Over time, global values are becoming more aligned, particularly around ideals like free thought, free speech, and the open exchange of ideas and goods. Yet, this trend towards universal values is clashing with certain cultures that feel threatened. These cultures respond to perceived existential threats by rallying around authoritarian leaders, implementing stricter regulations.
> Over time, global values are becoming more aligned, particularly around ideals like free thought, free speech, and the open exchange of ideas and goods. Yet, this trend towards universal values...
Kind of just sounds like a romanticized justification for modern western imperialism.
West has really not much of a choice here. The US Declaration of Independence states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
I understand it as the West believes it's the objective truth that the people want freedom among other things, and no references to the contrary are truthful. So when China says the West pushes their values down the throat, West shrugs and notes that 1) liberty is needed 2) there's no (enough) liberty in China - and that's enough to continue to push the values. Or, in other words - China, accept that the freedom is important, change the behavior accordingly - and West will stop insisting on deficiencies in this area.
So, ideas. They are hard to resist, other than by the other ideas. So far those other ideas are national traditions, which are doubtful on the surface, as it seems all nations reaching democracy mostly don't want to come back. Here the West receives the confirmation of its point of view, and the approach remains.
> Coming from the county with the highest incarceration rate, that's rich.
No it isn’t. The US has serious problems but if I had to choose between being in the most vulnerable group in the worst part of the USA or a Uyghur in Xinjiang I would choose the USA. What the CCP is doing in Xinjiang to the Uyghur people is genocide of the most evil degree and without equivocation.
I don't disagree at all, what the CCP is doing in Xinjiang is some of the most evil stuff as a direct action to a group of people.
What I'd like to bring into discussion is: in the USA there's a visible cohort of people being marginalised and sent into a life of despair because of policies, ideologies, cultural aspects that really shouldn't be happening in the richest country on Earth. Homelessness to the level some rich cities in the USA experience, coupled with drug addiction which is then treated as a criminal issue resulting often in imprisonment, further marginalising people into a spiral of despair.
Those are also evil actions, due to inaction, policy, cultural aspects, it's layered evil to not look so evil but not fixing some social issues that put people into misery and despair, letting them slowly die on their own because of an ideology where those are seen as being useless to society is also quite evil, in a very different way than the CCP, it's indirect, it's not the State directly harming those people but through inaction letting them to wilt and slowly die.
I'm not saying, at all, that those are equivalent, at the same time is befuddling that the wealthiest nation on Earth is, in its majority, ok with allowing it to happen to the unfortunate ones. It's a different kind of evil but evil nonetheless.
> in the USA there's a visible cohort of people being marginalised and sent into a life of despair
This is important but not in this context. When the global stakes are cultural oblivion, genocide, and the destruction of entire nations, focusing on American homelessness or incarceration is at best cultural narcissism but more often than not it’s also equivocation and sometimes even apologetics for genocidal regimes.
It's funny how some people scream "imperialism" against anything. Just because "the west" is the poster child for human rights, medicine, industrialization, etc, doesn't mean it's bad. This meme of "western == bad" has got people very confused.
America installed dictatorships in Cuba, Chile, Brazil and many others... People don't mindlessly scream against "the west" for no reason, and to many in the South, "the west" is the poster child of years of oppression and poverty as they saw their countries natural resources get exported and had to sell their labor for next to nothing, under the guise of a leader made very rich by "free" trade.
Note that I am not saying that Chinese or Soviet leadership would have been any better, but at least please acknowledge that it's not as simple as "us good, them bad", and that people denouncing imperialsim do not do it out of self-hate for the west or whatever.
It's a sad situation if those considerations would lead to conclusion that since everybody is not perfect, then all approaches are equally valid.
For example, references to historical events gradually lose sense, as in a distant past human behavior was different - i.e., Roman republic or China kingdoms were even ideologically very different from modern countries, or e.g. Denmark was very different from today's state. Times change in a sense that some people's values change, behaviors change and it makes less and less sense to construct intersocietal relationships on the events of the distant past. What's more justifiable is to consider the current state of affairs.
For example, in 2001 Russia was helping USA to put a pressure on Afghan bases of jihadists, and today such a behavior is probably impossible, given that Taliban is welcomed in the Kremlin - so it's reasonable for US to change the stance toward Russia in relation to this state.
As for e.g. South America, the Western approach gradually changed from "colonial" - where various resources were extracted and the society was pushed towards leaders convenient the West - towards "collaborational", where West has laws and habits regulating relations with foreign countries, which, for example, have penalties for bribes.
The society changed enough so that after the war started in Ukraine a lot of Western companies left Russia - just because the population in markets more important to those companies, and that population doesn't in general approve the Russian actions.
So, yes, the West isn't perfect, and efforts should continue to improve it. At the same time West provides a compelling demonstration of success in important areas of life, which could be useful to other countries.
The argument is that the west ought not to do colonialism or imperialism. This has nothing to do with other countries being better or relative correctness of values etc.
My point is the societies - and West in particular - become better with time and it's not very useful to remember past clashes to justify the avoidance of collaboration today.
It's actually every country, not only West, which ought not to do colonialism or imperialism. And West does a fair share of efforts here.
Yea totally, i agree for the most part. I don't really get how that take relates to the grandparent comment, which I didn't read as implying that the US is unique or that we should not oppose other countries colonialism.
