The West is the best

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The West is the best

We the West have dominated human life on this fair planet of ours for a few centuries now. Many resent our power and overwhelming presence. We are everywhere, from your taste in music, the shirts you wear to the way you measure distance. All modern governments, institutions, rules of law, assembly lines, food production, health care and media are based on Western examples and ideas. We have been to your country and either ruled it, exploited it, or inspired it. Many borders were set by us. Most territory was explored by us, both on the map, outside it, and in all areas of science. We made the world round. We connected everything to everyone.

The text above could have come from any fascist white European or American. The reader could get upset by many aspects of the text. The tone, the bragging, the self indulgence... or the fact that it is true. That stings the most. It attacks ones pride as a non Western person. A common defensive reaction would be to blame the West for all the evils in the world.

So, what is the deal with the West?

In this text i want to explore history and determine whether the West came to dominate this planet as a consequence of events, or whether there is something special about Europeans that no other race of people posses. This i feel would best quell the secret fears of inferiority some might have, and foster understanding in the people that hate the West. That is, if things actually are like we want them to be.

Let's start by asking the right questions.

What is the true history of the West?

Why are we so dominant?

Why did we succeed and others did not?

Are we dissimilar from other people?

Are white people better than other people?

Do you secretly want to be us?

Why do others resent us?

Is this justified?

Did we commit crimes against humanity?

Are we to blame for all the bad?

Did we benefit the world, or destroy it?

History

History. You know, the stuff that is in those textbooks you went through at school. Romans, renaissance, civil war. You were either fascinated or could not care less. I can tell you about the history of the West, or the entire world. I know quite a bit about it, and there is Wikipedia. However, i will not bother you with this. Instead i will just tell you how history worked.

Basically you have an Empire. It rises and dominates an area. During its life span it transfers knowledge by trade and conquest far beyond its borders. All Empires fall. Common cause are internal disputes and outside forces. Often though the following underlying process happens: people lose interest in building, and are only interested in taking. Decadence creeps in. The Empire becomes vulnerable to disease because there are too few white blood cells willing to defend it.

So it collapses. Big whoop. However, as one Empire falls, another rises. There are always groups of people that have reached bottom and start climbing up. Or that have never been civilized much and now see the light. Often the new Empire is build on the knowledge of an old neighbor. And so it goes on and on. Ever seen a 3d wave pattern analysis? It's like that. Peaks go up and down. Empires rise and fall, like the little peaks appearing and disappearing on the map. Knowledge gets transfered.

Knowledge is the only thing that does not fall, but only rises (the dark ages never were dark, if you still believe in this, ask any modern historian from Europe). First we learned how to make fire. Then how to farm. After this how to work with metal. Etc. We learned to build bigger and better machines. Siege engines, ships, carts, windmills. This knowledge is transfered from Empire to Empire, from nation to nation, from person to person. It reaches a peak in one society, then transfers to another, to reach a new peek even higher, never really going down but a temporary notch or two in the process. I will call it the knowledge train. Stopping here, then moving on to there. Adding wagons at each station.

At a certain time and place, people learned to make ocean going ships. The possibility to make the world truly global had arrived. This place of course was China. Only they missed the boat. After venturing out all the way to Africa, their society collapsed inward after the death of the last adventurous ruler. That is the disadvantage of being a monolithic centrally ruled society. Europe learned to build better boats soon after (although not based on Chinese design, but on a gradual European/Middle Eastern evolution of boat building knowledge). The knowledge train happened to stop in Europe by chance (previous station being the Middle East). At the time Europe was a whole bunch of separate kingdoms. These states had fought each other for centuries and now the possibility to conquer new lands occupied by less advanced people was very much appealing. Much less trouble. We were superior and now had to means to reach those who were inferior. So we did just that.

