Becker judged Islamic society defective against a list of European institutional achievements.
Evidence
As Becker saw it, although Islam, like Christendom, was the heir of antiquity, it had failed to assimilate all to which it was potentially an heir. From a European point of view, Islamic society was defective, as it failed to develop or acquire autonomous urban institutions, an ecclesiastical organization, feudalism, humanism, citizenship, individualism and capitalism. The European point of view was the only point of view Becker believed he could take, as he thought that it was impossible to cross cultural frontiers and understand a culture from the inside. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 354
Categorization
- XREF: This laundry list of ‘missing’ European institutions is essentially the negative image of the Great Divergence debate — why Europe got feudalism, humanism, capitalism and Islam didn’t.
- SEED: An essay angle: how the list of things Islam ‘failed to develop’ functions as a covert definition of Europeanness itself — the deficits are just the checklist of European triumphalism.