The Western way of life (generally speaking) is the most dominant way of life at the moment. But is it therefore also the best way of life?
First I want to clear up some things.
Technological Advance is always a step forward (even though some side-effects might be negative), when considered only in the area of Technology its always an improvement, 1.5 is better than 1.0 (though users of microsoft may want to differ :P). Technological Advance is an upward or forward motion.
Cultural Advance however is much more complicated. I'd like to distinct two forms of Cultural Advance. Namely to refine on type of Culture and to replace one type of culture with another. Example: When you have a culture of bloodshed and someone invents a machine to make this bloodshed easier or better or whatever, this would be a Cultural Refinement (by Technological means). The culture of bloodshed has improved, the culture has made a step forward. I would like to call this Cultural Evolution or Growth.
Then there is the other form of Cultural advance, namely when the culture of bloodshed is replaced by a culture of peace. I will call this Cultural Revolution or Change. (This does not mean that every replacement of one dominant type of culture by another neccesarily happens over night)
Where Technological Advance is always a forward motion, Cultural advance is not. It is undirected motion, one can't tell where it leads to. Therefore one can't really say what Culture 1.0 is or what 1.5 is or what Culture 2.0 is or why or that one is better than the other. They are different yes, but its not a difference in quality.
Technological and Cultural Advances are linked closely together, one my support the other or help end the other. Certain Technological Advances stimulate Culture (book press) per example and some Cultural Advances limit Technological Advances (Christianity).
When one Culture is Technologically more advanced it doesn't mean that is Culturally more advanced. As a matter of fact, however there are different types of life and different cultures this does not mean that one is better than the other, even though one type might be dominant. Per example one might argue that the dominant culture in music nowadays is not the best one. Or that dominant culture of Reality TV is not really an improvement. You are free to believe whatever you want though but when you say that, this and this is better than that and that, it is a personal statement. You can listen to rock, your newbour can listen to rap and your parents can listen classical music, and yet you can all get along. That is what the Western Culture prides itself for. However Western way of life itself, the way it has presented itself at the moment, is incompatible with any other way of life (and now I'm talking about something that superceeds culture, its bigger than that).
To get back to the post of Husar.
Europe was technologically more advanced, no doubt about it (even though most of the basic technology was invented somewhere else in the world, they improved a lot of it). But this techological supremacy doesn't mean a cultural supremacy. In fact one could argue that culturally Europe was one of the most backward places in the world at the 15th century. Not in the way that all the other cultures were better but most of them were at the peak of their culture, some were even in decline already. While Europe was just in the infancy of it's new culture. The renaissance.It's pretty simple, had the Ottomans had machine guns in 16xx, they had probably conquered all of Europe, just like a bunch of Europeans conquered all of Africa using guns the Africans didn't have.
If that's not it then we're just Übermenschen I guess. But then it would be even less our fault, but people conquering others and imposing this or that on them is not exactly something Europeans invented, maybe we were just good at it and it drove us to invent new things all the time.
Had the Africans sunk our ships with their coastal guns, we wouldn't have conquered it, it wasn't our fault tat the natives were a bunch of primitive weaklings. That the strong beat the weak wasn't something we invented specifically to genocide them, it was something that was just a heck of a lot easier to do to them than to the heavily armed baron and his army who were your neighbour in
Europe. The Mongols and Huns didn't ask us whether we could counter their awesome weapons and tactics either.
It's right that we shouldn't discriminate against people if they want to become contributing members of our society but if I knew that Megas Methuselah was ultimately out to reclaim his rightful place under the sun I wouldn't hire him either because the last guy who said something like that was largely responsible for WW1. There, take that
(Something a bit off the record and directly aimed at Husar, you speak of it as if the genocide of millions of people was not a bad thing. It was the neccesary thing, no thats not what you say, it was the easiest thing. This is your oppinion and you are very well entitled to it, but it also means that when other people/culture try to gain the domininance and suicide bomb the shit out of your family it is not a bad thing. It is just a neccesary, nay, the easiest thing to do. You can't blame them for it, you can't be angry even, it is just the struggle of life then. I mighr have misinterpreted, if so, sorry.)
The problem in the end is this one, and it is a very serious one (This theory is not mine nor is it new, Heidegger also said something similar), the technological way of life (which is not neccesarily tied to western culture, but it originated there) is incompatible with any other way of life. This system that is now spreading across the world forces other ways of life and other cultures to adept or else perish. You have to join it or else you will be ignored or executed, but when you do something wrong according to its laws you will be punished nonetheless. Per example the aboriginal (australian one) way of life is very different than that of the dominant australian culture, it is not better or worse, just very different (a nature orientated vs technology orientated). However while the aboriginal way of life would have allowed the dominant culture to exist more or less in its original state, the other way around, the dominant technology based culture does not allow the aboriginal way of life perserve their ways more or less in its original state.
So the sophisticated openmindedness and sophisticated tolerance the West prides itself with do not apply on the metalevel. Where in the end it is just a monster that tries to swallow at much as it can before it will destroy itself... which is what we see happening now. The origin for this attitude I think can be found in the Thora, Bible and Koran.
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