Sorry... you still don't get it...
You are spouting PC crap. The idea that all cultures are "equally" important, effective or valid is "feel good" multicultural malarky.
I get EVERYTHING YOU SAY, and I am not saying all cultures are equal. Quite frankly, each culture has its own issues.
Its not "modernization theory"... the Actions of GWB do not even factor into what I am talking about... they are as significant to cultural evolution as is a boil on your butt to genetic evolution.
Cultural evolution is simple scientific fact. ( and not in the "social darwinism, sense, either)
Yeah, this has never bothered me. Culture does change, and that whole concept is not exactly a grand revelation.
More people live longer healthier and happier lives today than ever before in human history. This is a fact.
No, only some people are living longer, healthier and happier lives today. Currently, of the 6 billion people in the world, nearly 3 billion live at a subsistence level, that means earn enough to eat with no discretionary expenditures (the same as Hunter Gatherers). About 1 billion people are very poor (not enough to eat, live on less than $1/day). There are a few “super-rich”, but most of us in the First World are happily middle class, that means subsistence with some discretionary expenditures.
Human society has evolved. We are not the Hunter gatherers we once were... nor are we the agriculturalists we were just 150 years ago...
150 years ago many people had never planted a crop in their entire lives. In my family, we were merchant traders, and I have friends whose families did manufacturing and others that did banking.
And the ONLY difference between US and the peasants of southeast asia from 200 years ago are the IDEAS in our heads.
How we were trained to see and think and react to the world.
Nothing earth shattering in this statement.
I am not saying that the civilization of the "west" is "better"...
I am saying that the current dominant CULTURE comprises the best, most effective and most useful ideas from ALL PREVIOUS CULTURES.
The civilization of the West is the one that has assimilated the ideas (from whatever sources) that work best in the world of today.
Most of the time west does not integrate the best of other cultures but the best technology of other peoples (ie manufacturing equipment, the compass, gun powder, the telescope, etc.), not culture things like matriarchy, arranged marriages, etc.
And by "work best" I mean they offer the individual the greatest power, influence, access to resources and security.
Western culture, today, has memes from the Indus civilization of India, as well as from the Mogul empire that pre-dated British colonialism.
The contact between India and Britain MIXED their memes just as if they had mated.
What survived was a british culture changed by Indian ideas... and an Indian Culture changed by british ideas.
The fact that modern India came more to resemble Western culture in certain aspects... (like governmentally) simply proves that free enterpirse and representational government ( british memes ) were MORE effective at providing for the Indian people than were their previous ideas.
There is not indication of that. India, prior to the British arrival, was made up of several small kingdoms with their own language, culture and form of government, and were doing quite well. There was absolutely not need for British presence.
Those previous ideas may have worked really well in a world without railroads and telephones... but the 'environment' has changed and their culture had to change to reflect that.
India has not "become british"... they have only adopted those ideas that seem to work BETTER.
While colonialism initially IMPOSED these ideas on them, as the Indian people have gradually come to embrace them, especially recently, India is really starting to take off.
The change in environment (ie telephones, railroads, etc.) was just as imposed as ideas, and their purpose was more to prevent competition than aid anyone.
Think of Gandhi. He is NOT Indian. His example was entirely the result of a Man raised indian, educated in Britain, who lived in a British colony in Africa.
His influence was the merging of the best of British memes with the best of Indian memes... more than any other individual... he embarrassed the british out of empire.
When I think of Gandhi, I think why did a man of Indian decent have to be educated in Britain and live in an African colony when there was a huge library of Indian literature and technology that would have been more than sufficient in educating him. (I actually have friends at Columbia and Berkeley that are doing translations of Indians works that coincide with much of western thinking but have never been translated into English).
Move beyond your parochial classifications of merit and worth...
You were using parochial classifications of merit and worth. I said no such thing.
. . . beyond your geo-political world view and into a far less nationalistic perspective on how culture works for the individual.
Yes, this is part of my position. I know that people in the Czech Republic speak German as their first language, there are minority languages in French and Spain that were actually just as important to the development of western culture, if not more, than French and Spanish, and the Arabic spoken in Egypt is not the same as spoken in other Arabic speaking nations.
Because that is the agent of selection for cultural evolution. Individuals within cultures change their cultures by changing their attitudes and ideas. One person changing one idea, one at a time.
And they select those ideas based upon what is working best in their interest.
No, only educated people do. Others typically conform to their culture or are ostracized.
Human history is a long chain of cultural changes... that change to reflect changing circumstances...
The ideas that really worked well for nomadic desert dwellers are not as effective for the rich world traders they have become...
The ideas that worked for an insular Asia will not serve best an Asia connected to every other nation.
Protected markets in South Korea facilitated by the US allowed it to become an economical model meant to embarrass their neighbors. Insular situation actually often help by allowing the development of infrastructure; the US would not have had a totally compatible telephone system that exists today if it weren't for US Congress sanctioning AT&T's pre-80s monopoly.
And the ideas that worked for a feudal Europe also fell by the wayside.
the American modification of what was a predominantly british culture was largely the result of colonial exposure to the democratic societies of native americans.
American Colonies were being exploited by the British the same as other colonies. However, colonist did not tolerate it because they were Britains own people, so instead of having their wealth drafted back to Britain, they cut off the shipment of raw materials from the North East Colonies to Britain, which had been grown in the Southern Colonies, and instead set up their own Textile Mills in the North East using technology that was smuggled from Britain.
And eventually... a thousand years from now, barring technological collapse, the entire interconnected earth will have only one planetwide human culture, regardless of what languages are spoken.
That culture will NOT be current western culture...
It will be the set of ideas that provide the best possible life for the most possible people given the conditions of the world at that time.
Sorry... but freedom IS a better idea for human beings than slavery or serfdom.
The social freedom to rise as your efforts merit IS better than the imposed hierarchy of caste, or class.
Every statistic on human health, happiness, longevity, productivity, and tolerance proves this to be true.
It does not matter where the ideas comes from...
As we have access to them, we will select the ones that make our lives better.
Are you freakin kidding me? What you are talking about is an open cultural economy, which rarely produces the "best" or even "better" of anything, but usually just what a people group is marginal willingness to pay for, that is what is cheap, easy and won't kill you fast enough to prevent you from having children.
