Western European civilization not connected to Ancient Greece

[Crvena zvezda]

Sorry if I offend any one with this post, this is mainly meant to be a criticism of some western attitudes to history and how it is used to create delusions about history. I believe Greece should respond by properly teaching Greek history.

The fact is that Western civilization has nothing to do with ancient Greece, the ancient Roman Empire, or with the Eastern Roman Empire. Rather, Western civilization is based on Germanic civilization. The majority of Western peoples are, to one extent or another, Germanic peoples. The few who aren't came to be in the Western sphere of influence through invasion, long-term occupation, and extirpation of their native cultures by Germanic peoples.

Later, Western historians, in order to present their barbaric origins and development in a civilized light, appropriated the ancient greatness of Greece and Rome. However, the fact remains that no Germanic peoples existed in what is considered to be the European continent during the period of classical Greece. Their arrival coincides with the deterioration of the Roman Empire and, indeed, it was the Germanic ancestors of today's Western Europeans who waged war against Rome and finally destroyed this Greco-Roman civilization. It lived on in the Eastern Roman Empire but this was an empire that the barbaric Franks detested precisely because, when compared to their backward and barbaric ways, it demonstrated their lack of sophistication all too clearly. Moreover, as long as it stood in its awesome greatness, it presented a great obstacle for the Western savages to lay claim to Roman heritage, despite their best efforts to create a so-called "Holy Roman Empire" that would rival its legitimacy.

Between the time that the Eastern Roman Empire fell and Greek independence from the Turk was finally achieved, Western historians had much time to perfect their absurd thesis regarding the Greek and Roman roots of Western civilization. Since the coming of the Turk had resulted in the destruction of Greek academic circles, the Western effort to falsify the historical account went completely unchecked. As a result, the most preposterous historical claims were accepted as historical facts: that the Roman Empire, the very civilization that the Germanics had destroyed, was somehow the basis of their own and that, since the Roman Empire had adopted Greek culture as one of the major aspects of its civilization, ancient Greece was subsequently part of Western civilization as well! The Westerners, naturally, made no attempt to appropriate the Eastern Roman Empire. Since it challenged their artificial historical narrative, they did their best to present it as being so dark and degenerate as to merit no historical mention, except for the few lines needed to malign it so that future historians would follow their lead in dismissing it and, therefore, neglecting its study.

Unfortunately, Greek intellectuals who had fled to the West during the Turkish occupation, blindly accepted the Western narrative, as well as the Western position regarding the supposed obscurity of the Eastern Roman Empire, instead of challenging it. These Western-educated Greeks were captivated by, and greatly admired, the mighty Western European nations and felt an immense pride that these same nations looked upon classical Greece as representing the spiritual basis of their Western civilization. That Western Europeans had taken up the Greek cause for independence based on this fictional connection was more reason why Greek intellectuals accepted the position that Greco-Roman civilization was an inseparable part of Western civilization and why they collaborated with the Westerners to adjust and re-write classical Greece's role in history and distance modern Greece from its Eastern Roman heritage.

As a result, Greece freed itself from the Turk only to fall into slavery to the Frank. This hijacking of Greco-Roman civilization by the Germanic West and the Greek collaboration to legitimize it has led to a break in Greece's social evolution and historical experience, undoubtedly playing a major role in Greece's self-destructive Europhilia, if not Euromania. Until Greece rejects this unnatural and completely artificial rift in its evolution and corrects it by reverting to its organic stage of development, the nation will never make any sort of progress.

[Reltih]

You should've better divided your post into several parts and presented it into different chapters in different posts. Will become intellgible. Bold ideas like strong antibiotic oughta be taken in small dozes.

[Menydh]

Thread moved to the Historical Revisionism forum.

Without having read it yet, I'll say that the title doesn't surprise me one bit. Well, there are some connections but these are either loose (a few colonies in Mediterranean Hispania and Gallia, and the later and short-lived Byzantine province in Hispania) or indirect (the Graeco-Roman Legacy).

It was not coincidentially the British who invented this concept of Western Europe through which they could lay a claim on Ancient Greece and Rome. Can you see a pattern here with Nordicist claims? Well, it is still more clear when you know that the early Nordicist theorists were English.

But right, neither Western Europe nor the Germanic Countries are the heirs of Classic Greek Legacy. The Western Legacy was the Celtic Civilization.

[Waarnemer]

western philosophy, science, mathematics and medicine are directly classic in structure. and what is civilization, its culture and that's the manner on which people think, act and believe.

[Carnyx]

Through the Romans, we've connection to Ancient Greece. I believe any Europeans have.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

Through the Romans, we've connection to Ancient Greece. I believe any Europeans have.

Yes, and scholars needed Greek to read key Christian texts.

[Crvena zvezda]

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

western philosophy, science, mathematics and medicine are directly classic in structure. and what is civilization, its culture and that's the manner on which people think, act and believe.

