation) or Statenbijbel (States Bible) was the first translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Dutch. It was ordered by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618, financed by the government of the Protestant Dutch Republic and first published in 1637.
The first complete Dutch Bible had been printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt. Like other existing Dutch Bibles, however, it was merely a translation of other translations. Furthermore, the translation from Martin Luther was widely used, but it had a Lutheran interpretation. At the Synod of Dort in 1618/19, it was therefore deemed necessary to have a new translation accurately based on the original languages. The synod requested the States General of the Netherlands to commission it.
Title page of the original 1637 Statenvertaling (States Translation).
Linguistically, musically, theatrically, in literature, poetry, scientific texts, in old and newer Dutch texts, letters, Biographies, Autobiorgraphies, Memoires, Diaries, essays, articles, motions, amendments, and Case law in Dutch. So the Christian layer of civilizations is fading away in Western-Europe (not only the Netherlands), but with it also the sense of older layers of Greek-, Roman-, Carolingian (Franconian), Romanesque architecture and art, Gothic architecture and Art (our great French-, Belgian- and German Cathedrals), the civilization the Renaissance era brought us from Italy and the Germanic lands (The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which developed from the Italian Renaissance).
Italian Renaissance had an influence on all of Europe and attracts until today millions of tourists to Italy each year.
The Ghent Altarpiece (interior view) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, completed 1432. Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps. From the last years of the 15th century, its Renaissance spread around Europe. Called the Northern Renaissance because it occurred north of the Italian Renaissance, this period became the German, French, English, Low Countries and Polish Renaissances, and in turn created other national and localized movements, each with different attributes.
And next to that Greco-Roman civilization and Renaissance heritage and richness of European culture are our great European thinkers; Pythagoras of Samos (Ancient Greek: Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, romanized: Pythagóras ho Sámios, lit. 'Pythagoras the Samian', or simply Πυθαγόρας; Πυθαγόρης in Ionian Greek; c. 570 – c. 495 BC), Plato (Ἀριστοκλῆς; c. 427 – 348 BC), Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs ; 384–322 BC), Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543), Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October c.1466 – 12 July 1536),
Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Polish Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), Baruch (de) Spinoza(24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1 July 1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716), Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), Sir Isaac Newton FRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832), the Polish scientist Rudolf Stefan Jan Weigl (2 September 1883 – 11 August 1957) known for creating the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus, Søren Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855), Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962), Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) and many other Westerners that shaped the West is fading away slowly too.
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650): 58 was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholic.
Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin. As a forerunner of the Age of Enlightenment, Spinoza significantly influenced modern biblical criticism, 17th-century rationalism, and Dutch intellectual culture, establishing himself as one of the most important and radical philosophers of the early modern period. Influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, René Descartes, and heterodox Christian thinkers, Spinoza was a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age.
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern Western philosophy, being called the "father of modern ethics", the "father of modern aesthetics", and for bringing together rationalism and empiricism earned the title of "father of modern philosophy".
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath and writer, who is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day. Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and color.
People in the USA have no idea how fast Europe is changing due to secularization, half Americanization, mass immigration of non-Western, non-European aliens to Europe, and due to the fact that Western-Europeans forget their heritage, past, customs and traditions fast, because few people are interested in that. New materialism and consumerism replaced old values and traditions. The knowledge of their European history is minimal with many people. Give the masses 'Bread and Games' is what the old Romans said and that is the case today in Europe. However many Muslims do remember where they come from, what their traditions and customs are and what their background is. And I don't blame them.
Muslims in Western Europe are better at sticking to their religion, their (Turkish or Moroccan) heritage, traditions and Turkish, Berber, Arab or Kurd languages and customs than the native European Western majorities they live amongst. From the other side you see some Native Europeans converting to Islam. The strong religious identity and culture of Islam seems to be attractive to these Native Europeans whom converted. Some of them came from Christian backgrounds and some of them were Atheist. In that way they created their ethno-religious pillars, neighborhoods, mosques and cultural organizations based on the Turkish, Arab, Berber, Kurd, Urdu, Pharsi, Bosnian or African languages (Somalian, Sudanese, Eritrean, Nigerian, Ethiopian or Malian)
Another point, non Western continents, countries and Powers are growing on other continents and in Europe as well with their enormous influence. I think about China and India. Chinese and Indian multinationals, large companies (both state and private) are penetrating Europe. From Tata Steel (Indian) in the Netherlands to the Chinese take over of the Swedish company Volvo, and the fact that Huawei and Tik Tok (Both Chinese) are conquering Europe. Russian influence is there as well, but not as large as the Indian and Chinese influence. In the same time Japan and South Korea are very influential on the European car and electronics markets as well with their Hyundai/Kia, Toyota, Honda, Susuki, Mitsubishi, Sony, Sharp Corporation, Panasonic, Technics (brand), Kawasaki, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Comme des Garçons (a Japanese fashion label based in Paris founded by Rei Kawakubo) brands.
Pieter
