This is taken from the book “Refutation of the Capitalist Western Thought as an Ideology, Civilization and Culture”
Thought is the intellect and comprehension. It is called thought though it means thinking i.e. the thinking process and passing judgment upon things and matters. It also means the result of thinking i.e. what a man arrives at of judgment, through his intellect or thinking process. What we mean by saying ‘Western thought’ is all of the above. It means the thinking process adopted by the West, its method of judging things and matters i.e. its methodology and its criteria. it also includes the fruits of its intellect and the product of its thinking, with respect to knowledge, thoughts and concepts, manifested as ideology, civilization and culture.
What is meant by the refutation is the demolition of its intellectual structure, invalidation of its rulings and treatments and refuting its arguments. It is the clarification of its error and invalidity, drawing attention to its corruption, within its thinking, its consequence, knowledge, method, basis, civilization and culture. Refuting the Western thought is the refutation of the foundation upon which the Western thought is established. It is not necessary to refute all of its sub-thoughts, or secondary concepts, since ideologies, civilizations and cultures are based on pillars, claims and foundations that are unique to them. The treatments emanating from them also include rulings. Sub-thoughts are built upon them, whilst knowledge is established upon them. Refutation is achieved by destroying the roots and the foundations, whilst demolishing the pillars, consequently destroying all that was built upon it. Thus, it is confirming the invalidity of Western concepts about life and drawing attention to the corruption of Western treatments for all the affairs of life.
This is the refutation of the foundation upon which the Western thought is built. To initiate the refutation process, it is necessary that we clarify the essence of the Western thought, its doctrinal view, its method in spreading the ideology, its philosophy, its treatment, foundation, basis, values and criteria. Before all of that, we will reflect upon the historical context, clarifying the emergence of such a thought and its sources. This would be an introduction to help accessing the nature of the thought upon which this research is done. It allows arriving at the crystallized awareness about its reality, which in tum would assist understanding its features and peculiarities.
Emergence of the Western Thought
Westerners have varying views regarding the history of their thought i.e. stages of the emergence of their civilization and their modern culture, described as ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Modernism.’ Some of the Westerners categorized history into three ages: Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. This comprehensive categorization is predominant. Others, like Morris Bishop in his book, The Middle Ages, assert that the Middle Ages began with the Fall of Rome, categorizing the ages into the Dark Ages and High Middle Ages. Bishop considered “the 29th of May 1453,” the day that Constantinople was opened, as one of the “hinge-dates· of Western history, “to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modem times.” By the end of the Middle Ages or the medieval period, the age of renaissance, reformation and reason began, as asserted by Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher in his three-volume, A History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher emphasized that it is not straightforward for the researcher to determine the delineation in history between the Middle and Modern Ages. Amongst the Westerners, there are those who elaborate upon the stages that Western thought passed through, such as Will Durant in his The Story of Civilization, and Roland N. Stromberg in his book, European Intellectual History since 1789, in which Stromberg divided the stages into the Middle Ages, the renaissance period, the reformation period and the Baroque period. According to Stromberg, the philosophy of the Baroque period is that of the post-renaissance era, or from another perspective, it is the era of the post-religious reformation movement, beginning in approximately on the year 1570 CE and continued beyond 1650 CE. Stromberg then highlights the seventeenth century as an age of reasoning, “Battered by the terrific crisis of the Reformation, Europe came up with the scientific and intellectual renaissance of the seventeenth century.” Stromberg cites Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke and Leibniz to assert that the seventeenth century CE was the age of reasoning. Stromberg enthuses then of “that extraordinary chapter of intellectual history, the eighteenth century Enlightenment,” before speaking of the ideological character of the nineteenth century CE.
The Age of Enlightenment (French: Siècle des Lumières) is the terminology used to express the philosophy that prevailed in Europe in the eighteenth century CE, from 1715 to 1789 CE, specifically in France, English and Germany. Thus, the French historian Pierre Chaunu, author of The Civilization of Europe of Enlightenment (French: La civilisation de l’Europe des Lumières) spoke of the enlightenment of Europe, in three languages, ordered by significance as French, English and German. Bryan S. Turner’s The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology states regarding Enlightenment that “In the western tradition, Enlightenment (éclaircissement, Aufklärung) refers to the process of becoming rational in thought and action. It can be individual or society-wide. Either way, reason is figured as a light that illuminates the understanding and dispels the darkness of ignorance and superstition.”
