CLASSICISM AND ORIENTALISM IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW GLOBALIZATION THEORIES

The intense and dichotomous relationship between Orientalism and Classicism that has been created over the last decades of the XX century, reaches new dimensions through the rapid scientific growth, the discoveries of new historical sources and artefacts, and, most importantly, through the paradigms change in many scientific disciplines. This development is also influenced by the rapid and multifaceted societal transformations in the intensively globalizing world of the new millennium. In this context, the paper explores the new understandings of these two important conceptions in the research of the past, and their redefined scope and relation in the light of the globalisation theories and through the paradigm of the ancient globalisation.


INTRODUCTION
The aspirations and different perspectives on self-awareness, as well as the process of selfdiscovering, have been related to significant aspects of religion and philosophy from antiquity to modernity, and have had great impact on the development of many historical and cultural processes during different periods and in diverse geographies.
In the domains of the intellectual and scientific, the objective analysis of oneself has been hailed for centuries as one of the most difficult, but also most virtuous task that one researcher can work on. In ancient times these kinds of analyses were connected with the great knowledge of the "wise", whereas the interest and the analyses of the questions related to "knowing oneself" have been attributed to important thinkers, such as Socrates on the western or Sun Tzu on the eastern corner of the Old world, since the IV century BC (Seigel 2005, 45-48).
In modernity, on the other hand, the analysis of "oneself" and the related questions touching upon various areas of scientific exploration, additionally burdened with the ideas of the Enlightenment for "the objective science" and "the progress and prosperity" (Trigger 2006, 101), have proven to be one of "the most confusing" and "most slippery" areas in scientific research (James 1890, 330) (Seigel 2005, 3). According to the famous French sociologist and philosopher Baudrillard "the modern" European elites, "didn't believe anymore in the world's illusions, but in its reality" (Thomas 2004, 361).
Precisely this "objective science" of the last two centuries, which is referred today by many as "the last and the worst of the illusions" (Thomas 2004, 361), has recognized its own self and its professional traditions in the identity of the "West" and the particular values developed in this "theoretically designed" or "imagined" geographical space in both antiquity and modernity.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
In reviewing the development and rethinking the paradigms of classical tradition and orientalism in scientific analyses, as well as their societal impacts, this paper opts for a more dynamic approach to the East-West dichotomies in both science and society. It suggests the models and theories of globalization as new tool of great importance for overcoming the academic misconceptions created by these artificial dichotomies and relates to an understanding of early development of the Old World through the lenses of the globalization avant la lettre.
Contemporary academic research has incrementally increased its attention over the need for In this context, the paper suggests that the new globalization theories articulating the relations in both modernity and antiquity through constant, or at least periodical, increase of connectivity of ideas, materials and communities, and deterritorialization and constant change of cultures, have sidelined the conceptions of classicism and orientalism, together with all other concepts of homogeneous blocks of "authentic" cultures, as well as the rigid understandings for their trans-historical frontal clashes or mixing and hybridizations.

METHODOLOGY
This paper utilized a longue durée approach that analyzes parallelly the development and transformations of the conceptions of orientalism and classicism, displacing them from their traditional dichotomous context. Instead, it is reanalyzing their relation in a complex matrix of their shared roots and structure, built upon the identity needs and societal transformations in both antiquity and modernity. in places the method of content analysis. The reason for adopting this method is mainly because the study is a The dominantly qualitative approach of this paper relies heavily on documentary evidence and secondary data sources, analyzing them mainly through a comparative research design.
It uses the method of content analysis, but also touches upon epistemology and the methodological approaches towards positivism and relativism. In addition, the paper utilizes elements of the discourse analysis method in relation to the ancient and modern identities of different "glocalized" cultural groups and entities, their mutual relationships and their relationships with identities and beliefs of the ancient and modern authors that illustrate or "reimagine" them.

