Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[SigniferOne]

Why it is hard to believe that some forms of "higher civilazation" (my quotes) simply originated in the West.

I have never said that the Greeks or Romans never took some elements of "Eastern" civilisation and elevated them higher. Of course they did. Just as the Assyrians adopted and elevated the civilisation bestowed upon them by the Babylonians who in turn adopted it from the Sumerians.
What I am championing is cultural continuity.

What if the Eastern civilizations took and elevated previous Eastern concepts while keeping them essentially the same -- the question of which type of government is proper etc; while the Greeks took and elevated previously Eastern concepts to something completely different? That in many ways they took the Eastern concepts and then completely broke with Eastern civilization in most things? On that basis you could say that a conceptually new entity had emerged. Nobody can deny that Greek government is fundamentally different from the East, although there isn't anybody who would deny that Eastern monarchs served as the first models for primordial Greek chiefs.