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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (137879)	6/25/2004 9:36:34 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Columbus discovered the New World, he didn't create it. If he hadn't been around, someone else would have discovered it. The same for science and exploration. We celebrate these guys for being first, not for being only.>> Discovered it many years later perhaps. Leaders are still not replaceable. Try to replace Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Michael Dell. Or start a thread with almost 140,000 posts and keep it going. I am thinking the terrorists did their very best with those 4 car bombs yesterday, probably cannot do much worse. The handwriting is on the wall, after the 30 th they will be criminals with severe penalties under the new Iraq. Sig

To: Bilow who wrote (137879)	6/25/2004 9:44:17 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

Actually, things are a little more complicated, although you have a point. It is an interesting question, for example, why, despite a solid foundation in Greek philosophy, science did not per se originate until the modern era, and why it was not replicated anywhere else, but remained firmly entrenched in modern Western culture. Or why there was an efflorescence of oil painting in Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries that simply disappeared, never to be recreated. Or why the main body of classical music is culturally German, and largely confined to the 18th and 19th centuries. Or why Greek philosophy hit an apogee in Periclean Athens, and then declined largely into commentary on Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics. Individuals, or temporary cultural configurations, seem to have a lot more to do than we think with the actual content of culture, including its scientific content. Carry this to momentous history events: it is, in fact, conceivable that Hitler would have achieved the capitulation of Britain if Churchill had not been there to rally the nation, or if Roosevelt had not been there with Lend- Lease. It is possible that without Grant, the Union would have lost the Civil War. It is possible that without Washington, we have remained tethered to Britain. The world could be a much worse place without these individuals.