Superior Values

[anthony]

Western Values Are Superior

By Walter Williams

Published July 26, 2017

 

Quote

Here's part of President Donald Trump's speech in Poland: "The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?"

After this speech, which was warmly received by Poles, the president encountered predictable criticism. Most of the criticism reflected gross ignorance and dishonesty.

One example of that ignorance was penned in the Atlantic magazine by Peter Beinart, a contributing editor and associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Beinart said, "Donald Trump referred 10 times to 'the West' and five times to 'our civilization.' His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means." He added, "The West is a racial and religious term. To be considered Western, a country must be largely Christian (preferably Protestant or Catholic) and largely white."

Intellectual elites argue that different cultures and their values are morally equivalent. That's ludicrous. Western culture and values are superior to all others. I have a few questions for those who'd claim that such a statement is untrue or smacks of racism and Eurocentrism.

Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent?

In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limitations placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education.

Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning.

Thieves face the punishment of having their hands severed.

Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in some countries.

Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western values?

During his speech, Trump asked several vital questions. "Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?" There's no question that the West has the military might to protect itself. The question is whether we have the intelligence to recognize the attack and the will to defend ourselves from annihilation.

Much of the Muslim world is at war with Western civilization. Islamists' use multiculturalism as a foot in the door to attack Western and Christian values from the inside. Much of that attack has its roots on college campuses among the intellectual elite who indoctrinate our youth. Multiculturalism has not yet done the damage in the U.S. that it has in Western European countries — such as England, France and Germany — but it's on its way.

My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell reveals some of the problem. He says, "Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the 'infidels' of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise."

Sowell adds, "Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world." Few people, such as Persians and Arabs, once at the top of civilization, accept their reversals of fortune gracefully. Moreover, they don't blame themselves and their culture. They blame the West.

By the way, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. One just has to accept the sanctity of the individual above all else.

 

Read more at http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams072617.php3#hRE14PiwGIvS1coq.99

[anthony]

A striking insight in there from Sowell too. "The people of the Islamic world" have indeed I believe, contrary to the outsider's view, long considered themselves and brainwashed their children of their superiority to infidels. The shock - psychological, even subconscious - of finding they aren't, and are now culturally (etc.) inferior, has plenty to do with what's happening in many places. The Ottomans defeated Empire probably started it - Arabs/Muslims couldn't even look and point to militaristic and cultural dominance over western nations any more. 

Walter Williams' last line has quite an Objectivist ring. As evident, one can be a westerner but have scornfully rejected his Western values. One may also live in deepest, darkest "Ahfricah" and be a Westerner by conviction.

[Wolf DeVoon]

12 hours ago, anthony said:

"The people of the Islamic world" have indeed I believe, contrary to the outsider's view, long considered themselves and brainwashed their children of their superiority to infidels. The shock - psychological, even subconscious - of finding they aren't, and are now culturally (etc.) inferior, has plenty to do with what's happening in many places. The Ottomans defeated Empire probably started it - Arabs/Muslims couldn't even look and point to militaristic and cultural dominance over western nations any more.

Anthony, that's quite brilliant, never heard it explained that way before. Excellent. Explains everything.

EDIT: with your permission I'd like to quote that elsewhere.

[anthony]

15 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Anthony, that's quite brilliant, never heard it explained that way before. Excellent. Explains everything.

EDIT: with your permission I'd like to quote that elsewhere.

Thanks, the credit goes to Sowell for cueing what I've been considering. He implies a pop-psych notion which used to be commonplace many years ago: the "superiority complex" - the "inferiority complex". As known, the two are a whisker apart in a person with little self-esteem. The new kid on the religious block comes in feeling inferior, talks himself up into grandiose superiority, then after much time and with very few accomplishments to show for, is reduced to feeling inferior again - and angry at everyone else for feeling that way. 

I think there often was and is imbued in their children a particular Arabic hubris and a long, vengeful memory, which preceded their religion. When I was younger, "Muslim" was rarely heard, even from Muslims . My mother who was born and lived in an Arab country, I don't believe ever used the word. One was either, say, Egyptian (or Iranian) - or, "Arab" (or "Persian"). Seldom "Muslim", the quite contemporary appellation. The handed down hubris of the race appears to have transferred and blended into the religion, with result that many Muslims feel they have to overcome other religions now, as a matter of "superiority" - and faith. (A "Manifest Destiny" of faith?)

[Peter]

Excellent posts. The sentence, "The Ottomans defeated Empire probably started it - Arabs/Muslims couldn't even look and point to militaristic and cultural dominance over western nations any more." is a bit awkward. I had to read it twice to get the meaning.

Peter