What, all of it?
Such a vague and undefined concept as to be meaningless (and I’m skeptical that we all agree on it in any case – I’m not sure if I do, largely because I don’t know what it means).
Counterpoint: “western culture” has been subsumed and hollowed out by universal culture. It’s just not as immediately obvious because universal culture started in the west. What’s left of western culture (young earth creationism, for example) is largely an embarrassment.
Sorry, but no. 
But where do we find these actual conservative, liberal, and not-hard-line-aligned people who would quite possibly provide a different answer? I’ll suggest that those types of people might not feel comfortable posting on sites where rabid posts, and name-calling, are considered to be SOP. I’ll also suggest that those types of people might consider it a complete waste of their time attempting to debate/discuss/argue with the already fired up.
p.s. Just to be perfectly clear, I am not suggesting that the SDMB BBQ Pit, or SDMB, be changed in anyway. I am suggesting that those people may not have an outlet for their views, except at the ballot box. Which may begin to explain why so many recent elections did not turn out as anticipated.
Like how the Virginia elections turned out to be an overwhelming and surprising defeat for Republicans?
True, defined too broadly it’s meaningless, but I figured you’d all get my drift: rights of man, democracy, liberty, equality, that sort of thing. Although left and right disagree on some details, these are values we both share. In non-Western countries, these are not agreed upon and may not even be supported by the mainstream at all.
There are plenty of non-Western countries in which these are as agreed upon (or more) than some Western countries, or some parts of Western countries.
Sorry, can’t think of any.
Are you familiar with any?
Most of them, actually. So I’d be very interested in hearing about a non-Western country where there is broad agreement among the voters about democracy and human rights. Note I’m not talking about a currently functioning democracy alone. It has to be a democracy where there are not powerful elements longing for a return to the old ways.
The Right certainly doesn’t acknowledge the human rights that clash with their neofeudalist thinking - the right to employment with a living wage, right to health care, right to mobility, etc. Not acknowledging these rights also invalidates any claim to being for “liberty”, as one cannot exercise much liberty to live a fulfilling life (note there’s nothing about “doing whatever one wants and fellow citizens/nature be damned” here; that’s only “liberty” in the minds of the Randian deluded) if one is dead - say, from not having an operation that they couldn’t afford to pay for completely out of pocket and wasn’t available in the much-bandied-about emergency room.
And equality is also right out; the less fortunate, those who “lost” in a feudalist “society” based on competition [in which there’ll always be those who work hard and still lose; the nature of competitions] rather than actual cooperation [where everyone who contributes positively “wins”, period] are viewed as subhuman by righties.
And as for democracy, I, personally, am not a small-d democrat. Sorry, but someone who thinks that, say, the Earth is flat, and/or that there are people who don’t have rights/are “subhuman”, or other such mess, doesn’t need to be allowed within fifty feet of a voting booth.
So, no; I, where I sit on the left, am not about “the superiority of Western culture and philosophy”.
Holy shit, buy a lottery ticket, doorhinge made a legitimately good, insightful post that doesn’t make me want to slag him off. I’m impressed.
I’m no expert on eastern democracies, but intuitively I’d think South Korea and Japan come to mind. And Australia, but when people think “western countries” Australia is pretty much implied as an extension of the US/GB axis.
True, I have noticed a disturbing rise of authoritarian leftism but it’s still a pretty fringe group you’re a part of there.
Western countries are those that are Western in culture. There are non-Western democracies, but the cultural commitment is not there, and thus there are stability issues. South Korea is definitely not Western and also definitely not democratically stable. They’ve only fairly recently throw off military dictatorship and it wouldn’t take much to bring it back.
Japan is a stable non-Western democracy, but it’s hard to see that as anything but an exception given how their democracy was established, and the fact that there is no conceivable dictatorship that could take power there that nearby powers or the US would ever allow. Japan is a stable non-Western democracy, but at the point of a lot of very big guns. It would be nice if Japan stopped being a one party state, although recent years have shown encouraging progress on that count. Opposition parties are much more viable now than they used to be. Of course, Japan isn’t one party because they keep other parties down so much as the Japanese culture is still very much one of submission to authority and it takes a LOT for Japanese voters to oust a ruling party. And the first time they only did it because members of the ruling party formed a new party, so that made it okay.
:smack:
Well, there is this country where about 1/6 of humanity resides… Starts with an ‘I’, as I recall. Something, something “-ia”… “Igeria”? No, that’s not it…
:dubious:
Pretty sure they’re not “longing for a return to the old ways”, considering those ways involved being ruled by pasty-faced assholes who came from thousands of miles away to steal their treasures and starve their people.
I considered India until I realized that India is not exactly a shining beacon in the human rights or democracy areas. Rated only Partly Free by Freedom House:
Amnesty International has some complaints as well, although some of them apply to Western countries too:
India does have a democratic form of government, but only recently broke from one party rule and rule of law is still shaky there.
Yes, I realize India falls far short of Western notions of civilization, what with their lack of a martial, imperial tradition of oppressing and enslaving neighbors far and wide. Give me a fucking break.
Given the nature of the current US administration, concerns about “one party rule” and a “shakiness” of the rule of law are particularly rich. Again, give me a fucking break. If you want to define things so that the US and Europe are the bestest ever, fine, but don’t pretend you’re trying to be objective about the whole exercise.
Well, since we’re talking about what right and left in the US agree on, let me just make the point that no one on either left or right wants to reform anything in the US along Indian lines. As a matter of fact, I almost never hear a non-WEstern nation cited as an example of how we can do things better in ANY field. Lots of references to Canada, Sweden, Britain, and France, pretty much zero for India, Japan, or South Korea.
I would be hard pressed to think of an example of a lefty or righty saying that “they do X better in (insert non-Western country here).” They tend to only refer to other Western countries when criticizing the United States. There is literally no one on the left or right in the US that thinks we should do things like India. And India is pretty popular in the US, we’re allies in the war on terror and our Indian immigrant community is well regarded and prosperous. And I don’t even think they would support the US doing things in a more Indian way.
Unlike the USA, India has
- a true multi-party system with more than only two choices at the polls
- a nuclear-armed military that does not engage in wars of aggression or maintain military bases on every continent on Earth
- a continuing commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change
- a history of having a female as its chief executive
I’m pretty sure that I could find a good deal of popular support amongst Americans for some or all of these aspects of Indian governance.
Of course, India is a poor country that is still struggling to lift hundreds of millions out of grinding poverty. And there are many unsavory aspects of Indian society, most especially remnants of the caste system that continue to linger into the modern age. Nevertheless, India has only been running its own affairs for about 70 years now, whereas the US has been calling its own shots for 170 years longer than that. Plus, the US had the benefit of populating a largely depopulated continental land-mass in isolation from potential enemies.
So what’s the USA’s excuse for its present, and ever-worsening, state of dysfunction?