This seems extremely implausible to me. Historically, assimilation and globalization has been the norm.
“Assimilation and globalization” doesn’t imply a particular direction of value drift. It’s Eurocentric to assume that cultural assimilation always means non-European cultures assimilating in to European ones.
The word “imperialist” is typically used in conjunction with European empires, but the majority of historical empires were not European, and Europe has been a backwater throughout much of history. In particular, Islam already has a storied history of assimilating other cultures.
(I upvoted Carla_Fin’s comments back up towards 0 because I thought they explored important conceptual territory, even if they were expressed indelicately. It seems to me that if EA chooses to neglect particular lines of argument because pursuing them makes you seem like a mean person, that will be a failure mode for EA as a movement. As a reductio ad absurdum, how much potential do you think the EA movement would have if we weren’t willing to point out that PlayPumps is an ineffective charity, in order to avoid being insensitive to the founders of PlayPumps? Of course we should prevent the forum from devolving in to fruitless flame warring, and I move we all work to be especially collegial when discussing touchy topics.)
“Assimilation and globalization” doesn’t imply a particular direction of value drift. It’s Eurocentric to assume that cultural assimilation always means non-European cultures assimilating in to European ones.
The word “imperialist” is typically used in conjunction with European empires, but the majority of historical empires were not European, and Europe has been a backwater throughout much of history. In particular, Islam already has a storied history of assimilating other cultures.
(I upvoted Carla_Fin’s comments back up towards 0 because I thought they explored important conceptual territory, even if they were expressed indelicately. It seems to me that if EA chooses to neglect particular lines of argument because pursuing them makes you seem like a mean person, that will be a failure mode for EA as a movement. As a reductio ad absurdum, how much potential do you think the EA movement would have if we weren’t willing to point out that PlayPumps is an ineffective charity, in order to avoid being insensitive to the founders of PlayPumps? Of course we should prevent the forum from devolving in to fruitless flame warring, and I move we all work to be especially collegial when discussing touchy topics.)