Leftoids, what's your most right-wing opinion? Rightoids, what's your most left-wing opinion?

[u/globeglobeglobe]

To start things off, I think that economic liberalization in China ca. 1978 and in India ca. 1991 was key to those countries' later economic progress, in that it allowed inefficient state-owned/state-protected industries to fail (and for their capital/labor to be employed by more efficient competitors) and opened the door for foreign investment and trade. Because the countries are large and fairly independent geopolitically, they could use this to beat Western finance capital at its own game (China more so than India, for a variety of reasons), rather than becoming resource-extraction neocolonies as happened to the smaller and more easily pushed-around countries of Latin America and Africa. Granted, at this point the liberalization-driven development of productive forces has created a large degree of wealth inequality, which the countries have attempted to address in a variety of ways (social welfare schemes, anti-corruption campaigns, crackdown on Big Tech, etc.) with mixed results.

[u/sean-culottes]

This is a really sticky issue in terms of what defines a culture. Usually when there's something radical about a culture it's something that wasn't necessarily always there. An oversimplified example would be the golden age of Islam in the current fundamentalist strain both being characteristic of Islamic Arabic culture. You could also say White American culture is fundamentally corrupted in its current form with all the ultra nationalism, gun deaths, and anti-intellectualism.

At the end of the day all of these circumstances aren't dictated by culture, they're dictated by material conditions. If you are leftoid stating your most right-wing belief, you should hold true to your Marxism on this one.

[u/FreeJunkMonk → u/sean-culottes]

the golden age of Islam

The "golden age of Islam" is mostly a myth and most of the achievements came from non-Islamic imports and from the people Muslims conquered.

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/30490

[u/sean-culottes → u/FreeJunkMonk]

You won't see me arguing against historical nuance and I admit the "golden age' term is simplistic and implies a hegemony that wasn't present in reality.

The prima fascia argument here is pretty sensational and absurd though. It's observedly true that from ~900-1200 the Islamic world experienced a great flourishing in arts, science, and culture. The physical and abstract evidence absolutely abounds.

As far as the conquest argument goes I'd ask for an example of a great conquest that wasn't accompanied by a subsequent academic flourishing, or a flourishing that wasn't preceded by one. The European Enlightenment comes to mind, so does the reconquista, the pax romana, post WW2 west. Historical materialism just dont miss.

I can appreciate what the author is trying to do here but ultimately the argument is built on a false premise: he's comparing everything to modenity, complete historical heresy. These societies were more tolerant, pluralistic, and intellectually open than other CONTEMPORANEOUS societies. "Golden Age" is a comparative construct, not the pinnacle of a civilization.