Many Greek nationalists would argue that western philosophy based on the classics is actually a corruption and is only loosely and in the wrong ways linked to the classic theories of Plato and others.

Originally Posted by carnyx

Through the Romans, we've connection to Ancient Greece. I believe any Europeans have.

Again Rome was destroyed and western europe abondoned Roman influence soon after it's destruction. It's only around the time of the renaissance that their was a resurgence in beliefs based on the Romans and even then they weren't the same as Romans viewed it. The only nation in western Europe who can claim links to Roman Civilization is Italy.

Originally Posted by carnyx

Yes, and scholars needed Greek to read key Christian texts.

True. But that doesn't mean any connection. Considering that by this time the catholic church already rejected some tenants of Christianity that existed before and that Protestantism developed, I'd say this has little connnection to Christianity.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Crvena zvezda

Again Rome was destroyed and western europe abondoned Roman influence soon after it's destruction. It's only around the time of the renaissance that their was a resurgence in beliefs based on the Romans and even then they weren't the same as Romans viewed it. The only nation in western Europe who can claim links to Roman Civilization is Italy.

That is not really accurate; the Roman Empire did not collapse so dramatically and completely. It blended into the Celtic and Germanic tribes as the Romans and their neighbours got tangled up in each other's politics and civil wars. As well, the Latins had put down roots in France, Spain, Italy and the eastern Adriatic by the time Rome was sacked in the 5th Century.

I know there is currently a big divide between the Latin/Catholic and Greek/Orthodox cultures in your part of the world, but it is not as old or as widespread as you say. There have also been links between East and West of Europe over the centuries.

[Crvena zvezda]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

That is not really accurate; the Roman Empire did not collapse so dramatically and completely. It blended into the Celtic and Germanic tribes as the Romans and their neighbours got tangled up in each other's politics and civil wars. As well, the Latins had put down roots in France, Spain, Italy and Slovenia by the time Rome was sacked in the 5th Century.

I know there is currently a big divide between the Latin/Catholic and Greek/Otrthodox cultures in your part of the world, but it is not as old or as wide as you say. There have also been links between East and West over the centuries.

True, it's collapse was not as dramatic. I'm referring to the fact that from the end of the western roman empire society collapsed and the Roman empire was virtually forgotten. I don't consider western europe of the dark ages to be in any way connected to rome civilization. Just how I don't consider south-eastern europe to be connected to Byzantine civilization after constantinople collapsed and our own dark age (the rule of the ottomans).

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Crvena zvezda

True, it's collapse was not as dramatic. I'm referring to the fact that from the end of the western roman empire society collapsed and the Roman empire was virtually forgotten. I don't consider western europe of the dark ages to be in any way connected to rome civilization. Just how I don't consider south-eastern europe to be connected to Byzantine civilization after constantinople collapsed and our own dark age (the rule of the ottomans).

Yes, but compare the north coast to the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea. North Africa lost almost any link to the Classical world while Europe kept so much more of it alive.


Maybe I’m just in a positive mood today.

[Waarnemer]

Many Greek nationalists would argue that western philosophy based on the classics is actually a corruption and is only loosely and in the wrong ways linked to the classic theories of Plato and others.

basic ideas as rationalism and empiricism were constructed in the ancient world long before platos time

[Crvena zvezda]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

Yes, but compare the north coast to the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea. North Africa lost almost any link to the Classical world while Europe kept so much more of it alive.


Maybe I’m just in a positive mood today.

The fact is simple. The north coast was experiencing an invasion by Muslims and desertification. Many roman remains are porbably buried under the shifting sands of the north coast while thge Muslims destroyed remanants of non-savage cultures. It's a well known fact that Muslims in the regions of europe they occupied actively encourage people to destroy signs of previous civilizations. The only reasons remnants survived in Europe was the fact that except parts of the Balkans no region of Europe became fully islamicized.

[Señor Malo]

And if you ask Cheik-Anta-Diop and his adfrocentrists heirs, they will tell you that Western civilisation comes from ancient greeks who, on their side stole their phylosophy from negro ancient egyptians

My vission may sound somehow too classic but, renaissance was not when western Europe re-discovered the classic texts and gave rise to our "modern" world?

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by searcher of truth

And if you ask Cheik-Anta-Diop and his adfrocentrists heirs, they will tell you that Western civilisation comes from ancient greeks who, on their side stole their phylosophy from negro ancient egyptians

My vission may sound somehow too classic but, renaissance was not when western Europe re-discovered the classic texts and gave rise to our "modern" world?

Afrocentrists should have every greek statue and vase destroyed , they invariably depict whites of very aryan look. Maybe the greeks were blacks who were so much ashamed to be black that they invariably depicted themselves as white, who knows....

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Breha

Afrocentrists should have every greek statue and vase destroyed ....

They shoud also burn Ramses II mummy aswell