It would also improve collaboration if we were to formally acknowledge and apologize for our past actions and maybe even try to make up for them. And while we do less of it now the US still does support have some colonialist tendencies that make us look less credible and huts both the people we're oppressing and our reputation elsewhere.
Yes, US has a lot of obvious things to do too right now. And it should be done, yes, while also paying full attention to quite large problems outside of US.
Like muscling around countries isn’t good, but like it seems rather a rather myopic reason to criticize the “west” given how it seems literally every country and culture of note does the same - Russia, China, Japan, India all do or recently did similar to varying degrees.
It’s kind of a pointless metric on that superficial level. Judging by the expected modern consequence of continued influence seem more usefulness rather than based on historical grudges.
Like wow out of the frying pan into the fire, way to go!
Yes, other large imperial countries are doing imperialism.
Nobody complaining about western imperialism supports those things either, and the focus is on western ones because they presumably live in a western country and have more influence there than elsewhere. Its also a fair critism that the west is more hypocritical given its big talk about freedoms and liberties just for it to install dictators whenever it's politically profitable.
I don’t think it’s possible to have a nuanced debate on this topic.
I’m just saying as someone against strong armed empire building, arguments that ignore the increasing imperialism of certain countries in order to decry the historical and waning imperialism of others feels not like an argument with imperialism but more like picking sides in a team sport.
as someone against imperialistic takeovers that does anger me.
Yeah totally, that viewpoint (the US/west is uniquely bad, we should not try to prevent imperialism elsewhere) is not one I've personally encountered much but if you have I can totally see why it would be super irritating.
It’s basically the general opinion I counter online.
it’s pretty much always focused on western imperialism in vague terms. Chinese and Russian are on an imperialistic rise of late, but those that decry western imperialism seem to ignore those. But yes there are posts that overly index on the Chinese or Russian imperialism as well.
conversely The ones that actually do decry Chinese or Russian imperialism usually give western actions more of a pass.
Sure there’s some exceptions, but the typical posts are always overly fixated on one flavor, and it really gives the impression that it’s not imperialism that’s being object to, but rather the team doing it.
What is rare is any post that seems to be honestly against all of that type of behavior, not tied to their team.
I think you're totally right in your parent comment that it's not possible to have nuanced debate on imperialism, at least online with strangers on a forum.
Because so much of what we're saying is relative to what seems like the status quo. I assume at least a good bit of the Anti-Western-Imperialism group see the status quo as being anti china and anti russia and see it as unfair that the US gets a pass. This seems (to me) like a fairly common take in democrat spaces, so hearing such a big deal (correctly imo) made out of Ukraine but then nothing about our own support of colonialism elsewhere is frustrating and seems like it needs the record corrected. This is the take I see the most, personally. Or maybe its equally common but I notice it more because the takes of 'America should stop doing colonialism' feel inoffensive and 'America is fine, focus on what Russia is doing' are more annoying to me personally, coming in with the assumption that we all already agree that Russia sucks so it feels like a distraction.
And I assume conservative spaces which I know less about take it for granted that the other side hates America and wants to hammer home that other countries suck as well. So I can imagine if that was your assumption then the other type of comment would be more annoying and stick out more.
Which seems to be the general way arguments with strangers all suck- nobody knows nearly enough of the context to actually figure out what anyone is trying to say with any nuance. Like, if I call radiohead overrated that means wildly different things based on how much you assume other people like radiohead etc.
Anyways, it's pretty rare for a comment to come out and say "I support imperialism" which shrimp_emoji was doing here and that's why I jumped in to comment, because what an awful take that is. Totally agreed that people supporting only one side as a 'team' thing is awful too. In this specific instance, I don't think that's what thrance was saying and tbh it was what I originally thought your first comment in the thread was going for, actually.
“Western” imperialism vs “american” imperialism even has a bit of a different ring to it. The former feels more like a nebulous boogeyman in group signal, the latter not so much.
That could just be my impression, but western imperialism so like Ireland? Iceland? Greece?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard “eastern imperialism” to talk about China or Russia.
I think you might be reading into into it too much, or else I'm not reading into it enough.
To me, "western" imperialism includes older stuff like the British and Spanish colonies etc. and is a nice one word phrase rather than listing each specific country. In modern times it is really mostly just America so that would be the better term for talking about it, you're right. I think me and maybe others tend to kinda lump all of the NATO countries together as one unit since usually there's not usually big disagreements and other countries do participate some, like the other NATO counties that sent troops for the Global War on Terror.
You're right, I haven't heard the term eastern imperialism, but I have heard the term "evil empire" to describe Russia specifically.
I want to reiterate that I believe that while there is certainly some, I find the group that is anti-US conquest and ambivalent to Russian conquest somewhat relevant and awful, and the group that is anti-US conquest and pro-Russia conquest tiny enough in America to be basically non-existent. The pro-US conquest group is big enough that there are still lots of people (in my experience) that support Kissenger, the global war on terror, etc. especially in government. I totally agree that this is not a productive debate angle though because I don't think either of us will be able to convince the other what the 'general opinion' is. And frankly I don't really care because we already agree on all the important parts
Just because others did it does not mean we're justified in us doing it. And I am obviously not supporting any other kind of imperialism.
