> For all its innumerable faults, flaws, and outright human rights violations: the West of the latter 20th century seemed like a plausible v0.0.1 of some future, hypothetical, benevolent society.
A large digression, but I do wish we didn't need these silly ritual flagellations each time we mention that the West was actually pretty good. To call these things "human rights violations" implies that the West defied some accepted standard for how we treated people, but the West was always on the leading edge for human rights (slavery, colonialism, racism, etc were normal on virtually every continent until the West decided they were wrong). We often talk about the West as though it is some great failure because it didn't emerge from the mists of history fully-formed and prepared to adhere to our modern moral standards, ignoring the fact that our modern moral standards are precisely the product of millennia of Western progress.
I think you make a fair point and arguably better articulate something I was trying to say. People, institutions, and nations do in fact need to be viewed in the context of the relevant time period, applying present-day values to e.g. the Framers is a silly waste of time. They did what they did, hopefully it was their best, and there seems to be lasting value.
On the other hand while it is in fact unreasonable to expect a civilization to spring socially equitable from the forehead of Zeus, we should also continue to strive to be better.
To be perfectly clear, I wasn't rebutting you, but the bizarre anti-West kayfabe culture.
> On the other hand while it is in fact unreasonable to expect a civilization to spring socially equitable from the forehead of Zeus, we should also continue to strive to be better.
I don't think even the most zealous western chauvinist would disagree with this. :)
I agree with you except post-independence in the middle of the 19th and 20th century, the supposedly benevolent West hedged and continue to plunder and usurp Africa and Asia. Values based? Sure, see how rational it is, for you but not for us. We must agree upon universal declarations and you better listen up we know what we're doing.
I have no idea why you think these are `silly ritual flagellations`. Drop everything, the British left the Indian subcontinent in flames. Oh wait, this sounds a lot like Afghanistan. Down vote me for all I care, but if you've not experienced the horror of colonialism and the mess we have to pickup after and fix, with poverty, disease and f_cking IP (TB, Aids, Food Security), and fragile democracy setup to serve external masters, in the presence of evolved men, I respectfully ask you to be empathetic to a lot of voices that still can't be heard. You clearly don't seem to understand the utter s_it some of us and our parents have lived through.
Sure, the awesome Western cultural evolution is grand and something to wait for, who knows what form it will take.
Ok, let's drop all of history except the last 70 years. The zenith of evolution. A poor country had to give you, the West, the finger to save the less fortunate from Aids[1].
I respectfully ask you to continue to self-flagellate.
A large digression, but I do wish we didn't need these silly ritual flagellations each time we mention that the West was actually pretty good. To call these things "human rights violations" implies that the West defied some accepted standard for how we treated people, but the West was always on the leading edge for human rights (slavery, colonialism, racism, etc were normal on virtually every continent until the West decided they were wrong). We often talk about the West as though it is some great failure because it didn't emerge from the mists of history fully-formed and prepared to adhere to our modern moral standards, ignoring the fact that our modern moral standards are precisely the product of millennia of Western progress.