andyx1205 wrote:Last time I checked, Sweden participated in the slave trade. You had a decent empire as well, with a well fitted army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire

The Swedish slave trade was abolished in 1813.

Would you argue that our prosperity stems from there?

andyx1205 wrote:Regarding Spain, I don't think "500 years" is a short time for an empire. Are we to forget the effect Columbus's Spanish colonization had on the Natives of the Americas?

All I'm saying is that Spain's current prosperity doesn't stem from there. It stems from the Spanish miracle. Before, Spain's economy had been lagging behind those of other European countries.

andyx1205 wrote:Please, lets not forget the Atlantic slave trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

Lets not do any more disservice to the natives of Africa and the Americas.

Is the Atlantic slave trade the source of the wealth of the West? If so, then why aren't the Arab countries as prosperous and highly developed, given that the Arab slave trade still goes on?

Also, if the Atlantic slave trade made the West prosperous, then why didn't it make Africa prosperous? Those who sold African slaves to Europeans were themselves Africans.

andyx1205 wrote:Also, the development of South Korea took time, it didn't happen right away. South Korea has a very nasty history of dictatorship after dictatorship, democracy didn't happen over night. It did eventually happen of course and South Korea is doing great economically and politically, give the South Koreans credit because they deserve it.

So you do acknowledge that the prosperity and development of South Korea is due to their own policies and not due to exploitation?

andyx1205 wrote:You might not know but Canada did have slavery. Our treatment of the Natives wasn't so bright either, while the Americans killed them, we starved them.

Would you argue Canada's prosperity comes from there?

andyx1205 wrote:Btw, who settled in Canada? The French, and then the British.

So what?

So if the West is Best, which one among the western nation-states, commonwealths, or empires--from Athens to America--is, or was, the ‘bestest’ of them all?

james1v wrote:It is best. Would Any society tolerate those who wish to kill their children? Not only tolerate, but allow them the means to spread there hatred and gain power (free speech and the vote)? By doing so, it (the west) shows confidence in its ideals. Compare that to the intolerant, phobic, racist, religionist societies of say, the middle east. Yes, i know we in the west have our own intolerancia... But...

You speak as if there was no civilized countries before the modern Western civilization.

blackarmada wrote:

james1v wrote:It is best. Would Any society tolerate those who wish to kill their children? Not only tolerate, but allow them the means to spread there hatred and gain power (free speech and the vote)? By doing so, it (the west) shows confidence in its ideals. Compare that to the intolerant, phobic, racist, religionist societies of say, the middle east. Yes, i know we in the west have our own intolerancia... But...

You speak as if there was no civilized countries before the modern Western civilization.

There might have been some civilized nations, but there were definitely no civilized countries (not that I know of anyways.) Before Greece there was no civilized countries, and after the conquests of Alexander the Great there were no civilized countries until after Cromwell died and the English experienced their “Glorious Revolution”, and then the British brought their highly civilized ‘civilization’ - of British laws and democratic institutions and western philosophy and the Enlightenment - to the rest of the world, and the others who were conquered by the French, Dutch, Arabs and Japanese etc. fared much worse and have not become nearly as civilized. The Americans, obviously, were a byproduct of this, and in most ways we are probably the most most culturally sophisticated and pluralist civilization at the moment, and we are civilizing the world by bringing the world to us, and in some cases, bringing civilization and its benefits back to the outside world - like Afghanistan, and Mesopotamia* (which of course, ironically, is where it originated.)

The West is just better, if you happen to live there.

Paul G wrote:The West is just better, if you happen to live there.

This.^

Corneel wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:In my lifetime I've been witness to a great diminution and degradation of values in the West, not any improvement. I mean, we bombed the city of Hanoi on Christmas Day for Pete's sake.

You have a small perspective. At least at this moment in time, noone will describe his own acts of genocide as a point of pride in their autobiography. - or at least in the west.

But that's not what I was refering to.

I merely offered a counter to the idea that Western values are "the best" and gave a specific example of why they could not be considered the best. I could have gone on, and on and on, but I figured one example should suffice.

