David Farrar: Harvey vs Wilson on western culture

Simon Wilson, like many on the hard left, sees the West as basically malignant, and that its achievements were based on oppression. This is not an uncommon view from the left.

David Harvey does an excellent lengthy response to Wilson’s assertions.

Read it all, but here are some key aspects:

The article argues that Hammurabi had law and therefore rule of law isn’t Western; India had universities and therefore Western universities are not unique and Japan had novels and therefore literature is not Western.

These are all non sequiturs.

Civilisations develop particular institutional trajectories, not monopoly patents on ideas. The relevant question is not who invented something first, but where did our institutions come from? Which civilisation’s intellectual tradition shapes the society we actually live in?

New Zealand’s legal and political system is not Babylonian, Mayan, Indian, Arab, or Chinese. It is English common law, Westminster parliamentarism, and Greco-Roman intellectual tradition, synthesised through Christianity and the Enlightenment.

Claiming “Hammurabi existed, therefore Western legal tradition isn’t special” is historically and conceptually incoherent.

This is key – it is not who invented the idea, but who made it an enduring institution.

The abolitionist movement, parliamentary government, separation of powers, constitutionalism, and human rights came from the West, not despite it.

To claim Western civilisation “was built on slavery” ignores slavery was universal across all civilisations and still is present in some cultures. The West eliminated it first and globally through moral reasoning grounded in Christianity, natural law, and Enlightenment liberalism.

This is not triumphalism; it is historical fact.

In New Zealand slavery was legal and common prior to any Western colonialism. It was effectively made illegal by the Treaty of Waitangi. It did persist in the Chathams until the resident magistrate in 1863 issued a proclamation formally releasing the remaining Moriori from slavery.

One estimate of the prevalence of slavery in New Zealand prior to 1840 is that half of the North Island population were slaves.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders