So, given this, the comments of U.S. Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa regarding the civilizations of the world are a cause of great trepidation and sorrow. Referring to non-white people, King asked: “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about — where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?” He added his view that the greatest contributions to civilization came from “Western civilization itself…rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Unites States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
Explanation:
What’s discouraging about King’s statements are that they resemble an increasingly common viewpoint in the discourse among the right and nationalists in the Western world and among the rank and file of the Republican Party in the United States. It is a discourse that does not match up with the facts about the historical development of civilizations. According to Modern Western civilization, after all, is a relatively recent phenomenon that arose through the fusion of Roman and Christian ideas in Europe during the Medieval Era. Other civilizations preceded, influenced, and coexisted with the West.