Roland N. Stromberg depicts the intense debate during the Enlightenment, European Intellectual History Since 1789, referring to those who adopted “deistic anticlericalism· as well as describing William James’ viewpoint as “the various myths or conceptualizations in which religions are objectively embodied are not fundamental; they are the mere husks of religion. What is basic is the instinct to believe, the need for the human spirit to express itself.”
Gunnar Skirbekk and Nils Gilje wrote in their book, A History of Western Thought from Ancient Greece to the Twentieth Century, “The period of the Enlightenment was thus marked by progressive optimism within the expanding middle class: a newly awakened confidence in reason and in man. There was a secularized Messianism, in which reason supplanted the Gospel. By the aid of reason, man would now uncover the innern1ost essence of reality and achieve material progress. Man would gradually become autonomous, dispensing with groundless authority and theological tutelage. Thought was liberated because man felt himself to be self-governed and independent of revelation and tradition. Atheism became fashionable.”
The concept of Enlightenment in the Western thought is interconnected to the concept of modernity. There are those who consider Enlightenment a precursor to modernity. There are those who consider both to be synonymous. There are those who view that enlightenment emerged from modernity. There are those who say the tem1 enlightenment is a description of a thought that enlightened the darkness of the West, with the light of reason and knowledge. As for modernity, it is the description of the thought that introduced contemporariness in its knowledge and methods, in a break from antiquity.
Irrespective of the various theories, the foundation and cornerstone of modernity is religion’s abolition, sidelining or separation from life, exemplified in the stance of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and it is in accordance with Enlightenment. This also indicates that both modernity and Enlightenment are a description of the same phenomenon. The French sociologist Alain Touraine says in his Critique of Modernity (French: Critique de la modernite) that, “The idea of modernity makes science, rather than God, central to society, and at best relegates religious beliefs to the inner realm of life. This is on one side and on the other side, the mere presence of technological applications of science does not allow us to speak of a modern society. Intellectual activity must also be protected from both political propaganda and religious beliefs… the idea of modernity is therefore closely associated with that of rationalization.”
Here the question arises: Why does the history of Western thought, that is described as Enlightenment and modernity, revolve around the subject of rejecting, separating, sidelining and detaching religion?
The answer necessitates our referring to the time period of Western history called the Middle Ages, distinct from the era of modernity. Bertrand Russell stated in his book, A History of Western Philosophy, that “The period of history which is commonly called “modem” has a mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are the most important: the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science.” Europe during the Middle Ages was a Europe with the Church having absolute sovereignty and sole authority, dominating life, man, society and the state. Morris Bishop states in his book, The Middle Ages that “The church was, in sum, more than the patron of medieval culture; it was medieval culture.” Bishop also states, “The church and its teachings pervaded man’s entire life. One could not strike bargain, cut finger, or lose farm tool without invoking celestial favor.”
In the Middle Ages, the Church was extending its sovereignty and hegemony over the society in the name of religion, according to the scholastic philosophical vision that fom1ed in the thirteenth century, upon the adoption of thought reconciled between the philosophy of Aristotelian and Christian theology. This thought was associated with a number of erroneous concepts and teachings about man, nature, universe and life. It was adopted and claimed as absolute, whilst certainties emerged from the holy infallible authority. No interpretation or development or change was accepted. One must believe in it, submit to it and be compliant to it. The Church used to refuse any view or saying that contradicted its teachings. It rejected any thought that undermined its credibility. Thus the Church used means of punishment for those who left its teachings. It adopted the method of excommunication and charging blasphemy against heterodoxy and heresy. It suppressed any intellectual or scientific movement that challenged its interpretations and refuted its concepts.
