Why does the West spend its time denigrating itself?

[Julielamar2]

Many historians, politicians, journalists, in documentaries spend their time accusing Western countries of all the problems of the earth.

For them, Western civilization can only be summed up in slavery, colonization and imperialism. The West would never have brought anything good. The West to believe many of these people would be practically the "devil".


Of course it is important to take a critical look and yes unfortunately the West has been able to commit unspeakable acts. But it is also the case of other civilizations. But in all these criticisms one should not forget all the good things brought to the world by the West.

So I was wondering where this self-denigration was coming from

[nightdrot]

Well, it was not always thus that the West got into the habit of painting a "Kick me" sign on its own back. However, the irony is that it was always implicit in the intellectual heritage that the West inherited from its Enlightenment origins. It being a backlash from the supreme self-confidence with which the West began and came to dominate the world.

The argument of the Enlightenment, itself in one sense a reaction to some of the early assumptions of some strands of Medieval thinking, was that man is a basically rational and social being endowed with natural rights. That man could through abstract reason discern such natural rights, make law in conformance with such natural rights, and thus harmony and prosperity would follow.

The implicit, and to some degree unintentional, results of this line of thinking was that man and society are perfectible and that progress toward that perfection is inevitable. Not that there will not be bumps on the road along the way, but that over time, History - with a capital "H" - points toward progress and perfection.

Suffice to say, the West's enormous scientific, technological, political, and artistic accomplishments for the next 500 or so years seemed to confirm the assumption. The West had a stunning series of accomplishments, and built mighty empires that dominated the world and seemed to be charting the course toward progress.

Of course, this lent itself to hubris. Thus the famous line etched on the cruise ship Titanic - "Not even God can sink this ship." (So He sent an iceberg to do it for Him.) Even that did not shake the West's self-confidence.

The break point came with World War I. (July 28, 1914 - November 11, 1918.) For 4 1/2 years the world tore itself to pieces and no one could figure out why it was happening nor how to stop it. (See also my response to this question: What is your opinion about First World War? )

Suddenly all the assumptions of progress and perfectibility seemed shattered and the West has never recovered. Not that the West is still not dominant and has made - and is capable of making - enormous accomplishments across the whole sphere of human activity. Not least in the political sphere where the West remains the model of democracy and human rights.

Yet now it is judge through the prism not of Western accomplishment, but the inadequacies of the West. Such that as early as the 1930s many in the West questioned democracy itself. After all, how great was democracy if people were hungry and there was social disruption - and thus in extremis was born the "secular religions" of Communism, Fascism and National Socialism.

If before the West was at the height of its accomplishments and its arrogance, now it sees its accomplishments, however great, as profoundly flawed and as apt to cause as many problems as they solve. Thus the constant self-criticism and social discontent that tends to rise and fall but is in general the permeating ethos of the Western world.

In one sense, it is atonement for past sins, so to speak. The price of previous hubris. On the other hand, it is as profoundly extreme and wrong headed as the self-confidence that came before it. The difference being that, over the long haul, unless it is reversed, the self-denigration will ultimately destroy the West itself.

Both in terms of the West's rivalries with other civilizations - see China, see parts of the Muslim world, etc. - but in terms of itself. Thus the current social discontents that are causing such tumult across the Western world as those who live in the West question the very idea of their civilization.

Of course, this may just be an interval. Alternatively, it may be a terminal decline. Within the West there remains, particularly I am bound to say among conservatives, that while the Western presumptions of inevitable progress and perfectibility were too sanguine, that does not change the fact that the West has enormous accomplishments to its credit and that its fall would be far worse than its assumed sins could ever be.

[hellionthesagereborn]

People who don't have power who want it. The elites, the educated elites want power over all other people believing they deserve it, that they are smarter then every one else (this is why they are so authoritarian, you have to believe in your innate superiority to go around telling others how they can and cannot live their lives). So what they do is try and destroy the society believing that when it collapses that they will be the king of the rubble heap when in reality they are the useful idiots used by the filthy rich who just wish to accumulate more power and more wealth and are too cowardly to want a fair system that might dethrone them (this is why you will notice all of this denigration comes from the "educated" and the rich. The rich use the "educated"(ignorant people really) to push these agendas that then allow them to hijack the system and exploit it for their own gain.).

[Anonymous]

Those historians, politicians, journalists, have all been through the same path in universities/colleges you notice that this self-denigration has only reared its head in the last 25 years or so when Political Correctness cane into being in the late 1980s, it has progressed on from there to where we are now with Professors/Lecturers pushing The Intersectional/Identitarian narrative in those same universities/colleges which sees everything through a socialist/communist prism which automatically sees the Western Civilizations as the root of all evils in the world but when you point out that every socialist/communist regime has or is in the throw of collapse, their stock reply is 'That wasn't Real socialism/communism' but they can never tell you what 'Real socialism/communism' is because it always degrades to totalitarianism.

[rcljr]

It’s not normal Americans, it’s the douchebag leftists having false guilt over stuff they were never a part of. slavery, Native American atrocities, things our ancestors did long ago. It’s all virtue signaling bullshit while they massacre millions of babies every year through abortion.

[Vietnemin]

I think denigration of the self is one of the sly ways Western liberals use to escape true responsibility for crimes and privilege.

Also in response to Anon girl China is the best!

[Avicenna]

Seems like it's coming from what are known as globalists. The CCP is no doubt also involved.

[Feelicks]

Rome went through a similar period of insanity before collapsing. It just seems to be what happens in a dying empire.

[Bakcula]

You know who hates the US more than any other group of people it's American's them selves. The American people are taught to hate the USA.

[PurpleDrank69]

Because Jews want to destroy the west so they push propaganda in favour of degenerates.

[Anonymous]

Cultural marxism. This is by design. Gotta bring down the old before you can implement the new

[BeMuse]

You've been reading too much communism...

[EternallyCorrect]

We're in the Winter of Western civilisation.

[Anonymous]

Actually, China is much worse.

[TwinFace]

That what they do bestie

[fisksteven]

That's liberals trying to remake history.