“In Judaism we find the first conscious formalized and institutionalized statement of certain critical characteristics of European culture, tendencies, and values that intensified as the culture became an ever increasingly identifiable ethno-historical entity. This does not include the Qabbala, which is non-European in both a spiritual and a racial-cultural sense. In fact, a caveat to this discussion would be to raise the question of to what extent our knowledge of Judaism is determined by the tradition of the Khazars, who were converted Jews, and their descendants the Ashkenazim and contemporary European Jews. (See Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, 1976.)” “Judaism is much more than a ‘religion’ as that term came to be used in the European experience. It is a political and cultural ideology. It has within it the germ of a model for social organization designed for the energetic development of technological efficiency. It is the prelude to a cultural configuration that emphasizes that aspect of the human experience. The characteristics that can be identified within this tradition combine to give the culture of the early Hebrews the particular socio-technological direction that later became a definitive component of the Western European tradition.” “The Judaic tradition is associated with a cultural tool that is generally termed ‘codification’ in relation to the social norms, sanctioned behavior, and religion of the Hebrew people. The term ‘codification,’ however, properly refers to the systematic arrangement and preservation of certain aspects of culture. All cultures possess methods and media (songs, mythology, art, poetry, ritual) that act to standardize in this way; therefore, all peoples ‘codify’ what they consider to be the valuable and necessary facts of their tradition.” Marimba Ani “Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior” Page 117
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:04:25 +0000
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