Thus the movement of ecclesiastical persecution began against the thinkers who criticized its teachings and rampant corruption. In the year 1415 CE, the Czech John Huss (lohannes Hus). who criticized the corruption of the Church and accused it of departing from its principles, was burned at the stake. In the year 1498 CE Girolamo Savonarola was tortured, hanged and then burnt in Italy. In the year 1612, Bartholomew legate and Edward Wightman were burnt in England, due to the accusation of heresy. Georges Minois stated in his book, The Church and Science: History of Conflict (French: L’Eglise et la science. Histoire d’un malentendu) that “Since 1544, The Paris School of Theology had been condemning the Aristotelian Observations, authored by Pierre de la Ramee, who criticized the philosopher Aristotle, and he was prohibited to teach. In the year 1546, The Etienne Dolet was tortured. By the end of the century, the prosecutions were multiplied. Patrizi was subjected to some harassment from the Holy Office in 1595. Campanella was arrested for the first time in 1594 after the Inquisition (the Holy Office) had stolen his papers. Giordano Bruno was executed in 1600. In the year 1601 followed by the year 1602, the University of Paris was established followed by the parliament to reiterate the authority of peripatetic doctrine. Campanella was sentenced with life imprisonment in 1601 … ln 1616, Copernicus (Polish: Kopernik) school of thought was declared as a heretical school of thought. The tongue of Vanini was cut out and he was burnt alive, upon the verdict passed by the Parliament of Toulouse describing him as an astrologer, occultist, and atheist. In 1624, three authors opposed to Aristotelianism were expelled within twenty-four hours based on the request of the Faculty of Theology in Paris. In 1629, measures were taken against some anti-Aristotelian chemists… The holy office condemned Galileo and forced him to be under house arrest.”
Nevertheless, a series of scientific discoveries were undertaken by the pioneers of scientific movements in the West, such as Copernicus (d. 1543), Johannes Kepler (d. 1630) and Galileo Galilei (d. 1642), that shook trust in the concept of the Church and undermined its credibility. These strengthened trust in Western thinkers by virtue of their scientific ability and success. The scientific research and the defiance of the Church continued. The emergence of every new discovery and every modern thought acted as a pickaxe that contributed to the destruction of the Church’s intellectual edifice. Thus there were painful blows to the Church from Newton (d. 1757), Lisnnaeus (d. 1778), Lavoisier (d 1794), Claude Bernard (d. 1878), and Darwin (d. 1882), such that the dominance of the church gradually waned. The Church was no longer required to be reformed, as apparent in the movement of Martin Luther (d. 1546) and Jean Calvin (d. 1564) that resulted into the Thirty Years’ War (1618- 1648), whose result was catastrophic to the European nations. It was no longer required to merely reform the Church. Instead, it was required to demolish it. The matter concluded with the defamation of priestly ecclesiastical teachings in its entirety, refuting its concepts, teachings and intellectual perceptions, absolutely.
The famous phrase of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (d. 1776) in his book, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, summarizes the view of scholars about the Church, its knowledge and methods in the eighteenth century CE, by saying, “If we take in our hand any volume – of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance – let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning about quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experiential reasoning about matters of fact and existence? No. Then throw it in the fire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
The fall of the Church accompanied its teachings and concepts about universe, man, life and society. This was accompanied by a growing confidence in the West about the abilities of the human mind to reveal the secrets of the universe, nature and man. Thus, reason in the West began replacing the “divine• church and its theology, gradually. Rationalism emerged to explain the cosmic phenomena, whilst societal parameters were analyzed according to rational views, free from all priestly or religious restrictions. Will Durant expressed in his book, The Story of Civilization Volume 7 that “Science now began to liberate itself from the placenta of its mother, philosophy. It shrugged Aristotle from its back, turned its face from metaphysics to Nature, developed its own distinctive methods, and looked to improve the life of man on the earth. This movement belonged to the heart of the Age of Reason, but it did not put its faith in “pure reason” – reason independent of experience and experiment. Too often such reasoning had woven mythical webs.”
Thus the new thoughts :about humankind, reasoning, knowledge, society, politics, economy, state, ruling and canons became prominent. The views of Francis Bacon {d. 1626), Rene Descartes {d. 1650), Blaise Pascal {d. 1662), Baruch Spinoza {d. 1677), Thomas Hobbes {d. 1679), John Locke (d. 1704), Montesquieu {d. 1755), Voltaire (1778), and Jean–Jacques Rousseau (1778), Adam Smith {d. 1790), Immanuel Kant {d. 1804), Jeremy Bentham {d. 1832), John Stuart Mill {d. 1873) and others contributed to laying the foundations of modern Western thought.
