Published on Oct. 21 by HarperCollins and accompanied by a publicity release optimistically anointing it "his most ambitious and controversial work yet," "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950" is well timed to stir debate. At a moment of considerable East-West tension, when the phrase "clash of civilizations" has rarely had greater currency, Mr. Murray has issued what he says is a mathematically precise global assessment of human achievement, a "résumé" of the species in which Europeans like Shakespeare, Beethoven and Einstein predominate and in which Christianity stands out as a crucial spur to excellence. Equally provocative, he maintains that the rate of Western accomplishment is currently in decline. [More>]I wonder if there's some kind of tautology at work here: achievement is measured from the perspective of countries that have been most influenced by the West, and so the West is shown to have had the most achievements. Can achievement be distinguished from influence, and can influence exclude political, economic and historic circumstances? I haven't read the book; maybe it has interesting answers to these questions. Posted by nchicha at October 28, 2003 12:26 AM
Talk about hierarchical thinking....Murray ("The Bell Curve") insists on a 19th century positivist view of European achievement. It's all uphill. Does it occur to him that human progress is cyclical as well as unquantifiable? Also, the article doesn't mention Greek civilization as an influence. I assume it's in the book because for Murray to say that Christain civilization has these certain attributes he admires — and not mention the Greeks — would be a joke.
Posted by: John Dentino on October 28, 2003 01:16 AM