Why is the world dominated by the West

Or I should rename the title as - Why is the larger part of the population of the world and the real estate of the world dominated by a much smaller population in comparison

This has been a question in my mind for a long time as well. And this is very much linked to my previous post about the significance of Vedic scriptures. When you are born as a Hindu in India and brought up in a resonably conservative environment, one of the things you constantly hear is that the Gods of the Hindu mythology are very much present somewhere in the Universe and they are governing the well being of the planet. The stories about the Gods and their victories over the demons is something you hear on a daily basis as childhood stories, as practical examples in day-to-day issues and problems, as moral lessons, as a foundation for ethical values in ones life as one starts to form ones own set of standards for life as they grow older, as a means for salvation, as a dimension through which we can understand the complexities of life and source of problems etc. I can go on with the list but, I guess you get the idea. You cannot escape the reference of the mythology in your daily life if you grow up there. Even non-Hindus would have a significant knowledge about the Hindu mythology even though they have embraced a completely different faith and practice.

Growing up in such an environment one would completely accept the mythology to be real even though for most the rational portion of their mind would tell them that the stories are highly improbable and there may be a deeper hidden meaning to the stories. This state of complete acceptance even suppressing their rational thought is defined by some as Bhakti or Devotion. I can try to define Bhakti in another post as this requires significant text as well. If you are very keen to know what the word means then you can read at Wikipedia - Bhakti. However, my description would be more to the spirit of the word than the literal meaning.

Having accepted that they are true (my mind tosses between my belief and my rationality) you then tend to naturally glorify the antient texts and give them a holy status in your life. This of course happens in most religions of the world as well - Bible for the Christians, Quran for the Muslims, Guru Grant Sahib for the Sikh etc. If we view them objectively, they are just texts written by thinkers and intellectuals of the past conveying significant moral and ethical values for the future generations and in some sense a spiritual path leading to solutions of the problems in our world. Similar texts can be writtin by current day thinkers and intellectuals as well. But we do not want them and we would like something from the past to signify that we have been intellectuals and thinkers for a very long period of time thereby demonstrating superiority over another group with another text. The other group might have a text written much later in the historical time period but they would claim that their books consists of texts which impart more profound value system and advancement in thinking. The age of the texts alone of course is not the only point of contention between groups of people. So the argument goes on...


Hindus have such texts too. The Bhagawat Gita, the four Vedas, the Upanishads etc. In fact the Hindus have too many to keep count for an average man of the crowd. These text are old, very old by scholarly standards, written between 2000 to 500 BC and very very old according to the believers in the text, supposedly by more than 5000 years. I do not wish to debate as to how old the texts are and I would leave it to the respective experts in the field to determine them. What I intend to probe here is the value that these texts purportedly carries according to the believers and followers of the texts. Most consider them as significantly advanced in its content in diverse fields such as Philosophy, Medicine, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry etc even in today's context. Some say that the interpretations of these texts are woefully inadequate gravely limited by our current day understanding of things. How advanced these texts are is something to debate as well since the catch here is that many claim we are limited by our current day understanding of things. So it is something like defining the idea of fourth dimension or quantum mechanics to a lay man who has no clue about what Physics is.

Again I leave it to the experts to decide how advanced they are and whether we lack knowledge even in the current day to fully understand the scriptures. But I do want to take a stand here and state that these texts were advanced at least at the point in time when it was written. I think this is a fair assumption. For example we have the gravitational theory by Newton in the 17th century which can be considered quite advanced during his period of time. Similarly the Vedas were advanced studies at that point in time in which it was written. Many of the things stated in Vedas have been discovered / invented / realised at different parts of the world much later to the period in which it was written. Having said that we can now assume that the society existing in let's say 1000 BC was quite an advanced society which had the significant knowledge in different fields of science and theology.

Coming back to my question why is the world dominated by the West? I am using the term West and dominance quite loosely here and it is not meant to point fingers at a particular group of people in a negative sense. By West I mean the developed countries / economies and by dominance I mean technological superiority, high standards of living, low health risks, high literacy rates etc. Indian subcontinent is neither West or dominant and so is China, Egypt, Central Asian countries, Africa, South America etc. All the countries mentioned here boast civilizations as old as India itself but none of them are West or dominant. The question is why?

I recently started reading a book titled as Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond a professor at UCLA. The question that is trying to answer is similar to mine but encompasses a little more than my question. He asked the question (or rather he was asked that question according to the book) back in 1972 as to why is the world dominated by the 'West' and not the other way round? I am hoping that by reading this book, I will have some insight into the answer that I am seeking as well.

Referring quickly back to the Vedas before I close this post, why did such advanced societies suddenly (or gradually) diminish in significance and lost the knowledge that they possessed. Why did they not capitalize from the discoveries, inventions and understanding of their previous generations? Why were they passive and let themselves be colonised by Europeans and other invaders in the middle and later part of the second millenium. How could they lose knowledge when we are all told that everything can be lost (money, property, fame, power) but not the knowledge that you acquire?

I intend to keep pursuing the answers and my second pit stop in blogging ends here.