Do you think there is a parallel between the spread of Ancient Greek and Modern American culture?

Question

Ancient Greek culture spread throughout the South Asian, North African and European worlds, and is, arguably, the basis of all western society that followed. American culture today is all-pervasive. Movies, fashion, business, language and other iconography are all throughout the world.

Any views?

Answer 1

Broaden questions can lead to sofisticated sofisms.
Any dominant government influenced large amout of geografic area. eg. Romans, Hebrew, Muslim, Bizantine, Egiptians, viking, Catholic, Chinese Dynasties and so on. Everybody influenced actual society, basicaly divided in western (mainly european way) and eastern (many polarized styles).

All western influence have basis in Monotheist (Hebrew-Catholic) religion, social structure and mind folded acording to European standards based in Kant, Russeau, Marx, Engels, Adam Smith, Sartre, Camus, Freud and so on... All capitaslim and exploration had origin in England. Basically following this basis, we can tell that Catholic, Romans and Greek are the masters of western world.....

but talking about lesser achievments, not so deeply rooted in our social structure, whe can have different views:

1. Considering USA as a dominant government in world global rules and right in sequence from UK it is partially true. waht you said.
Movies, writers, music are everywhere in western world. Really hard penetration in Eastern world, from which they had fragments of USA culture. (I have friends from Korea, India, Pakistan, Russia and Poland) - look to Bollywood and Hong Kond Cinema.
We can almost safelly say that in global cultural aspects mainly in arts, It could have a paralel not deeply but at a higher and broaden level.

2.
Problem regarding greek culture were based on the fact that Greeks where everywhere. A lot of Autonomous cities using same language, efficient commercial routes and all knowledge where shared (like art and culture as well). Technical knowledge were spread everywhere. Someone in Africa and another guy in Italy could say that they where "greek". Nacionality was a matter of culture and not borders. Everybody was part of a global culture or empire - And this key point blows the Idea about the paralel.

3.
Regarding Technical Knowledge, industrial achievments, standards regarding Fashion and style, USA had not so strong influence (France, Italy, Israel, German) share global position whithin almost equal parts and in this scenario, there are no paralel because it hasn't same influence.

As I said, sofism. Everything is a matter of perspective. Thanks to Plato and Aristoteles to that.


Fashion are deeply linked to whe french word Chic. Paris and Milan hold the status of fashion world. Underwear follows complete distinct patterns all around the wolrd.

Business are almost a standard in South, Central and North America and are quite different than what we have in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Language now represents a international standard for international business, but 30 years ago was french (almost 150 years) and before that was Portuguese (sec. XV) /Italian (sec.XII) /Spanish (sec. XVIII) Its too soon to tell as a standard.
Spanish is geografically bigger and perhaps have a match to Arabic (Middle East, North Africa and Smal portion of South Asia). In number of people, for sure, Chinese. Its to early to tell something about it. Dollar was once and now its Euro. it needs more time to define standard.

Iconograhpy as I said, is well spread all around Western world, but not so popular in Asia, Middle East, Africa. 9More than half world).
Exception to Elvis.... (brazilian soccer or Attila also are figures and perhaps does not represents culture...)
Typical American sports like Football are followed by really small portion of the world - there are not so big influence regarding sports as a culture and icons, despite gold medals.

Metric System and Soccer are standard in more than 80% of the world and it does not fit to USA standards.

Anyway, excelent question.

Answer 2

I do not agree much about a comparison between USA culture and Greek One. Greeks spread their culture and civilisation mostly with independent colonies, free cities spread into the Mediterranean coast who grew independently, , and often fighting one against the other, more than a military and economically ... There were many intellectual knots in Greece, spread from Homeland, Asia (Miletus) and south Italy (Syracuse , Kroton...) and even north Africa (Cyrene) , all growing independently one from the other. Then sea trade allowed the exchange of ideas... But was everything apart from uniformity. Also ; I am sorry to say, Greece excelled in fields many different from actual American culture: they needed to wait fro Alexander and the conquer of Egypt and Babylon for making real steps forward in Math, Astronomy and in general in scientific fields.. According to my opinion, a good comparison could be between Europe and Greece, and between USA and Rome.

Answer 3

The part about the obligation to vote is wrong, as is the part about the teachings. I have never heard of their teachings being spread.