Europe made the world whole. Purely because the knowledge train happened to pull into our station, and the level of knowledge was that of ocean going ships and firearms. Of course it wasn't just firearms and ships, we had many knowledge train related advantages. A lot of which were cultural, learned over many centuries. Culture is also part of a type of knowledge train, however it's a very slow one compared to the science train most people wait for much more eagerly. Though it is at least as important. Nuclear bombs won't make Iran a viable modern society. See for yourself by watching Civilization: The West and the Rest, with Niall Ferguson (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/civilization-west-and-rest/killer-apps/).

This answers the question of why the West is so dominant today, and why others are not. We lucked out. We happened to receive the train at just the right time. Ocean going ship time. We are not dissimilar to other races and nations. Our knowledge is build on that of the Muslim world (the Ottomans and the Moors), who gained it from the Greeks and the Romans before them. It goes back via the Indians and the Chinese, the Egyptians and Babylonians all the way to Adam and Eve (though Eve was clearly the smart one). We are not superior by virtue of race. The Chinese had self help books in the 11th century AD. Go figure. Modern nonsense invented ages ago. So no, not a superior race. Just lucky.

Resentment

Throughout the ages, Empires have conquered and dominated. The Mongols conquered the whole of China. We never did. The Brits only extorted them for a bit. Big deal. Opium is good for the masses. These Mongols killed and murdered everyone that did not submit. The Brits themselves were conquered by the Romans. Some British tribes collaborated and got a sweet deal. Some tribes collaborated and were worked to death in mines. Some resisted and were carried off as slaves. The Zulu conquered and dominated many lesser tribes. The Ottomans conquered parts of Europe long before the French and Brits thought it would be a good idea to draw lines on the Mediterranean map. The Japanese in World War 2 were brutal, mostly to other Asian nations. They raped their way through Korea, and mass murdered the Chinese. They worked the white man to death on railroads, right up to the point that someone had the decency to drop a bomb on Hiroshima, saving the world and the Japanese people a lot of trouble. By the way, ff you think the generals and the politicians had an idea of what the bomb could do, they didn't. They had plans to drop them on beaches before sending in soldiers, to make the conquest of Japan easier.

So is there a reason to hate the West? No, not really.  Yet people still do. Here is why. Technology did not just help us conquer, it also worked against us. Modern equipment could register misery like nothing before it. Internet, photo's, video, film. In previous centuries, tales were told, and tapestries woven. Today you can see Iraqi civilians getting killed on CNN.

Another thing that works against the West is memory. We are the most current in a long line of Empires. People still remember our crimes, and since we are still in power at the moment, fault us for the new ones we commit (although the drones are a nice touch, always on time and never any cursing or name calling).

A third issue is scale. Europeans brought a lot of death and destruction to the people of this planet. We enslaved, we murdered, we oppressed. Why are we faulted more than others for this? If you look at the history of Empires closely, you will find a scale difference between Europe and the earlier Empires. We brought misery on an industrial scale to the world. And that is exactly why we are the same as any Empire that went before us. We brought misery with the technology available at the time. It just happened to be the age of the industrial revolution. So we brought misery on an industrial scale. Big ships carried many slaves, instead of a few. Railroads allowed us to conquer Africa in depth, instead of just a few miles of coast. Airplanes, ships and trucks allowed us to move settlers, soldiers and material everywhere fast in huge numbers.

All in all, people always act the same. They conquer and oppress, and are conquered and hate their oppressors. The reason the West is resented is a sum of many things. Chief among them: scale, documentation and memory. The Western peoples were the last ones to dominate and on the biggest scale to date. We had the technology to make the world small and shoot anyone that resisted. A lot of pictures were taken as proof. So it is only natural people hate the West. It is also hypocritical for those able to remember the past. It is ignorant for those that can't.

 

Effect

So what is the effect of this European domination? Anything good happen? Anything bad?

Yes dear Americans, even though you sell your fast food overseas these days, you are still a product of Europe. You are the best European country to date and thus part of our world domination.

Crimes against Humanity

OK now that we got American pride out of the way, let's continue. Crimes against humanity, always a cheerful topic. Mass murder in the Congo, the African slave trade, the virtual extinction of many indigenous American tribes, both south and north.. Of course we did commit crimes against humanity. However, so did any other Empire. Remember the Armenian holocaust? You won't if you are Turkish.