Also I don't think colonialism/imperialism has ever lead to anything particularly good for the subjugated people. If anything, it's emancipation from the oppressor rather than its influence that allowed for better living condition for the common man.
Historical grudges can be justified in the sense that oftentimes the scars of exploitation may last for decades, and the west refusing to even acknowledge their wrong doing is damning for its image in the eyes of the South.
And British Imperialism stopped the Atlantic slave trade. You win some, you lose some. Looking at the ethnic cleansing of India very shortly after British rule ended, and the continued progress of the cleansing today plus the horrors of the caste system, it sounds more like "What did the Romans ever do for us?"...
Have you considered that maybe the instability in those regions is due to their prolonged subjugation? Maybe progress towards ending the caste system would have been faster had the British not brutalized the country.
On wikipedia:
> Although the varnas and jatis have pre-modern origins, the caste system as it exists today is the result of developments during the post-Mughal period and the British colonial period, which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.
> Have you considered that maybe the instability in those regions is due to their prolonged subjugation?
The central tenet of anti-imperialism is that everything good was despite imperialism, and all bad things because of it. This is a classic "heads I win, tails you lose" argument.
> which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.
Hmmm.. that article goes against everything I've read before. Yea, the British adapted to the caste system that was in place, but to blame it on the British rule seems very strange.
> Also I think you'll have to review your understanding of the history of slavery.
I was only talking about one specific thing, namely the destruction of the atlantic slave trade by the British Empire (at great cost to them btw). You just ignoring that and then hand waving isn't even close to an argument or even coherent.
> Your rationalization of imperialism is kind of weird.
I'm not rationalizing it. I'm saying the blanket "Imperialism is to blame for everything bad" is overly simplistic at best. The Monty Python sketch exemplified by "what did the romans ever do for us?" shows the madness quite clearly.
The Roman Empire was corrupt, stupid, and culturally imperialist. Sure. But the collapse brought the Dark Ages.
I think also that ethnic cleansings of nations is a bad thing. You might disagree. That's fine. But the ethnic cleansing of muslims from India into the division of India into (eventually) India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, that's a historical fact. As are the dark ages mentioned above.
We have to see the good of empires as well as the bad. Only by seeing clearly the problems and advantages can we make improvements to the world.
To me, the central tenet of anti-imperialism is more "it brings more harm than good", which is backed by the outcomes of many historical instances and I think is a pretty reasonable stance.
It should be possible to intervene to prevent genocides without then grabbing the region's natural resources and putting in place a despotic leadership.
Also, just on a side-note, if I'm not mistaken, Rome did not simply occupy conquered territories, it assimilated them and gave citizenship to the conquered people (those who were free at least). Imperialism is often described as beginning around the 18th century.
I would argue "imperialism == bad" is some novel confusion too.
I think American imperialism (were it an actual thing, like America annexing regions and making them into states) would be good. What's not to like about some corrupt autocracy somewhere becoming part of the freest and most prosperous country in the world?
On the other hand, imagine a free democracy getting annexed by a dictatorship. That imperialism would be bad to me.
To say imperialism itself is bad is some kind of anarchist delusion. If you don't assert yourself on the world, others will assert themselves onto you. This is has always been true.
The problem there was never imperialism per se. It was that evil was supported.
On the other hand, look at what happened to North Korea after the US abandoned it. Not a pretty picture. South Korea is the victim of US imperialism, while the North is not.
I don't think its at all clear that North Korea's problems are from a lack of imperialism.
"Almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed as a result.[369][370] The war's highest-ranking U.S. POW, Major General William F. Dean,[371] reported that the majority of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wasteland.[372][373] North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground, and air defenses were "non-existent".[374] North Korea ranks as among the most heavily bombed countries in history,[375] and the U.S. dropped a total of 635,000 tons of bombs (including 32,557 tons of napalm) on Korea, more than during the entire Pacific War."
I cannot imagine how a functional democracy was ever expected to emerge from this
> I don't think its at all clear that North Korea's problems are from a lack of imperialism.
It's certainly a result of communism/Juche, and the war saved half the country from it. South Koreas massive growth and success since then is easily seen from satellite images.
Couldn't Korea have benefited from not being split up? Not being invaded by Japan?
Wouldn't the North be in a better place if it hadn't been taken over by the Soviets? And bombed by the US to smithereens?
The first ruler of South Korea after the war, Syngman Rhee, was not known for his respect of democratic processes, and had the approval of the US. He maintained an authoritarian regime and didn't contribute much to the country's economic growth.
South Korea's economic success happened in spite of American imperialism, not because of it.
Imperialism as an ideology is evil, no matter who is the oppressor.
> If you don't assert yourself on the world, others will assert themselves onto you. This is has always been true.
I very much agree with this.
> What's not to like about some corrupt autocracy somewhere becoming part of the freest and most prosperous country in the world?
This not so much. The success of the United States has been, in part, due to avoiding overannexation. Culture and politics can change, but geography cannot. Mexico, for example, has terrible unproductive geography. Economics drives a lot of politics. Annexing countries like that would be a net burden. Their trafficking and other crime problems are not a matter of culture. The tail does not wag the dog. You can't politic the earth into submission but many will try.
It can be argued the United States already has this problem with some of its states, but their proximity and lack of natural borders requires them to be assimilated. Manifest destiny was a carefully considered thing and not as stupid and reckless as some people want you to believe.
Well.. maybe. The US would certainly have a MUCH smaller southern border to protect if Mexico was brought into the union! 40 years ago it didn't make sense, but today it might just.
It's just a cynical war on the language we use, to dilute the value of certain words and terms. If everything is imperialism, colonialism, genocide, etc... then nothing is. It's no shock when you find out which powers are invested in that project.
This dis-alignment of global values is happening within the West where the fortunes of world-class "winner" cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and the like have diverged from the fortunes of second- and third-tier cities and rural areas within the same countries. The past three or four decades of economic policy has benefitted the middle class and wealthy in many "winner" cities. If somebody bought a home roughly 20 years ago in a metro area with many high-paying job opportunities, that person is likely to have enjoyed massive gains in equity provided that person weathered the 2008 crash. Many people living in these areas also take advantage of a wide range of well-paying job opportunities. But what about the urban poor in these metro areas who can't get a high-paying job due to a lack of credentials? Closer to the point of the article, what about those living in areas far away from booming metro areas?
A significant cause of the rise of the populist right in the West (e.g., Donald Trump/MAGA in the United States, Brexit in Britain, various European right-wingers such as Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban) is the economic woes faced by people who have been left behind. Think of the hollowing out of industrial and rural America, for example, and how this has reduced economic opportunities for the people living in these areas. Unfortunately, these economic concerns have been eclipsed by "culture war" matters, with a strong belief that the values of prosperous urban areas in the West are at odds with the values of less-urban parts of the West. If urban areas are becoming more internationalist, then rural areas are becoming more nationalist. Some of these populist right-wingers have an authoritarian bent; to quote the OP, the rise of the populist right definitely consists of examples of "cultures respond[ing] to perceived existential threats by rallying around authoritarian leaders, implementing stricter regulations."
"Culture war" matters are pushed by the ultra-wealthy (and the politicians they own) in order to distract us all from our real enemy: the ultra-wealthy. If we're too busy arguing over trans kids or abortion or whatever we can't fix the fundamental problems that are letting these greedy people extract our wealth and take advantage of our labor.
I think that's part of it for sure, but another part is that 'culture war' stuff is Very Important for the people it affects and seems relatively winnable. Like, we got Gay Rights!!! That's maybe one of like 2-3 good things that's happened in the last 50 years.
> "Culture war" matters are pushed by the ultra-wealthy (and the politicians they own) in order to distract us all from our real enemy: the ultra-wealthy.
Even if that's the case, it's important to note: those matters are not manufactured by the ultra-wealthy.
> If we're too busy arguing over trans kids or abortion or whatever we can't fix the fundamental problems that are letting these greedy people extract our wealth and take advantage of our labor.
But personally, I think the "culture war" is mainly the result of the self-undermining tendencies of urban liberalism. It can't do anything about the ultra-wealthy because, while it can identify them as a problem, it simultaneously pushes dis-unifying cultural changes that prevent action on it.
And I'm not even sure how long it will keep identifying the ultra-wealthy as a problem, given how its losing the working classes (e.g. working class whites swung to Trump in 2016, and now working class minorities are starting to swing the same way).
> Unfortunately, these economic concerns have been eclipsed by "culture war" matters, with a strong belief that the values of prosperous urban areas in the West are at odds with the values of less-urban parts of the West. If urban areas are becoming more internationalist, then rural areas are becoming more nationalist.
I'm not sure you can say that nationalism isn't an economic concern. If the jobs went overseas, then nationalism (putting your own country first), or at least economic nationalism, makes perfect sense as a response.
When I said "nationalism," I was thinking in the context of the cultural aspects, such as immigration policy, assimilation vs. multiculturalism, how history is taught in public schools (especially when it comes to conflicts between different groups, whether internally or internationally), etc.
People interacting with the same systems we do tend to be more aligned, but as you’re calling out a large portion of the populations feel insecure and are lashing out - and going even harder in the other direction.
N=1, but as someone who used to think of himself as being quite progressive and would now see myself as being in the "insecure" population (just using your terminology) -
From my perspective it seems as if organised progressivism ends up "going too far", because once you've got the win, you either stop and lose your reason to exist, or invent another cause and go for that.
It's like a treadmill and most people I know hopped off at some point because it got a bit too..
crazy? unstable? I kind of want to be able to plan my life long term, not have the rules change every 5 years.
Yup, though same with conservatism - as the idealized past never really existed, and is more false nostalgia/taking past marketing as real.
It’s why these things go in cycles IMO - and also why older folks are almost always conservative.
They really do need to plan long term or they are deeply screwed (sometimes even then), and have seen enough back and forth they really don’t (or flat out can’t afford) a lot of change.
And have figured out how to adapt to whatever prior set of rules there was, roughly, or already died or became irrelevant.
I was recently hanging out in VRChat and it hit me that the people I was talking to were speaking back to me using an almost American accent despite being native nordic Europeans. Culture is homogonizing at an incredible pace.
I have a similar American accent despite being Malaysian. Missionary schools do a lot of good there but a side effect is the gradual phasing out of the local culture/language. The older folks (30+) tend to complain about the fact that “kids these days” don’t speak Chinese or Malay and don’t respect whatever semi-religious practices they carry out anymore. I do think making English a sort of universal language is pretty good though. Now that I’m in the UK, it’s extremely refreshing to be able to talk to anyone of any age and be able to communicate
What percent of the population do you think you would be running across in the particular VR chat area you were in, and how would those people have decided to be there?
It certainly is selection bias however if 20 years ago the native English speaking population was 0% now it's 20% (made up number). That's not nothing and will likely accelerate.
The US doesn’t either. Whatever federal privacy protections that exist in the US are the result of Supreme Court interpretation, the most famous of which (Roe v Wade) was just overturned (Dobbs).
>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
In addition to the 4th amendment, don't forget also the Privacy implications of the 1st amendment (free speech/establishment of religion are in part privacy concerns), 3rd amendment (it was a violation of privacy as much as home ownership), 5th amendment (avoidance of self-incrimination is a privacy issue), the 9th amendment (which tried to make sure that Congress and the Courts knew that the Bill of Rights wasn't the "Bill of All Rights", but the "Bill of Some Rights relevant to right this moment").
Half of the "Bill of Rights" amendments touch on Privacy in some way. Privacy can be construed as the main right defining the "Bill of Rights". I cannot understand the hypocrisy of the "originalists" (many of whom have been placed into Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, as a deliberate fraud against the voter majority under the "McConnell Plan") that believe the one single 2nd Amendment is a "right to unregulated gun ownership" when there's a "regulation clause" in the original language (!) but refuse to believe there is a "Right to Privacy" in the Bill of Rights when half of it seems so clearly about Privacy. It just doesn't use that word, perhaps because it seemed obvious at the time.
It’s true the 4th amendment protects against ‘unreasonable’ search from (only) state actors, and that this can be construed as a right to a specific, and, it turns out, a very conditional type of privacy. Other amendments, like the 1st and 5th, touch on other aspects of privacy as well.
However, specific acts not mentioned in the Constitution, like the use of contraceptives between married couples or same sex marriage, have also been ruled to be protected under rights to privacy inferred from the 14th amendment, and these rights are now in legal limbo after Dobbs.
It’s worth pointing out that the word ‘privacy’ never appears in the US Constitution, and there certainly is nothing resembling an explicit ‘Right to Privacy’ as I think was claimed by the original poster.
I'm not sure what your point here is, really. Do you interpret this to guarantee a right to privacy? Because if so, you should head to a law school and talk to the constitutional lawyers who have been arguing about this for ages.
Yeah, that paragraph isn't worth the paper its written on if congress and the courts conspire to ignore it. We de facto do not have privacy in the USA.
I've heard a few stories of African folks, in Africa, ask for their Miranda rights. Which literally is an American court case, and only works here. "Aren't you going to read me my rights?" "No, that's doesn't exist here!"
Europe has become pretty bad on free speech recently, and I don't think it can be explained that way. If anything, it gets justified by the fight against nationalism.
Globalization is a misnomer. There are no universal values. The west is trying to push its value system on others, through means fair or foul. It's the new colonialism. And other cultures "feel threatened" by these "perceived existential threats". How dare they resist our benevolence?
> Is there anyone, anywhere, who doesn't want to be able to say what they want, without fear?
Again, you're speaking for yourself. Many people care nothing for self-expression. But it's interesting to note how easily you universalize your personal preferences.
> In 1981, 39% of Australians said childhood obedience was important and 45% said divorce was justifiable. That same year, 32% and 10% of Pakistanis respectively agreed with those statements. In 2021, only 18% of Australians compared to 49% of Pakistanis said childhood obedience was important, while 74% of Australians and 15% of Pakistanis viewed divorce as justifiable.
I wish there was more raw data here. This is the only raw data provided and in it acceptance of divorce in Pakistan grew by 50%. It's still low at 15%, but the relative growth is significant! Given the article claims correlation with wealth growth, Pakistan probably isn't a great example, since their economy has been relatively flat.
Not saying the article is wrong, but I'd simply love to get more data to understand the magnitude.
Furthermore, I wonder what the views of childhood obedience are those people actively raising a child in each country. I would say "childhood obedience is not important" because I don't spend time near children.
While "children must be seen, not heard" of ye olde days is probably too strict for parents of today, I do think there is value in childhood obedience. Namely, it nurtures and grows discipline; and a lot of that simply can't be taught properly without starting from a very young age because that's when moral compasses are molded.
You're always going to be under someone in life and life is never going to go perfectly your way. What separates those who succeed from those who fail is whether you know how to handle it, which childhood obedience will teach you.
Just getting through the day-to-day with kids who aren’t at least some minimal amount of obedient would be a living hell.
We’re talking about tiny little people who are inclined to run in parking lots and cut up the curtains to make clothes. You really need them to at least not do that kind of stuff as much as they might like to.
In the olden days, you're not talking about a kid like that. You're talking about seven of them, often working with agricultural equipment. Odds that all seven survive to adulthood are low.
Now it's just zero to three, and they have playpens and Playstations, and a nearly 100% survival rate. Their only major threat is automobile accidents.
I don't know why we would expect parenting or childhood to remain the same along the demographic transition.
Automobile accidents. Household chemicals (too many household cleaners look too much like apple juice). Sticking things in electrical outlets. Listening to dares from other children.
Childhood is safer than it was, but it's not safe. And it's really hard to teach kids about every danger before they run into them.
I once screamed "stop" at my two-year-old daughter, when it was life or death. She stopped, without knowing why. Sometimes obedience really matters.
On the other hand... my kids were playing outside with a hose on a hot day. They came inside for something - and brought the running hose inside with them. That kind of thing can drive you crazy - but it wasn't obedience, because it never crossed my mind to tell them not to do that, because why would anybody do that? So you have to not call something "obedience" when it's just childishness. Worry about obedience on the things that matter.
Yup, and IMO the old school ‘seen and not heard’ was a direct response to that need - because with the number of kids involved in any relatively healthy relationship, anything else would result in the parents going insane and being unable to cope with the world. Which would screw everyone.
Even potentially making the kids orphans or the like.
Notably, birth control is very ‘new’ by societal standards, and could account for many of these changes as well, as a physically healthy heterosexual couple can actually have normal levels of sexual interaction without generating 15 kids.
If you look at per capita who is dominant but the West? AFAIK it's by far the most prosperous if we ignore tiny countries that are either tax havens or oil countries which has been the case for decades.
I skimmed over it quickly, and noticed that in every example I spotted, the difference had grown, but the direction of change on both sides had been the same. Some countries were moving faster than others, but they were going in the same direction.
So I kind of wonder whether the whole framing was mostly chosen for sexiness.
Was globalization supposed to "align the values?" I'm not sure this is really true. The closest argument I've heard in this regard is that globalization will generally make people more capitalistic, and more liberal. (in the "small l" sense) I'm not sure that's any reason to think that this would make people adopt the same values.
I also have ZERO reason to think that to the degree that things are splintering, globalism has anything to do with it. I'd lay that blame on social media. It's social media and the internet which present a different reality for me than for my next-door neighbor, and social which feeds me the most interesting (ie, extreme) views on just about any topic I could hope to research.
Globalization is at its root manufacturing resources in the place its most efficient/cheapest. I don’t know that it’s “supposed” to do anything else - maybe some of the foolish end of history thinkers thought that but I don’t see how that premise would lead to anything other than what it says on the tin
Globalization is just a step on the path of capitalizing and commodifying humanity. The wholesale subjugation of most people to toil m so the fruits of their labor can be accumulated by people whose only claim to these spoils is from circumstance, charitably speaking, is an indictment of the very people responsible for this status quo.
It was (I think it’s finally starting to wane now that reality is becoming impossible to ignore) regarded as nigh-fact by the neoliberal consensus that has driven Washington since the early ‘80s. Like they’d just dismiss anyone who questioned it as clearly an idiot.
even as of western Europe, the response to that list of four brands would be yes, no, yes, no. Apple doesnt have as big a hold here, and ford is much smaller of a car brand. CocaCola is big here.
No, globalization wasn't supposed to align social values, and the article itself clarifies this point. While some thought globalization might lead to a convergence of social values based on liberal ideals of personal rights and freedoms, this assumption was overly simplistic.
The idea that globalization would lead to a universal adoption of Western values seems almost laughable. It's as if they had never engaged with cultures like China, where Western ideals can feel as alien as their own do to us. Concepts like democracy, with its emphasis on individual choice, don't necessarily resonate in societies where centralized leadership is seen as more effective. Likewise, the Western emphasis on individualism contrasts with cultures that prioritize community and collective responsibility.
It's not that these values are inherently wrong; they're just different. There's no inherent reason for cultures to adopt Western values. If anything, the spread of Western ideals across the globe has often been the result of colonialism, where Western nations imposed their ideologies on other societies, claiming them to be superior.
The argument was that capitalistic success was thought to be linked to having an open democratic society, perhaps because of the great economic success West Germany and Japan had in the postwar decades after becoming democracies. But China and Russia have shown that you can have relative economic success without openness or democracy.
I feel as if people tend to forget that to some degree the way societies are organised, their morals etc, are basically an element of a wider competition.
Maybe a society with an 0.5 fertility rate but advanced manufacturing / military capability / whatever wins. Maybe a society with a fertility rate of 4 but that is otherwise quite backwards wins out. Maybe AGI kills us all and makes this irrelevant.
Unfortunately all the supposed great value of the West were bytrailed be govs (i.e. in EU).
Assange is still in jail for exposing Crimes, America gov is still fighting random wars around the globe, EU is dictating stupid rules to members countries bypassing parlaments (let's talks about cookies warnings on EU websites, or digital acts to censor socialnets, or evev not able to go to work without the nazipass a few years ago), Israel is free to bomb civilians protected by US, LGBTQ propaganda riched an imbarassig level on Walt Disney and netflix and now is getting the opposite reactions by people.
But feel free to tell yourself is a matter of money
Diverging to this madness seems the least.
*embarrassing, not “imbarassig” for future efforts.
My head has been buried in the sand for most of the whole Gaza thing, but it sure looks like a classic case of ‘person A punched person B in the face and did not expect that B would punch A, back.’
Sure there is a lot more to it than that, but what the fuck did people expect Israel to do?