I said, "In my lifetime I've been witness to a great diminution and degradation of values in the West, not any improvement," so if you can offer an example or some examples of how Western values have improved over the past 65 years, I'd be interested to hear of them.

I would agree that in the West the value we place on our environment has improved over the years and has become much better; however, this improvement has not occurred in practice, we still trash the environment as we always have, witness the current oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

blackarmada wrote:

james1v wrote:It is best. Would Any society tolerate those who wish to kill their children? Not only tolerate, but allow them the means to spread there hatred and gain power (free speech and the vote)? By doing so, it (the west) shows confidence in its ideals. Compare that to the intolerant, phobic, racist, religionist societies of say, the middle east. Yes, i know we in the west have our own intolerancia... But...

You speak as if there was no civilized countries before the modern Western civilization.

No, i speak in the current era.

The Republic wrote:So if the West is Best, which one among the western nation-states, commonwealths, or empires--from Athens to America--is, or was, the ‘bestest’ of them all?

Currently, it appears to be Norway.

Hitler. /thread

We've got the best of a bad bunch. I agree largely with Ibn Warraq, 'western' values (it's unfair to call them completely western as some have been developed by Arabic/Eastern/Oriental countries as well) such as freedom of speech, expression and thought, rationalism, secular states, social democracy, scientific method etc. are currently the best we have in terms of values. They on the whole lead to more prosperous and happier nations, personally I think some of those values go too far (I don't see any reason to tolerate the incitement of violence for example), and in many areas those values don't go far enough (UK Libel laws for example). There are many problems with those values, or at least their implementation, and they are certainly not perfect.

However I would much prefer them over the current alternatives.

However 'colonialism has never contributed to the wealth of western nations'? Utterly absurd, many western nations have benefited massively from colonialism in terms of wealth. It is certainly not the sole reason, but it is still a large factor, and a massive advantage, the UK would certainly not be as rich, prosperous or as internationally/politically relevant if it did not at one point control the largest empire in history. Our current values and prosperity have developed off the back of behaviour the vast majority of us today would consider morally bankrupt.

Hugin wrote:

andyx1205 wrote:Last time I checked, Sweden participated in the slave trade. You had a decent empire as well, with a well fitted army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire

The Swedish slave trade was abolished in 1813.

Would you argue that our prosperity stems from there?

andyx1205 wrote:Regarding Spain, I don't think "500 years" is a short time for an empire. Are we to forget the effect Columbus's Spanish colonization had on the Natives of the Americas?

All I'm saying is that Spain's current prosperity doesn't stem from there. It stems from the Spanish miracle. Before, Spain's economy had been lagging behind those of other European countries.

andyx1205 wrote:Please, lets not forget the Atlantic slave trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

Lets not do any more disservice to the natives of Africa and the Americas.

Is the Atlantic slave trade the source of the wealth of the West? If so, then why aren't the Arab countries as prosperous and highly developed, given that the Arab slave trade still goes on?

Also, if the Atlantic slave trade made the West prosperous, then why didn't it make Africa prosperous? Those who sold African slaves to Europeans were themselves Africans.

andyx1205 wrote:Also, the development of South Korea took time, it didn't happen right away. South Korea has a very nasty history of dictatorship after dictatorship, democracy didn't happen over night. It did eventually happen of course and South Korea is doing great economically and politically, give the South Koreans credit because they deserve it.

So you do acknowledge that the prosperity and development of South Korea is due to their own policies and not due to exploitation?

andyx1205 wrote:You might not know but Canada did have slavery. Our treatment of the Natives wasn't so bright either, while the Americans killed them, we starved them.

Would you argue Canada's prosperity comes from there?

andyx1205 wrote:Btw, who settled in Canada? The French, and then the British.

So what?

I wouldn't say that the prosperity of the West stems solely from that, rather, it does give them an advantage. Now, some nations can prosper with this advantage, and others can fail. What determines that? Well, definitely values such as democracy, secularism, and so forth, which have been achieved through constant struggles and fights by the populace within those nations.

So it's a combination. For example, the largest Imperial power today is America, yet, American society is not nearly on par with Sweden, or Norway, or Canada.

I don't disagree with you entirely.