If you solely focus on the crimes however, you miss the most important European development. Ask yourself this question. Why is there such a thing as a crime against humanity? Well.. it's because the West invented the modern notion of humanity. We invented human rights. We made the rules for actual good behavior (which of course we did not follow all the time, but still). We were the first in modern history to be ashamed of ourselves and seek to do better. Unlike ISIS, which seeks to do much worse and proudly features it in the commercial. Perhaps this is a fourth factor for why we are hated. We admit our guilt and inform you about it.

All the bad

Are we to blame for everything? Well no. Now that you ask, no not really. We did bring the options of contributing to global warming to every nation. The means to destroy nature and deplete the land. To kill on a massive scale. But people themselves chose to use these means. Every Empire brought it's new ways to conquer nature and man to the peoples around it. We just happened to be the ones to bring industry. It could have been the Chinese, if they had paid more attention. And as for the Atom bomb, it kept us all nice and warm so far. Hunger and disease are not possible without greed everywhere, from multinational CEO to African tribal warlord. Poverty in India? The poor masses were plenty before, during and after the British occupation. The Brits to their credit managed to squeeze out just that little bit extra, which the kings and maharajahs never could.

We did draw lines on the map and hindered the natural development of countries in the Middle East and especially in Africa. However, what do the Chinese do to the Tibetans, or the Uyghurs? What did the Babylonians do to the Jews? The Persians to the tribes surrounding them? Everybody drew lines, everybody exploited neighbors and destroyed cultures. What is natural development anyway? The Romans did wipe out most of southern Europe's tribal culture.

We are not to blame for all the bad, just for a portion of it. That happens to be the largest portion, because it's an industrial sized portion.

Beneficial or destructive

Europe has made the world global. Someone had to do it. Someone would have eventually, if we had not. We brought technology to the masses of the planet, putting most on a more equal footing. We caused many problems, but none that others would not have caused. It is all human nature. The West was just on top at the right time, in the right place, and with the right attitude.

Furthermore, there was a big benefit to our internal structure. Instead of being a monolithic Empire that lasted for centuries, destroying nations and tribes, we were a collection of competing small nations. Though we did destroy a lot, it was never going to last. We could not sustain world dominance and internal strife for very long. A burden too big for small nations. Although most peoples on the planet did suffer our rule or exploitation, it was often relatively brief, considering the vast technological advantage we enjoyed. We had factories making ships, airplanes, tanks and machine guns. If the white man had decided to band together, our rule would still be absolute. We could even have wiped out all other races, if we had chose to do so around 1850. Instead we decided to be ashamed of ourselves. So in effect, we came, we exploited, we gave you our technology, and we left.

So has Europe been a beneficial or destructive influence on the world? Both, and neither. As said before, we lucked out. It could have been any group of people doing what we did. To put it more clearly once more, it would have been someone else if we had not. We brought a lot of benefits via knowledge and culture and a lot of destruction. The overall result is, well, just another natural step in human evolution.

Conclusion

All questions have now hopefully been answered to your satisfaction. The West is, currently, the best. Lucky us. Tomorrow it's the Chinese. Your hate of us is understandable, but faulty. We brought a lot of good and a lot of bad, like anyone would have in our stead. We humans are all the same. Nasty and noble. Oh yeah, and you do secretly want to be us. Everyone wants to be blond and rich, ask any teenage girl.

The end. Lesson over. Good bye.


Addendum: questions for the future

Now that the world is small, does the rise and fall of empires continu same as before?
Now that the economy is global, is there such a thing as modern slavery? Who gets exploited where and by whom?
Kings could be bad, good, or unremarkable. Now that virtually all countries are governed by groups of politicians, are we going to see less or more humanitarian governments? Who is actually in charge in this modern economy of ours?

(this text has been written using a very different format than before, especially when it came to tone. i wonder what the effect on the reader will be. are you more entertained by this, does it make reading easier, or do you prefer the impartial style i used before.)