> America gov is still fighting random wars around the globe
Give credit where it's due, last 3 presidents were consistently trying to reduce the number of foreign - non-USA - countries where American soldiers were operating. Amount of war operations is reduced significantly.
this is a good article with a bad headline. The headline is going to cause a big long thread here about "globalization == bad". The actual article though doesn't really point to globalization as a failure, only that there's a lot of other compounding factors, in particular continuing wealth inequality, environmental collapse, and the opposition of authoritarian nations like Iran, Russia and China, that are continuing to drive global polarization.
I've had this thought stuck in my head for the past 10 years that comes up a lot, I wonder if anyone has written on it or research it, but it's simple and goes something like: globalized industrial/economic integration came before strong tight cultural integration.
I think that is probably a true enough framing? I sometimes then try to think about what the world would be like if the reverse had happened, but it's quite a lot to think about, so I give up quickly.
Yup, that's the first big question, also I didn't mean to put an absolute on them, it was more the emphasis switched. Then I think the answer becomes: slowly. That's also why it's hard to think about, it's such a different reality, where would we be today technologically, and where would we be socially? Maybe it's a pointless thought experiment, but personally I find it somewhat interesting.
The question is: when did those Europeans cease to be Europeans and started to be Americans? Is there some overlap with the wiping out of the natives? Of course the distinction is insignificant when looked at from the natives' side, but there's a difference between European nations sending people to wipe out natives, and European people fleeing their countries to become Americans and en passant also wiping out natives. Or I didn't really understand your point.
To answer your question, I don’t think there’s a clear point where Europeans become Americans when they move and I don’t think it overlaps with repressions of natives. I think the people immigrating to the Americas all had many known and unknown reasons to move. While visiting the Ellis Island of Immigration in NYC, I read some of their records. You can tell from the recorded stories of immigrants.
As a European who immigrated to the US in my adult life, I think of it as mixing of dyes. You’re no longer completely European and not as American as the ones born here. There’s beauty and sadness in the process.
Also, my point was less about the missing natives and mourning them but about imagining what life would’ve looked like if the two cultures blended in a more peaceful way.
This [1] is related to my point about peaceful coexistence, puritans, native Americans, etc.
Globalization was never about values. It was always about capital being global and having access to workforces of multiple countries. It was about squeezing efficiency out of cheap workforces previously unavailable, while shifting all the unsavory stuff out of eyesight of your consumers and constituents.
To think that this would "align" the poor country workforce with the developed country consumerist demographic is such absolute nonsense.
It has everything to do with it. I'm in the Midwest. Know who buys into abortion bans, homophobia and the like around here? People who would have had a decent job 50 years ago before we shipped those off, but now get stuck in their small town 120 miles from the nearest city of note.
I grew up in Tennessee amongst many similar people, but they had those views before NAFTA and the shipping off of US manufacturing jobs. Those views are their traditional religious views which predate electricity, tbh.
> The world's peoples were particularly less likely to agree on the ethics of homosexuality, euthanasia, divorce, prostitution, and abortion. Residents of wealthy countries grew more comfortable with all those topics, while residents of poorer countries were less so. Why did the trend towards tolerance and self-expression stall in poorer nations?
Extreme bias on the part of the author. Also, the statement is objectively untrue. It appears that the author has opinions on hot-button issues, calls his opinions "tolerant," and proceeds to wonder why poor countries disagree with him.
>> Extreme bias on the part of the author. Also, the statement is objectively untrue. It appears that the author has opinions on hot-button issues, calls his opinions "tolerant," and proceeds to wonder why poor countries disagree with him.
I think the bias is equating "tolerant" with good and "intolerant" with bad, which I think you're doing too.
In my experience, that implicit bias is pretty common in the language of Americans, especially liberals, but even conservatives (who would understand being called "intolerant" is a reproach).
> What other people do with their bodies is not a hot-button issue. You either accept it and are tolerant, or you don’t and you are intolerant.
I don't think it's that simple. Are you "tolerant"? Are you tolerant of people shitting on the sidewalk? I doubt it, but it's still falls under the rubric of "something other people do with their bodies." In actual practice "being tolerant" is actually defined as subscribing to a very particular set of social positions. It's one of those language tricks liberals seem particularly prone to use for manipulation.
Perhaps you could then ahem enlighten American lawmakers who passed FOSTA/SESTA in the US, which effectively criminalizes prostitution and has lead to many sex workers losing their livelihoods.
A nice garden with a few weeds is still overall a nice garden. To point at those few weeds and equivocate it to the overgrown vacant lot is either naive, dishonest, or just plain unintelligent.
This ignores the fact that societal norms affect your ability to live your life.
As an extreme example, imagine trying to find a stable husband and raise a family in a world in which every other woman treated sex as being valueless and beautiful women wandered the streets naked and giving it up to passers by.
It might be intolerant to prefer a society that isn't like that, but that doesn't automatically make it bad.
edit: Most of the responses here are missing the point because they're trying to take a side (in a deliberately fake, over the top scenario) rather than engaging with the concept. The behaviour of other people affects you and it's perfectly normal both to want to surround yourself with others who share your values, and to exert pressure to push wider society in that direction.
Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the attempt of this post to draw empathy for women in a world where their utility as a sex object is diminished. How oh how will they ever find a partner without the primary source of their value???
