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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul_philp who wrote (89668)	4/3/2003 5:16:35 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

> Wham, you deliver this cheap stereotype of the western world. I see nothing stereotypical about it. This comes directly out of what neocons believe is their mission, or have you not read PNAC? To be sure there are many in the west who believe in appreciating other cultures for what they are. But that is hardly the norm. If they are different, then it is hard to mass produce and mass market goods around the world. It is even harder to control. The western policy, be neocons (even the more respectable ones like Wolfowitz) or be it the realists like Kissinger, or even if you go further back to pre-ww2 era, relies on control. We do not trust what we cannot control. And we feel most comfortable controlling what is familiar to us. Are you disagreeing with this? My last trip to Asia was about 3 years ago. I took a few months off to travel the Pacific rim. As a rule I prefer more remote and rural areas. What was striking was that no matter how far you go, you almost never feel you are out of America. The clothing, the music, the movies, and most everything else is merging into the bland. And you can't say that we are not pushing for it to be so. Don't get me wrong. I love rock and roll. I wear suites at work and jeans on weekends. But what you are calling anti-modernism and anti-capitalism is more of backlash to this global phenomena. > Now, the fact that you believe this stereotype says something about you but not the western world. Get off your high horse and seek counseling. > The idea of the western world driving to mold the rest of the world in it's image is everybit as vile, insulting and ignorant as the idea that Islam is out to convert the western world. Then explain the tremendous push towards "democracy" but only if the dictatorship is not working for us. Explain the massive push to get other countries to adapt western thought from feminism to dress code. Tell me if you can find a better strategy for selling goods to other countries than making them as much like us as possible. Sun Tzu

To: paul_philp who wrote (89668)	4/3/2003 5:41:03 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The idea of the western world driving to mold the rest of the world in it's image is everybit as vile, insulting and ignorant as the idea that Islam is out to convert the western world. I know Paul doesn't read these posts so I'm typing for whomsoever else might read them. The notion that the idea "of the western world driving to mold the rest of the world" is "vile" and "insulting" and "ignorant" and thus worth lambasting a poster is over the top. It is an assertion which can be argued about. But hardly one that deserves demonization. Parts of it are, in my view, not, in fact, debateable. First, globabilization these days spreads US culture everywhere, the often remarked McDonald phenom or the Coke phenom. Second, the self professed aim of the neoconservative movement's foreign policy is to export certain US institutions--US democratic institutions being the primary one but also the present idealized version of US capitalism. Sounds to me as if it could easily be read as wishing to "mold the rest of the world in its image." Those are factual assertions. One could hardly argue they are vile, etc. stereotypes. Now such expansion of US models can well be considered not too happy a thing. But given Paul's professed belief in the neoconservative project, I gather that would not be his problem. Puzzling.