CLASSICISM AND THE EUROCENTRIC WORLD
In the new ideologically framed, clearly defined and segmented concept for oneself and the world, of the XIX century, the science and scientific was "objectified", clearly separated from the areas of "the artistic" and "the religious" and cleansed from their "vague" influences. At the same time, this new "rational" tendency in Europe, has found its symbols and narratives in the antiquity, identifying itself as bearer of the "unique" traditions of Athens and Rome.
Thus, through these tendencies, and for the needs of the modern ideals, ideas and identities, the specific manifestations on European soil of the wider and complex ancient development of the Mediterranean and the Near East, were stripped of their context, and separated from global history, as idealized ancient Atlantis, that should the resurrected, or at least eternally commemorated by the modern West.
By the end of the XIX century, the new "scientific" findings have liberated the European elites of the "oriental illusion", which claimed that the classical world originated from the "primitive cultures" of Babylon and Egypt (Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2011).
The two social and cultural manifestations of the European coasts of the Mediterranean, have transformed for the needs of self-identification and legitimation of the western elites, into separate islands of the authentic European, western, rational, and "classical" heritage, whose value have exceeded to the point of incomparability with the one of the earlier or related cultures of the ancient world. In that sense, the "Classical epoch", has transformed into archetype of "the western world", and "a magical mirror" which speaks about its famous origin and past, as well as an ideal for the present and the future of the western man, society and world. The other "ancient" cultures, as well as the modern ethnological complexity of the world, considered as "inertial" and stagnant, "mystical" and irrational, have transformed into an object of "the healthy critical analysis" of the western man's skeptical mind, both in antiquity and modernity.
Moreover, this strong conceptual establishment influenced the classical world in a form of obsessive addiction in the modern Western societies with the classical archetypes and benchmarks, creating a real mimesis in the architecture and art, music and literature, law and philosophy, education and sport. Therefore, "the imagined", and often "fictional", classical culture has transformed into living heritage that has grown into the tying thread of "the western civilization" (Dyson 2006, 1-19), as well as an authentic signature of the "western administration" or domination over the rest of the world in the last few centuries (Grafton 2010, vii-ix).