This is the summary of the formation of modern Western thought, as narrated by the Western historians. Regardless of the accuracy in the history of Western thought, distinguishing facts from exaggerated myth serving the propaganda of the so-called Western miracle, that produced the civilization of Enlightenment and modernity, regardless of all of that, it is best for us to examine at the nature of this Western thought, to know its reality and then expose its corruption.
Essence of the Western Thought
Samuel P. Huntington mentions in his book, The Clash of Civilization that the separation between spiritual and temporal authority is amongst the main features of the Western civilization. The separation is considered to be the essence of Western civilization. Huntington states, “This division of authority contributed immeasurably to the development of freedom in the West.” He also states, “Historically American national identity has been defined culturally by the heritage of Western civilization and politically by the principles of the American creed on which Americans overwhelmingly agree: liberty, democracy, individualism, equality before the law, constitutionalism, private property.” Huntington wrote, “Europe, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., has said, is “the source-the unique source” of the “ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and cultural freedom…. These are European ideas, not Asian, nor African, nor Middle Eastern ideas, except by adoption.”” Huntington then continues to say, “They make Western civilization unique, and Western civilization is valuable not because it is universal but because it is unique.” Philippe Nemo says in his book, What is the West? (French: Qu’est-ce que l’Occident?) that “As a matter of fact, Western civilization may define itself, by approximation in any case, in terms of the constitutional state, democracy, intellectual freedom, critical reason, science, and the liberal economy rooted in the principle of private property.”
In his book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson speaks of “the achievements of Western civilization – capitalism, science, the rule of law and democracy.” The historian Sir Ramsay Muir in his essay for Foreign Affairs in 1933, “the freedom of the individual to live his own life in his own way depends upon the existence of a system of law, enforced by the common will, which can restrain the strong from abuse of their strength at the expense of their neighbors.’ The repository europaeischewerte.info defined six basic European values in its publication, “Definition of the most basic European Values and their significance for our modem society,” which are humanistic thinking, rationality, secularity, rule of law, democracy and human rights. Milan Zafirovski asserts in his book, The Enlightenment and Its Effects on Modem Society, that the values that distinguish the West, fom1ing the foundation of its civilization, are “liberty, equality, justice, democracy, inclusion, human rights, dignity, well-being and happiness, humane life, civil liberties, scientific rationalism, technological and social progress and optimism, economic prosperity, free markets, secularism, pluralism and diversity, individualism, universalism, humanism, and the like.”
All these were the result of the intellectual movement and cultural revolution of Enlightenment in Western Europe. If we rely on these sayings that define the essence of Western thought, integrating it with what has been mentioned of its origination, we can give a crystallized picture that encapsulates the structural foundation of the Western ideology, delineating the pillars of its civilization and culture.
And after the conflict with the Church, the Western thought reached to a conclusion that forms its intellectual basis and its doctrine, which is, secularism (French: Laicite). Secularism means the liberation from the chains of the Church, freedom from the rulings of divine religion and the reliance upon the human mind, equipped with the scientific method, for establishing a system for the Western man, both individually and collectively, to manage the affairs of his life. Thus freedom, in its intellectual, political, economic and societal dimensions, emerged from secularism. Secularism is the pivotal concept on which the West built its conception of the system organizing the affairs of the individual, society and the state. So secularism is both the origin and the destination. Accordingly, this thought became sacred to the West as a
state and people. The democracy adopted by the West represents the formal structure and political framework that nurtures the notion of freedom. Ideology comprises of a rational doctrine upon which a system emerges. The Western ideology is based on the doctrine of secularism, upon which the democratic system emerges. This Western ideology is called Capitalism, after its most prominent feature, which is its economic system. Capitalism’s economic system is based on the idea of freedom of ownership. It is encapsulated by the well-known French phrase, laissez-faire, which means “1eave it alone.” It stresses the non-interference of government in the economy. The phrase laissez faire itself comes from the French phrase laissez faire et laissez passer, “let be and let pass.’ It is sometimes called Liberal Capitalism due to its prominent idea of freedom, or the prominent philosophy that produces it.
