Is Western Culture Better?

One of the great tenets of the political correctness movement is that culture is a moral equivalence. There can be no culture that is better than another, as to admit such would kill the equivalency that underpins the movement. So it drives the PC crowd nuts when they see an article like this one, which uses factual example to demonstrate that there are some serious, serious moral problems in some other cultures.

Western culture has its flaws, to be certain. But read about the 9 year old rape victim. Read about the 16 year old who is being pressured by her culture to engage in unwanted sexual behavior. Tell me, after reading those two stories, that there isn't a serious weakness in the particular culture. Tell me that Western Culture, which treats women with a respect unheard of in these cultures, is on an equivalent level.

It isn't. Western Culture is superior.

Culture is evolutionary. The good aspects survive and are built on. The poor parts are left to die away.

The evolution of culture is inevitable, but its speed can be affected by the value systems of the society. Western society is open to new ideas and new concepts. We have allowed the Darwinian cultural process to take place.

Iraq and Uganda, where these two stories originated, are both stuck with medieval value systems. As a result they are stuck with inferior cultural mores. They have slowed Darwin down, but eventually the evolutionary process will complete itself. The natural process cannot be stopped, only slowed.

The great fear of the mullahs of Iran, the clerics of Islam, the communists of China, and the warlords of Africa is that their people will learn of and embrace Western culture. Why are they so fearful? Because they know that our culture is superior. They understand that Western culture would destroy their hold on power. Our culture would liberate their people from their feudalism. They fear Western culture because they know that in the fight for the minds of their people, Mickey Mouse is worth one of their armies.

Blue jeans, Coca-Cola, and hip-hop - these are every bit as important weapons in the battle between East and West as all the Abrahms tanks, F-15 fighters, and aircraft carriers. In the military battles our friends and foes will change. But in the cultural battle it is between modernism, as exemplified by the West, and feudalism, as practiced in the East.

Feudalism drains a person of life and will. Modernism speaks to the soul. It allows for personal growth and fulfillment.

Western culture is distinct from Eastern culture. It is better, too.