...comes from a French social theorist by the name of Jacques Ellul:
I am not criticizing or rejecting other civilization of societies... The thing that I am protesting against is the silly attitude of western intellectuals in hating our own world and then illogically exalting all other civilizations. Ask yourself this question: If the Chinese have done away with binding the feet of women, and if the Moroccans, Turks, and Algerians have begun to liberate their women, whence did the impulse to these moves come from? From the West and nowhere else! Who invented the “rights of man”?
The essential, central, undeniable fact is that the West was the first civilization in history to focus attention on the individual and freedom. The West, and the West alone, is responsible for the movement that has led to the desire for freedom. Today, men point the finger of outrage at slavery and torture. Where did that type of indignation originate? What civilization or culture cried out that slavery was unacceptable and torture scandalous? Not Islam, or Buddhism, or Confucius, or Zen, or the religious or moral codes of Africa and India. The West alone has defended the inalienable rights of the human person, the dignity of the individual. The West attempted to apply in a conscious, methodical way the implications of freedom.. The West discovered what no one else had discovered: freedom and the individual. I see no other satisfactory model that can replace what the west has produced.
Of course, it is important to note that these are merely a white, male, Euro-centric interpretation of things. The Western tradition is really a cloak of hypocrisy intended to conceal, rationalize, and legitimize the power, privileges, and preferences of white, male, European elites.
Carry on.
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Yet the west will think nothing of setting up a sweatshop in China.
You mean to say that the entirety of Western Civilization has collectively set up a shop in China?
Sweats, Sweats, get yer Sweats here.
What's so brilliant about your critique, anon, is that it uses distinctly western standards concerning fair employment practices and protection of workers rights as its measuring stick.
What, you mean Mao didn't afford collective farm workers a group insurance plan and that plan didn't go on to evolve over fifty years to become a sort of domestically grown equivalent?
Buy Uraguayan!
I was merely pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of the west. Clearly, the west has supported the most fundamental rights of man. However, it is an on going process. In many cases the rights of the individual are trampled on everyday by big business and governmental interests in the west.
So a sweatshop in China is an example of the "incredible hypocrisy of the west" ?
I'm glad to see we're lightyears above the rest of
the planet then.
Indeed, there are those with a perverted misunderstanding of what our rights are.
Numerous examples, from the actions of Planned Parenthood violating natural rights, to the Kelo descision violating private property rights for an expanded take on "eminent domain", our rights do get ignored or interpreted out of existence at times within the west. ( nevermind the Chomskyites who'd supercede the Constitution with international law )
This is entirely different, qualitatively, than to demand, or expect some perfection from westerners who are somehow percieved to have failed to uphold the principles inherent in our rights documents when doing business in areas where the choices are not all or none choices, but of increasing opportunity where stagnation is the norm.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
In other words.... if you live in Cambodia and scavenge for plastic bags and food scraps for pocket change, you'll likely line up to secure a job at a factory with better work conditions than the dumpster you're aquainted with.
If "the west" rids Cambodia, or China of sweatshops, mighn't that rid a sector of the population of those nations of a better alternative to how they currently exist?
Trade unions in South Africa say they don't want to be the "West's Sweat Shop" , but some South African firms outsource to Poland. Would Poland, by extension be "South Africa's Sweat Shop"?
Is one of the "fundamental rights of man" what is called a "living wage", by todays politicians and activists?
Ironically, it is the development and dissemination of western values and science that makes a common understanding of logical fallacies like hypocrisy possible for discussion on, say, this blog.
Clearly, the West does not simply “support” the rights of man. As if these things called rights are solely abstract from it, and as if these things called rights were apparent to all but observed in varying degrees of commitment over time. In truth, the West is the unique source and awareness of those rights –trampled or enforced.
With slavery, or economic exploitation, or in other areas we could smugly point out, the West has not been immune to the crimes that have disgraced humanity around the world for centuries. But what has been different about the West is the way it attempts to cope with these sins that have plagued mankind. Our first observation should always be that its recorded contribution to the human condition has far outshined any other attempts. Its positive deviation from the dreadful historical norm... that’s what’s incredible.
There’s a wealth of heinous crimes and atrocities committed by illiberal regimes around the world on a daily basis, regimes that somehow never get center stage judgments leveled at them the same way they are against the United States.
Why is that? Why the double standard?
I think it’s critical that we maintain a skeptical and diligent examination of our values, leaders, and policies. But Western and non-Western intellectuals alike who judge and condemn the West by standards of perfection (by which all things human must fail) and who do so when not using the same standard in comparing the achievements and shortcomings of alternative cultures and traditions are hypocritical.
And it is important to note again that these are merely a white, male, Euro-centric interpretation of things. The Western tradition is really a cloak of hypocrisy intended to conceal, rationalize, and legitimize the power, privileges, and preferences of white, male, European elites.
So your saying that the West is the best of the worst. I suppose ultimately that was my point as well.
Well, sorry it's so unworthy of you. Good luck with the alternates!
This is amusing:
http://www.zombietime.com/anti-sweatshop/
What kind of "reporting" gives itself a headline like " Bush's latest initiatives could be a hard sell"???
Is the media supposed to serve as the consumer reports of politics, or is it supposed to tell us what's going on in the world without offering up its own bias?
very useful read. I would love to follow you on twitter.
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