As for the civilization which is a collection of concepts about life adopted by a nation, the important concepts of the Western civilization, adopted by the Western man and acted upon by the Western state, which are central to its society and for propagating it around the world are:
– Secularism (French: Laicite). It is, as discussed previously, the doctrine of the West and the foundation of its civilization.
– Democracy in its form and substance: i.e. as in any of the forms of ruling, it has specific characteristics, which in its case includes matters related to elections, sovereign laws and separation of powers. It is as a system nurturing values based on the so-called fundamental freedoms.
– Rationalism, in the sense that the mind judges upon everything.
– Individual and public freedom in its intellectual, political, economic and social dimensions.
– Individualism.
– Pluralism in its intellectual, cultural, political and social dimensions.
– Human rights, which includes the idea of equality in origin, as well as the idea of equality branching into so-called gender equality.
– Utilitarianism, as a conception of life that defines the meaning of happiness, along with its relation to both hedonism and social welfare, upon a teleological scale.
As for the culture which is a collective of knowledge, it is prevalent now in the West to use culture with the term sciences, along with separation between the sciences, according to fields, specializations and curricula. The Westerners have what is called natural science which includes any of the sciences (such as physics, chemistry, or biology) that deal with matter, energy, and their interrelations and transformations or with objectively measurable phenomena. Formal science is a branch of science studying formal language disciplines concerned with formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, statistics, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, information theory, game theory, systems theory, decision theory and rhetorical linguistics. Social science is the branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. In addition to sociology, social science includes anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, political science, psychology and history.
These bodies of knowledge are called sciences, along with the research methods that branch out from them, such as the statistical method, using induction and deduction. They also encompass varieties of criticism, such as aesthetic, logical, factual, constructive and destructive. They are all based on the Western viewpoint and are established upon the basis of its thought about life. They are also influenced by either its methodology of rationalism or its theory of empiricism. This makes separation between the objective and the subjective from amongst the most difficult matters. It requires conscientiousness and vigilance to distinguish between the mere objective intellectual research, from the subjective intellectual research that is influenced by the Western intellectual basis and its method.
Whilst we are examining, researching and refuting Western culture, we should draw attention to the necessity of distinguishing between two matters: the theoretical aspect and the practical aspect. The theoretical aspect of the Western thought, or the so-called theoretical, speculative or pure reason, encompasses Western culture as a whole, with all that it produces of knowledge and research. Thus, it includes a number of trends, orientations, methods and schools of thought that collectively comprise Western philosophy. For example, the so-called epistemology is specific to the research of the theory of knowledge in the past and present, regardless of the practical aspect and its influence on the society, state and individual, in terms of formulating thoughts, systems and behavior. Therefore, in the context of our practical research, we are neither concerned with Bergson’s theory of Duration, nor with Russell’s analytic philosophy nor with Schopenhauer’s pessimism or other theories that are considered central to Western culture. These theories have no significant impact on the practical formulation of the Western ideology and ns civilization as they are now. In the West, there are a number of trends, theories and intellectual schools of thought, however, in reality, they are nothing but emanations of the Western civilization and its dominant concepts, even if they appear as refutation or criticism. Some of them are influential like the philosophy of feminism, whilst others are not. Thus one should not be deceived by this. The differentiation between the two matters, theoretical and practical i.e. the differentiation between thoughts as knowledge alone on the one hand, and on the other hand, thoughts as concepts upon which the ideology is established, according to which the civilization is formulated. These are the concepts that are established as standards and values in the society, to which individuals and groups are subjected to and upon which the state is established, with its systems and treatments. Although we did not discuss in this book such trends, orientations and intellectual schools of thought, that fall under the so-called general Western culture, our refutation to Western thought as a whole does not neglect the basis upon which this thought is established, along with all that its produces.
This is the Western thought, ideology, method, civilization and culture which we would like to refute. It is the Western (Euro-American) thinking overall, whether its methodology of rationalism or its theory of empiricism and its scientific method, as well as its product, the so-called Enlightenment or modernity. Its ideology is called Capitalism and its doctrine is called Secularism (French: Laicite). Its method is to spread the ideology is called colonialism. Its system is called democracy that is based on the thought of freedom. Its philosophy is liberty and individualism, whilst its conception towards life is called utilitarianism.
