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By Godstud
#14572283
I am discovering that Easern values are pretty damned good, but not so reliant on individualism over society.
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By quetzalcoatl
#14572288
QatzelOk wrote:Modern Western culture is based on looting and killing. For a few thousand years. That's all "the West" is. A military alliance with a death-wish and super-exaggerated sense of self importance.


It's not that I necessarily disagree, it's just that something in the way of perspective is lacking here, as always. What you describe is the way of the West, for sure, but it is also the way of the Mongols, the Ottomans, and just about everybody...including the Aztecs. I bring up the Aztecs, because they were some mighty severe badasses. The West was temporarily ascendant through various accidents of geography, history, and technology. This too shall pass, and some other bad guys will pick up the torch.
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By American Serf
#14572309
quetzalcoatl wrote:It's not that I necessarily disagree, it's just that something in the way of perspective is lacking here, as always. What you describe is the way of the West, for sure, but it is also the way of the Mongols, the Ottomans, and just about everybody...including the Aztecs. I bring up the Aztecs, because they were some mighty severe badasses. The West was temporarily ascendant through various accidents of geography, history, and technology. This too shall pass, and some other bad guys will pick up the torch.

That's right. Human animals are thugs by nature -- at least, the tendency is natural to us. Given an economic surplus, it seems thugs like us have a tendency toward imperialism. What's the point of celebrating your favorite imperialist bad guy? To focus on the most recent criminals is to miss the general tendency, and this can only hamper the search for a cure.
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By QatzelOk
#14573573
quetzalcoatl wrote:something in the way of perspective is lacking here, as always. What you describe is the way of the West, for sure, but it is also the way of the Mongols, the Ottomans, and just about everybody...including the Aztecs. I bring up the Aztecs, because they were some mighty severe badasses. The West was temporarily ascendant through various accidents of geography, history, and technology. This too shall pass, and some other bad guys will pick up the torch.


The perspective you're "adding" here is that all civilizations are dumb. Our only disagreement seems to be over our course of action. I say stop, and you say continue.
By yoyoman2
#14573578
We call it Western values because of the cold war.

a "War of ideologies", or economic systems if you will, and the US was the main exporter of eagles and FREEDOMMMMMM, unlike those "filthy communists".
Anyways, the USSR fell, but the idea that the "West won out" was pretty universal.

Because the world hasn't seen a communist society that is as rich in goods as the capitalist world which has all the personal freedoms, it was associated with the "good", and I tend to agree with that, as someone with parents from the fallen USSR, they hated thier lifestyles there, and now they are very appreciating of thier current capitalist society.
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By American Serf
#14573623
yoyoman2 wrote:We call it Western values because of the cold war.

a "War of ideologies", or economic systems if you will, and the US was the main exporter of eagles and FREEDOMMMMMM, unlike those "filthy communists".
Anyways, the USSR fell, but the idea that the "West won out" was pretty universal.

Because the world hasn't seen a communist society that is as rich in goods as the capitalist world which has all the personal freedoms, it was associated with the "good", and I tend to agree with that, as someone with parents from the fallen USSR, they hated thier lifestyles there, and now they are very appreciating of thier current capitalist society.

Arguably the world hasn't seen any truly communist society of significant scale -- just a bunch of totalitarian states masquerading as "dictatorships of the proletariat". It's not "Western values" or "Eastern values", but the facts of economic competition during the Cold War, that led to the collapse of the USSR. Of course, if they hadn't had to hold their empire of the proletariat together by force, the USSR wouldn't have had to waste so many resources on military spending.
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By QatzelOk
#14573844
American Serf wrote: Of course, if they hadn't had to hold their empire of the proletariat together by force, the USSR wouldn't have had to waste so many resources on military spending.

Consumer societies waste even more resources than the USSR ever did. By far.

And the reason Western elites in capitalist societies spend less on repression is because their propaganda is so much more effective in socially castrating their citizens.

That's why yoyoman's family is lovin' it.
By yiostheoy
#14693282
Political Interest wrote:Often Western values are defined as individualism, free market capitalism and liberal democracy.

Who defined these values as the "Western values"? Firstly, how is the West defined and secondly do these values represent all of the West or only a small section of it?

Many European societies were not democratic, did not respect the individual and had autocratic forms of governance. France before the revolution is one example. Even Germany did not have a necessarily liberal political tradition.

Only in the Anglosphere can it be said that individualism, free market capitalism and liberal democracy were the most important values.

Why do we call define Western values in such a narrow way?

Well you have set up your own straw man and then you have proceeded to beat him into the ground.

Let me go to bat for your straw man then.

J.M. Roberts the noted late British author in his book "History Of The World" credits the Protestant Reformation as spawning "western values" of (1) work ethic, (2) direct communion with God, (3) individual industry and productivity, etc.

Ok so now your straw man has some legs, at least.

Then from the evolution of the various war lords of history, absent a very brief lull among the democratic city-states of ancient Greece where democracy first flourished, there evolved warlord kings and emperors of Europe and Asia. Africa remained remote and isolated because of its vast deserts, jungles, and limited river systems. Meso-America remained in the stone age but for gold and silver.

The benevolence of the English and French crowns for its nobility gave rise to thinking men whose philosophies challenged the notion of the divine right of kings or even the rights to kings at all.

Emigration from the feudal structure of Europe led to the population of North America by Protestants seeking an escape from the economic and social slavery imposed by the royalty and their impious land hoarding nobility.

In America, inklings of freedom not experienced since the days of the ancient Greeks fostered there again.

Rebellion among first the American English and later the European French brought on liberty. The other nations eventually followed in suit, most notable Germany after the defeats of the Kaiser and the Fuhrer, Italy is still tenuous, and Spain has morphed into a democratic monarchy.

Asia today except in Japan and Korea where the USA has imposed democracy is still enslaved by communist tyranny. Asia is Eastern. It has Buddhism and Confucianism to thank.

Europe and America are Western. They have the Protestant Reformation to thank.

Now your straw man is cloaked in a suit of armor made of iron.

Care to attack him again?
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By American Serf
#14839170
QatzelOk wrote:Consumer societies waste even more resources than the USSR ever did. By far.

I agree that consumer society, or capitalism as we know it, is wasteful and inefficient. But I'm not sure about the comparison you've made here.

QatzelOk wrote:And the reason Western elites in capitalist societies spend less on repression is because their propaganda is so much more effective in socially castrating their citizens.

Again I'm not sure about your comparative claim. I wonder how you support these comparisons.

Of course I agree that propaganda and ideology in so-called Western democracies has been an important factor in social control. But we might argue that the waste of capitalist consumer economy functions to support that ideology, the mythology of democracy, liberty, and free markets, which wouldn't be so persuasive without all the bread and circuses.

In fact, from one point of view, not mine, this ideology-supporting function is a justification for the consumer economy that you and I find so wasteful by our standards.
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By QatzelOk
#14839211
American Serf wrote:But I'm not sure about the comparison you've made here.
...
Again I'm not sure about your comparative claim. I wonder how you support these comparisons.
...

Your original quote was regarding how much the USSR had to spend on militarism in order to keep its house of cards together. There couldn't be a better parallel with the USA.

Likewise, I would argue that all "Great" empires are the same and that the citizens of these empires are taught to conflate the glory of the empire (size, violence) with the insignificance of their boring roles within it. "I don't feel so bad voting for Trump or Hillary knowing that either one of these Goldman-Sach's drones could blow up the entire world in my name," says the trailer park inhabiting chicken de-boner.

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