I suppose that was "widely held" among Germanic people rather than Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Indian <According to widely held theories of the time, Germanic people were the apotheosis of human evolution>
Japanese have been the apotheosis of humans for a long time. I don't think they subscribed to that idea. I doubt the Barbary pirates who captured said apotheotic English as slaves thought so either. Maoris seemed to think they were quite apotheotic too, killing and eating anything that got in their way.
Americans these days are of course first among equals and others are NOT apotheotic, though the American theory is not considered so much genetic as one of "the system", [democracy, capitalism, freedom, laws etc], and Christian principles say the heathen aliens should be treated as human too, unless they need water-boarding which is not torture, though I imagine if it was done to Americans, they'd think it jolly unsporting. I'd certainly find it discomfiting.
But the rest of the world doesn't subscribe to the modern version any more than they did to the Germanic version.
Mqurice |