ORIENTALISM -FROM REMNANT OF TRADITIONS TO CRITICAL REACTION
The "classicistic" view on the world that separated "the Western" and "the European" In the scope of the several-decade lasting focus on the "discourse" and "hegemony" of the western imperialism and colonialism over the research of the past, by various analyses and authors, known under the general term "post-colonial studies" and "post-colonial critique", one of the fundamental paradigms of the western perspective on world's history, the domination of "Greek-Roman culture" and "the classical world" over the rest of the cultures and civilizations was seriously questioned. In this context, the cultural manifestations in the "Classical world" that were not part of the strict social and cultural standards, thoroughly filtrated during the XIX century by the western elites and called "Greco-Roman culture", This intense dichotomous relationship between the Orientalism and the Classicism that has been created over the last decades of the XX century, reaches new dimensions through the rapid scientific growth in many areas, as well as the multilayer social transformations in the intense and globalizing world of the new millennium. The modern trends, achievements and changing paradigms in various social and humanistic disciplines, combined with social, economic, cultural and demographic changes in societies caused by strong globalization waves that are intensified over the past two decades, have created new perspective for consistency and identity transformations, entities, communities and institutions as part of the broader historical development (Briant 1982).
As a result of these new tendencies, fewer researchers look at the categories and concepts created by the classicists, orientalists, and even the post-colonial authors, as compact, selfsustaining and static entities through history. Instead, these and the wider processes in the past, as well as in the present, are being increasingly looked upon as multifaceted and connected influences and transformations, whose appearance and development is directly related to the wider context and their mutual interrelations. In that sense, the scientific interest in globalization processes and their use as methodological approach in analysing societies, phenomena and processes of the present, slowly, yet steadily, are being introduced into the scientific research of the past (Versluys 2014, 2-14).
Nowadays, researchers of the "early", "ancient", "the classical", "the oriental", "the barbaric" or "the medieval" cultures, often avoid the rigid modern constructs and artificially closed systems of typification and periodization, that were created for the needs of epistemological validation in modern science. Instead, the modern researchers see these entities and processes as open mosaics of diversity, constantly reorganized by the diverse interactions among "people, ideas and materials, connected in constant and fast-paced globalization process" (Tevdovski 2020).
Due to the dynamics of these processes, we need to question again the relation between classicism and orientalism, first for their changing relations, and second because of the possibility for new perspectives and understandings of the building process of each of these concepts individually, in relation with one another, and as a reaction of the other.
Sociologists, political scientists, and researchers in the area of cultural studies, already produced extensive material that describes the variety of layers in modern identities and misunderstandings, subjectivities or related methodological irregularities that have integrated in the modern scientific and social views of the classical past and the past of "the oriental cultures". Still, it is left to the classical scientists, historians, archeologists, and other researchers whose focus is this period and not modernity, to study the remains of the past that still exist under the layers of modern misunderstandings, delusions and implications. The renowned globally prominent American historian and president of the Medieval Academy of America, Patrick Geary, has concluded in this context that: "Modern history was born in the XIX century, conceived and developed as an instrument of European nationalism. As a tool of the nationalist ideology, the history of Europe's nations was a great success, but it has turned our understanding for the past into a toxic waste dump, filled with the poison of ethnic nationalism, and the poison has seeped deep into popular consciousness. Cleaning up this mess is the most daunting challenge for the historians today" (Geary 2002, 15).
The numerous scientific analyses based on or connected with the old scientific paradigms, that reflect the views and needs of the European elites in the XIX century and Westphalian multi-polar model of governing with the continent and the world, are today perceived as significant part of different scientific disciplines' professional history.
Yet, at the same time, they represent huge subjectivity burden whose overcoming is crucial requirement for all studies related to the classical, or any other epoch of the human past.
Despite these strong scientific traditions, the global and local developments of many epochs including the XIX century, still influential with its ideological recidivisms in contemporary science, are seen today through new conceptual tendencies and principles. They are defined as models which are methodologically advanced and more applicable in diverse historical and geographical contexts. Hingley illustrates this significant paradigm change, analysing that today "people in the Western world draw upon these ideas just as directly as their ancestors drew upon colonial concepts. This is why we cannot ignore globalisation…" (Hingley, 2015, 32). In the analyses and theories of numerous contemporary researchers, such as Frank, Gills, or Morris, the Near East, defining the "Orient" for centuries, is again perceives as central locus where the core of the ancient globalization process has been created. Its key importance for global development is well captured in Wilkinson's construct "central civilization". Many contemporary researchers agree that the interactions of the cultures of the two significant and big regions, Mesopotamia and Egypt dated back to the Bronze Age, and facilitated through the millennial imperial traditions of the wider region, was crucial for the creation of a consistent and big enough civilisational core. This would become the founding element of the globalization process, that dates from antiquity, and has continued with different range dynamics until today.
In that sense, these theories of the ancient globalization, or globalization avant la lettre, create new perception about the classical period and classical civilization and their relation the Orient and the Oriental. Within this new scientific perspective, the beginnings of the "classical world" are result of the approach of the globalization culture of the Near East towards the Aegean and the European soil. Thus, the birth of the "Classical civilisation" cannot be perceived anymore, as opposing forces to the "Orient". Just in contrary, in the period between neo-Assyrian and Persian imperialism, when the globalisation process resulted in the accumulation of ideas, knowledge and materials from India to Egypt, it also had a significant impact upon the intensive development of the communities in South Europe.
This "classical Greeks" can no longer be treated as forefathers of the unique western values, and "less-classical Macedonians", as forefathers of the Western imperialism and dominance over the world. The two nations, in the words of Strootman, can no longer be seen "as both Classicists and Orientalists have done… as proto-Europeans alien to the Near East". Instead, "Greeks and Macedonians (should be seen) as peoples integrated into a wider Mediterranean and Near Eastern "world system"" (Strootman 2013, 34). Moreover, the world of the Macedonian imperialism, that created the classical world, its main cores and much of its outreach, represents a continuation and extension of the process of the ancient globalisation and the millennial imperial model, both developed in the "oriental context" of the Near East.
Finally, the most western extension of the classical world and its cultural offerings, developed during the period of the Roman imperialism, is perceived, though these new understandings of the past, as just another phase of the globalisation avant la lettre. In this context, Rome and its "classical culture" spread throughout the European continent is not just continuation of the Macedonian and Persian, and thus Near Eastern cultural traditions, but also a shared heritage with the new "oriental" empires, such as the Parthians (Strootman 2013).
This new methodological approach towards the past through the globalization theories, many of the entities and identities, more or less subjectively recognized and defined by the ancient, medieval, or modern authors, are objectified in relation with the general globalization principles or in reaction to them, as well as to communities and elites, their symbols, traditions, narratives and aspirations. It also provides an entirely new approach to the concepts of the "classical" and the "oriental". It challenges and changes their traditional relation and dynamic, placing them into a fluid interrelation and further emphasising their outdated nature in the context of contemporary scientific inquires of the past.