Western tradition toppled the Kings. Re-established democracy for the first time in 2,000 years. Those were new and different ideas, as were the discovery of vaccinations, atoms, etc. Yes, it took awhile for the old guard to accept the new ideas, but contrast that with China, where written language was kept as a state secret for centuries. I believe the OP is asking if this makes us "the greatest."
I say no. We have had some great ideas and great achievements, but so have other cultures. One doesn't have to play King of the Hill; it's a big planet.
I dont understand how that was new or different or that they were the first to reestablished democracy? The got the idea of democracy from the Iroquois nation (already in practice) and the greeks. Western culture was also not the first to discover vaccines or discover the atom. Those discoveries were made long ago and many times before.
I got the feeling the OP wanted to establish that western culture was open to new ideas as a tradition when the facts are that its no more open to new ideas than other cultures.
No...they did not get the idea for democracy from the Iroquois...that is one of those stupid, left wing myths and lies........the Foumders were steeped in western history and philosophy.........and did not look to Stone Age primitives for the ideas for government.....
Except they admitted as much and passed a congressional resolution documenting that fact. Sorry.
It took 10 seconds or a little more....
Viral meme says Constitution 'owes its notion of democracy to the Iroquois'
The case against Iroquois influence
Despite this, many scholars have concluded that the evidence is short of convincing.
• The Iroquois government is in some ways radically different than the U.S. government.
For starters, the Iroquois’ federal system arguably bears more resemblance to the United Nations than the American federal system, focusing primarily on diplomacy.
The Iroquois council "was particularly concerned with matters of alliance, with the continuing firm alliance of the five member nations and alliances with other nations. It did not concern itself with the internal relations of the constituent nations," Tooker noted in a 1988 paper.
More important, the Iroquois system is based on hereditary positions and clan-based leadership -- elements that are entirely foreign to the United States’ system (and arguably seem more similar to the British system the colonists were trying to escape). The Iroquois League’s governmental power was vested in a council of 50 chiefs known as sachems. Each sachem had a title that was essentially hereditary, and each of these titles belonged to a particular clan within a particular tribe. (The meme does have a point about the role of women: The successor to a League chief was chosen by the "clan mother," the senior woman of the clan.)
The division of council seats was fixed, but without any relation to the member nation’s population size. Meanwhile, as the council’s "firekeepers," the Onondagas had the the responsibility of presenting the matter to be discussed, Tooker wrote. And the council acted based on consensus, rather than by majority rule, as became the system under the Constitution of 1787.
"There is little in this system of governance the Founding Fathers might have been expected to copy," Tooker wrote. "It is doubtful, for example, that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting during the legendary long, hot Philadelphia summer of 1787 would have proposed a system under which only their relatives could become members of Congress, and a system under which each legislator was chosen by a close female relative of the previous holder of the office. Nor does it seem likely -- even if John Adams had heeded his wife's admonition to ‘remember the ladies’ -- that if such a hereditary system had been adopted, the Constitutional Convention would have opted for matrilineal inheritance of office, which by its very nature excludes a son from succeeding to his father's position."
• Even if there was some Iroquois influence, it wasn’t the primary shaper of the Constitution. This is where the Facebook meme really overplays its hand. You don’t have to be a total denier of Iroquois influence to acknowledge that the meme goes too far when it says "the U.S. Constitution owes its notion of democracy to the Iroquois Tribes."
The traditionally cited sources of inspiration for the drafters, including ancient Greek and prior European thought, played a significant role -- almost certainly a decisive one.
"Even if the Iroquois Confederation was similar to the Constitution, which it was not, and even if some Americans admired aspects of Indian culture, that does not mean the Framers emulated Native American systems," said Stewart Jay, a University of Washington law professor and author of Mortal Words: A History of the U.S. Constitution: Volume 1, Origins to World War II.
Jay added that more broadly, the democratic nature of the U.S. Constitution was greatly refined and extended by the civil rights amendments adopted after the Civil War, which were hardly conceived with Iroquois principles in mind.
Gautham Rao, an American University historian and author of the forthcoming At The Water’s Edge: Commerce, Governance and the Origins of the American State, concurred. "It is a fairly important idea that a great many societies and networks influenced American constitutional thought, the Iroquois among them," Rao said. "But it is not true that the concept of ‘democracy’ embodied in the U.S. Constitution was directly suggested by the Iroquois."
I guess you should have taken more than 20 or 30 seconds.
The bad thing about the internet is that if you look for misinformation and ignorance, someone will be there to make you believe it. How did you let such an easily checked claim lead you to the misinformation? Thanks for being an excellent example of how searching for what you want to find instead of the facts can trip you up.
Great Law of Peace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Text of H.Con.Res. 331 (100th): A concurrent resolution to acknowledge the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations ... (Passed Congress/Enrolled Bill version) - GovTrack.us
"
Whereas the original framers of the Constitution, including, most
notably, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, are known
to have greatly admired the concepts of the Six Nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy;
Whereas the confederation of the original Thirteen Colonies into
one republic was influenced by the political system developed by
the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic prin-
ciples which were incorporated into the Constitution itself; and.
Whereas, since the formation of the United States, the Congress has
recognized the sovereign status of Indian tribes and has, through....."
