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> 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,

> 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.

boxed 2y ago
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.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  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.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    if the people in the place being annexed don't want to be part of the freest country in the world, who are we to say they're wrong
  - sublinear 2y ago
    > 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.
    - boxed 2y ago
      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.
  - thrance 2y ago
    I think you'd gain a lot by reading the wikipedia article on American imperialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism There are dozens of illiberal dictators installed by/allied to the US to gain access to natural resources and cheap labor: https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/dictatrs.htm https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/dictatrs.htm Frankly, I'm a little disturbed by your comment.
    - boxed 2y ago
      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.
      - spencerflem 2y ago
        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
        boxed 2y ago
        > 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.
      - thrance 2y ago
- thrance 2y ago
  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.
  - mint2 2y ago
    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!
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      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.
      - mint2 2y ago
        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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- EA-3167 2y ago
  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.
linguae 2y ago
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."
- mostlysimilar 2y ago
  "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.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
avmich 2y ago
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.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >there's no (enough) liberty in China Coming from the county with the highest incarceration rate, that's rich.
  - avmich 2y ago
    No principal disagreement, I see.
  - nyokodo 2y ago
    > 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.

boxed 2y ago

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.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago
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.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  if the people in the place being annexed don't want to be part of the freest country in the world, who are we to say they're wrong
- sublinear 2y ago
  > 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.
  - boxed 2y ago
    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.
- thrance 2y ago
  I think you'd gain a lot by reading the wikipedia article on American imperialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism There are dozens of illiberal dictators installed by/allied to the US to gain access to natural resources and cheap labor: https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/dictatrs.htm https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/dictatrs.htm Frankly, I'm a little disturbed by your comment.
  - boxed 2y ago
    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.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      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
      - boxed 2y ago
        > 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.
    - thrance 2y ago
thrance 2y ago
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.
- mint2 2y ago
  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!
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    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.
    - mint2 2y ago
      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.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
EA-3167 2y ago
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.

linguae 2y ago

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."

mostlysimilar 2y ago
"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.
- spencerflem 2y ago

avmich 2y ago

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.

Rinzler89 2y ago
>there's no (enough) liberty in China Coming from the county with the highest incarceration rate, that's rich.
- avmich 2y ago
  No principal disagreement, I see.
- nyokodo 2y ago
  > 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.