theevilsanta said:
Yeah, the middle east and Africa were the cradles of civilization. My point is that now, as in right now, they aren't that interesting anymore.
The middle east is the centre of two recent multi-national wars and is worryingly likely to be the focus for any future global conflict.
The religious and cultural clash between East and West is centred on the middle-east,
and there are a lot of co-belligerent nations in the area. It's not like war is inevitable, but I wouldn't say it was unimportant. Also : oil. Pretty important at the moment, hopefully less so as the years go by.
Africa (and other developing nations) are going to become more and more important as the world turns, too - you only need to look at India and China if you want to see what happens when developing nations hit their Industrial and Cultural revolutions in the modern world (the old European powers might be 200 years or so ahead, developmentally speaking, but they really can't compete economically with the powerhouse that is an emergent industrial nation - it'd be like the UK now trying to compete with Britain in the 18th century)
If we're talking about a World Capitol basing it on some historical significance (and nothing else) doesn't seem very important, to me anyway. NYC is a cultural landmark unmatched by any other city on earth.
Historical significance probably doesn't seem that important to you because you are (presumably) American. Or possibly just younger than me. Or both.
But I'm not going to change your mind here - either you think history is relevant or you don't.
The idea that NYC is an 'unmatched' cultural landmark is a tad naive. I'm not disputing the fact that it's a major city in the US and the world, and it has produced some notable achievers and achievements - but there are cities which are rather more famed for cultural significance (many of whom are historically relevant
and have continued to be so).
You're looking at a pretty huge list of cities, in fact.
Similarly from a multicultural perspective - NYC is the most ethnically diverse city
in the US. There are plenty of cities in the world which are famed for their multiculturalism.
New York is 'held back' to some degree by the fact that it's in America, and Americans (as I said above) have a tendency to segregate. So while you may have lots of different ethnic groups living in a city, they don't intermix (and certainly not to the same degree as in other countries). So, while NYC may
contain lots of ethnicities, it isn't multicultural to the same degree as somewhere like Toronto (for example).
(not that segretionism is a uniquely American problem; it's just that many Americans in particularly don't see it as an issue in the first place, which I think exacerbates the situation)
What other city is more important in the post 9/11 world (ie the attacks on the city itself).
It really is only Americans who think that Sept 11th was some kind of watershed moment for the
entire world - understable, because it was a watershed moment
for Americans.
Global terrorism didn't spring into being on that day. Religious terrorism didn't spring into being on that day. The political instability of the middle east didn't suddenly begin in order to affect the US.
The biggest change wrought by 9/11 was a reduction in how insular the US was. I'm not dismissing that, nor its impact on the US and the world - but it's a much bigger deal for Americans (for obvious reasons).
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Ultimately, New York epitomises a large city. It's a particularly impressive example of such, and definitely has some defining architecture and personality - but I don't think it has anything that elevates it beyond that, not if we're picking somewhere
especially significant to be a world capital.
There's not much about NYC that you don't also get in every other major city.
