Basically, this whole conversation came with an idea popping into my head. Leftists have to hear a lot about how they are the antithesis of "Western Civilization". However, we're just as valid as westerners as a lib or a CHUD. Why treat me like a foreigner in my own home country? Why do I even carry myself as a foreigner in my own country? That's because I don't think I hate western civilization.

I am simply against political forces that unjustly make others suffer for the benefit of a decadent, parasitical elite: whether it be rich people or a "desirable" ethnic/gender/etc in-group. This is neither unique to the west nor a core pillar of western civilization. However, I am accused of trying to "destroy western civilization" each time I say we should be nicer to black people or we should be more skeptical of oil companies. I don't think any of us get irrationally angry when we see the statue of David, or Ionic pillars. Plato's Republic doesn't have any passages on the importance of destroying the environment for the benefit of the wealthy, nor does it have any passage of relentlessly bullying people who have a different skin color or anyone who fucks in a way that makes the Christian God that no one is aware of yet when Plato's Republic was written upset.

However, this shows how successful the capitalists infestation of our cultural zeitgeist is: where if you criticize these oligarchs, people think you are criticizing the way of life of western civilization.

  • JuneFall [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    My answer is different to what others write and that is to listen to David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything, or read the first half of the book.

    However there are plenty of reasons to be critical of the west, though I understand that you like some parts of western civilization, most likely the focus on stuff like "rights" and "freedom". For me those things turned out to be more and more propaganda in their practice. The freedom and rights were often fought for and achieved by marginalized, by socialists, by anarchists etc. Furthermore I came to believe that the enlightenment and the "rationality" held in so high regard are effective tools for imperialism and domination of others, they were not used to free others and ourselves.