Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis, Special Issue, 2014, p. 105-116 

 

 

THE EAST AND THE WEST: FROM HOLISM TO DIALOGUE 

THROUGH CONFRONTATION 

 

 

Rustem Ravilevich MUHAMETZYANOV



 

 

 

It could be said that of all the bipolarities defining the general trends of 

cultural development in the modern world, the one of greatest significance 

refers to the “East-West” divide. 

The multiplicity of cultural worlds that represents humanity tends to 

be recast into the meta-cultural East-West dichotomy. According to the 

particular situation, this dichotomy may show itself through the interaction-

opposition or interaction-dialogue between cultures, with nature of the 

interaction dependent upon the specific conditions of the contact between 

these cultures, their knowledge and abilities, and their understanding of each 

other. 

It is well known that this kind of bipolarity has been a source of 

destructive historical events (such as in the Balkans in Europe, the 

Hindustan Peninsula, the Maghreb countries, etc.). However, history also 

offers some examples which prove the existence of the possibility of 

dialogic confrontation resolution (for example, the synthesis from which 

Moorish culture

1

 was formed when Spain was conquered by the Arabs or 

the Métis in the Americas). 

Thus, the measure of constructive contact between the East and the 

West depends on the extent of mutual understanding of Western and 

Eastern cultures as they come into contact with each other. Particular and 

specific features in the images of the East and the West should not negate 

things which are universal and general, that are inherent to humanity as a 

race. Detection of universal origins in Western and Eastern cultural 

traditions, as well as the comparative analysis of specific features in the 

                                                 



 Kazan Federal University, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; e-mail: 

[e-mail]. 

1

 Moorish culture, Moorish art, Moorish style: this is the name given to the medieval art 

that developed in the 11

th

-15

th

 centuries in North Africa and southern Spain. Moorish art 

evolved through the merger of the artistic traditions of the Arab Caliphate, the Berbers, 

and the Visigoths. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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R. R. Muhametzyanov 

 

106

subsequent development of these cultures, is one of the most important 

tasks of the modern Humanities.

2

 

Nevertheless, academics are not enthusiastic about the comparative 

analysis of modern Eastern and Western civilisations, and there are solid 

reasons for this. For a long period of time, under the influence of the 

political situation, cultural theorists contented themselves with superficial, 

simplistic oppositions between the “progressive,” “materialistic,” “active” 

West and the “retarded,” “passive,” “mystically oriented” East. 

The main mistake of the comparative culturology of the past lies in an 

effort to seek some social, psychological or intellectual substratum of the 

culture and to use this to fix the specific content and features of a “national 

character.” Any metaphysical discussion of the “national” soul represents 

the same kind of myth as an image of a “good” or “evil” savage. This myth 

is inevitable, even useful sometimes as a dialectical moment of public self-

knowledge. But the “myth of the image” should be followed by “logos of 

knowledge.” 

Is it possible to trace some of the dialogical stages in the development 

of Eastern and Western civilisations (paying attention to their genesis, their 

parallel and crossover coexistence, and the facts regarding the diffusion of 

Eastern ideas being ab initio in the West and Western technologies in the 

East)? 

The most important period in the joint history of the West and the 

East begins in the 4

th

-2

nd

 millennia BC, when the first large-scale societies 

appeared in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, and in the river basins of the 

Indus, the Ganges and the Hwang Ho. Each of these four centres became a 

base for further dissemination of their influence on adjacent lands, and as 

populations and specific features of their culture spread, they gradually 

created zones with a unique interior habitat. But while cultural centres were 

shifting in the Mediterranean, in the Indian and Far East regions,

3

 according 

to A. M. Karapetyants, the “cultural centre did not shift, it was expanding 

and absorbing the periphery.”

4

 This meant that in the latter region a single 

cultural space appeared, while in the former region the displacement of the 

centre from one geographical location to another led to the creation of the 

ideal conditions for cultural and historical dialogue. 

It could be said that the appearance of ancient Greece on the world 

stage represents the next important period in history. Ancient Greece (along 

with Rome) represents a historical foundation, a kind of alma mater for 

                                                 

2

 Reese, Rosenfeld 2012, p. 3-21. 

3

 Far East: a region that includes the Northeast, East, and Southeast Asia. Integral part of 

the geopolitical concept of the “Asia-Pacific region.” 

4

 Karapetyants 2000, p. 133-134. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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