Is it wrong to hate Westerners?

[Anonymous]

I have little respect for Westerners considering how they always like to boast having the moral high ground yet are riddled with a shit ton of societal problems while projecting a lot of their own problems onto any Non-Western country they deem "uncivilized" just because they disagree with their way of life.

Yes

No

Depends

Others

[nightdrot]

Well, if your measure is perfect virtue, then to hate anyone is imperfect. You therefore end up in an intellectual and moral hall of mirrors and are guilty of the hypocrisy of which you accuse the West. If hating is inherently wrong, then the motive for hating is not relevant.

Please note, by the way, that the concept of perfect forgiveness and total love - at least as it has come to be understood historically - is rooted in Judeo-Christian ideas which were adopted in "the West." Thus if the West is to be hated because it does not always live up to its ideals, then you are free to hate and you end up in a world not much different than the one that you presumably object to.

In any case, it is bayonetting a straw man. What society does not fall short of its' ideals? Where is this perfect man who produces this perfect society that in evry way meets its' ideals? It would be a fascinating place to see.

Moreover, what are your alternatives? The Communists, the National Socialists, the Fascists, the Islamists, the Chinese - each offered or offers their alternative to the Western vision. What is your perference? Which offers the vision you prefer to the Western vision.

Alternatively, if you as an individual - and one who hates I might add - has a Utopian vision to offer the world, what is stopping you. Other than, of course, that it easy to draw a picture of perfection. Somewhat more difficult to get people to agree to it and live by it perfectly.

My hunch is, though, that you would end up, as Burke put it, ". . . you would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and to recognize the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all conditions; in which consists the true moral equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it never can remove; and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in a humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy."

In any case, you bayonet a straw man in another sense. The West reached the apogee of its' self-confidence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when not even God could sink its' ships. It was not unearned. Western science dominated the globe, Western political influence ditto. Individuals like Ataturk - then in the Ottoman Empire and Sun Yet-sen in China believed that the only way for their societies to survive and prosper was to imitate the Western model - imperfections and all.

Then came World War I. As the author John Toland put it in his book on the battle of the Somme, "the boys went over the top and off a moral cliff." The West was shattered to believe that such an advanced civilization could fall into such mayhem and depravity.

Ever since then, with various ups and downs along the way, all human history may be read as an attempt by the West to right its' wrongs and better live by its standards, or to find an alternative better vision - see again, Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, pan-Islam and a thousand other variations on the theme. That, suffice to say, not having worked out too well either.

CONT.

[nightdrot]

This then raising two questions? Is it given to man to attain perfection? Marx thought it was. Hitler, in a different way, thought it was?

The second question then, walking in those footsteps, do you have a better alternative? Throwing in that since the end of the colonial era, the West remains intellectually pervasive but politically set the world free - how's the world doing? See also the Middle East. See also the Congo or the Central African Republic - both rated by the UN to be the worst place on Earth to be a child.

Long story short, you can object to the West and Westerners, but really this is only resentment and envy masquerading as self-righteousness. The irony being that you then merely repeat the sin you accuse others of committing. You then merely prove that your bill of indictment to the West is not just limited to the West.

As Burke put it, "Those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of those things. By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little."

[slatyb]

Westerners are just like everyone else but for a long time they had superior technology, enabling them to meet their desires by subjugating others. The Japanese did the same until their defeat in 1945. The Chinese have done the same in Tibet and Western China and now Outer Mongolia and Hong Kong. The Indian Hindus have been violently suppressing the Muslim minority since the partition. Asian Muslims have brutally suppressed religious dissent. Africans have been brutal to each other since they obtained modern weapons. It’s not a Western thing, it’s a human thing.

[Anonymous]

I'm a westerner from Canada, but I totally get what you're saying.
People aren't perfect here either.
Crazy things happen here and mostly in the states that make a person question our so called moral highground.

[cth96190]

Go ahead and hate us.
I probably saw plenty of your brothers \|/ during my time with the Australian Army.

[Fissonjess]

I tend to agree with you. I hate moralist governments that ignore their own problems. That is a majority of so called "Free" nations.

[Anonymous]

So long as you recognize that politicians are separate from average citizens. Most citizens do no such thing. They don't care at all or pay other countries a single thought.

[joeldalton]

[SuccessfulHornDog]

I agree that we don't have the moral high ground. We should not be interfering with other countries

[hknmhmn4]

Today’s Western society is corrupt and failed... I tend to agree with you

[Anonymous]

As if people don't also do the same to westerners?