The legacy of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome in the 21st Century
It is neither customary nor respectable to look critically at the ways in which founding mythologies from Jerusalem, Rome and Athens have shaped and limited the contemporary West.
The economic and cultural renaissance of East Asia has, however, made it imperative to break down such taboos and seek to re-evaluate these mythologies in the context of an increasingly competitive global community. It is not possible to escape the reality that the formative mythologies of a community can be decisive in determining its prosperity in the 21st Century.
For the first time in 200 hundred years, large, non-Western communities in China and India are assuming leadership roles in technology and commerce that may be capable of challenging the West’s long monopoly in decisive areas of global activity. This is partly a product of very large political entities but it is also a product of the renaissance of ancient cultures that accept few of the underlying assumptions or explicit certainties of Western tradition, that nevertheless have records of substantial historical achievement and that have standards of excellence in education arguably superior to those of the West.
The legacies of faith associated with Jerusalem, rationality associated with Athens and law associated with Rome may be seen with new eyes after comparison with contrasting qualities that have nurtured Asian civilisations. While these Western qualities all have their strengths they are frequently vulnerable before considered Asian strategies. The Western inability to take other traditions of value seriously as rivals with unique, substantial and profound qualities makes this easier.