> As an extreme example, imagine trying to find a stable husband and raise a family in a world in which every other woman treated sex as being valueless and beautiful women wandered the streets naked and giving it up to passers by.
Sounds easy enough as long as you consider men may have some motivation other than to have as much sex as possible.
And in this discussion thread nobody labeled either these positions good or bad. However, if one believes being intolerant is bad, yet stays in their position while trying to rationalize it away, that's called cognitive dissonance.
> The behaviour of other people affects you and it's perfectly normal both to want to surround yourself with others who share your values, and to exert pressure to push wider society in that direction.
In the same vein that it is perfectly rational for slave owners to push society to reject abolishing slavery.
But rational self interest is a poor proxy for goodness.
That woman isn't owed a world where puritanism isn't on a steady centuries-long decline. She's owed tolerance to live the way she wants, and she owes others tolerance to live the way they want. She can prefer whatever she wants.
The article assumes that wealth should correlate with an increase in, decidedly secular values (tolerance of homosexuality, divorce, abortion, freedom of expression, etc.)
In a vacuum this makes sense; poverty causes people to be very dependent on each other to share resources, and when any group of people depend on each other so much, they need a set of shared rules and norms to govern their interactions with each other. Rich people can live relatively more independent lives and so for them self-expression is obviously easy to endorse. Poorer people depend on each other and the better they fit in the more accessible to resources they have. They thus have no incentive to bring more non-conforming people into the fold to diminish their resource pool and erode their shared values which help them work together with the people they depend on.
But this strikes me as one of those things statistics and surveys cannot measure. I am from one of the "poorer" and "anti-Western" countries, and even as people have become wealthier there has been a staunch anti-Western sentiment. It feels to me, without much statistical proof to back it up, that two things occur:
1. There's lots of distrust for people who become wealthy and also are seen as selling out the shared morals and values of their people, in every country, Western or otherwise. You can see the anger hurled towards Hollywood celebrities by conservatives and conservative religious people in the US as an example. But a solid chunk of American rich people are conservative morally. They tend to keep their American values in tact and are relatively humble. Consider Bill Gates who wears a Casio watch, Zuckerberg who dresses in t shirts, Buffett who eats McDonald's every day, etc. These are very American traits every one. Alternatively, many of the elite in poorer countries are more American than they are from their own people. They retain very few cultural aspects of their own people. In essence, most of the elites of the third world are like Hollywood celebrities rather than down to Earth people who the masses can see themselves in. This isn't always true (Ambani is a notable exception), but it's often true.
2. As other countries have not yet totally bought into the Americanization of the world, they're aware of and wary of the pitfalls that come with it. The shift towards liberal values have come with great individual freedom and enormous strides in humane treatment of others, but they've also come with increasing isolation, the breakdown of families, shrinking and aging populations, and many other negatives. It wasn't clear to people before that conservative values might be the glue that keep large families and tight-knit societies together (it may not even be true, but the perception that it might be still grows). So I'd say the lag in those values spreading around the world has given people time to think about whether the tradeoff is worth it. Many still say yes, but larger and larger numbers of people are pushing back than before
> The shift towards liberal values have come with great individual freedom and enormous strides in humane treatment of others, but they've also come with increasing isolation, the breakdown of families, shrinking and aging populations, and many other negatives
While these things have converged in time, I don't see how the shift towards liberal values (i.e. kindness towards people different to oneself) has in any way caused the other societal issues you mention. Just as an example, doesn't homophobia contribute to "the breakdown of families"?
I do appreciate your very measured contribution to a thread that is otherwise leading to shallow inflammatory comments.
Sure I can expound on the idea. Thanks for not conflating me personally with these ideas, I just like to talk about them with others to help form my own opinions.
I mostly mean that when a society is very tolerant of wildly differing views and values (both conservative religious and secular types), then people congregate to their favored values and leave their families. In a way we create clusters of our own thinking. It's kind of like the forum-ization of our lives.
In a world where obedience to a larger set of shared values (even by those who disagree with them) is emphasized and important, you actually end up spending more time with people you don't agree with at the core. Familial bonds are stronger in such a world because familial bonds aren't based at all on shared values, so having an imposed shared value on the family keeps the differences in values from breaking it apart.
Hopefully this makes sense and doesn't sound like rambling.
I would compare it to the hippie counterculture of the 60s and 70s. It was a far bigger tent of differing people and values than any subculture you can find today. Back when tolerance was less, anyone who was different stuck together and there wasn't room for big disagreements and splintering, etc. (there eventually was and this is what killed that culture). I feel a similar thing is happening in our world. Tolerance of everything means, why spend your time and effort on pesky family members you disagree with at the core?
Again these are all unquantifiable and so they run the risk of being unprovable and wrong. But when the numbers can't tell you the story you have to fill it in somehow.
Liberal values need not be the only cause, increased individual freedom is also a factor. For example, it takes a lot of work and sacrifice to establish and preserve a good and happy relationship and family. Without the external pressure from society, many people are choosing not to bother with this difficulty and rather focus on their own lives and enjoyment.
Yes well… I can see where the confusion would arise if we believed keeping foreign policy unchanged and just calling it globalization would somehow align the values.
Frustratingly, the study focuses too heavily on GDP per capita and largely overlooks the devastating effects of nationalism and religion. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5