The West, Culture, Superiority and Supremacy
13th January 2005
In the past couple of days, I was engaged in what I was hoping to be a conversation between several people on whether or not certain aspects of Western culture makes it a morally superior culture or civilization to any other. According to Diplomad, his purportedly first-hand experiences of some representatives of people from one Asian culture, which is predominantly of one religious persuasion, and some representatives of some UN aid workers, coupled with his first hand observations of some American and Australian aid volunteers and workers helped him to reach the following conclusion:
Western culture, as represented by the United States, is morally superior because the West respond more readily and rally around more compassionately to suffering and those who suffer. He compares what he saw was gross dispassion among that culture compared to the genorisity of his countrymen. Finally he concludes that all these perhaps point to a conclusion that Western society (culture, or civilization) is morally superior.
Donald of One Hand Clapping picked up from there and suggested that there is no maybe about this. Some commenters responded by suggesting that the US in particular and the West in general had nothing to boast about morally since this is a society where there are injustices and moral decadence, both past and present. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Culture | 11 Comments »