“There are all these metaphors, like humanity’s a cancer on the planet, we’re a virus, we’re a parasite…
You could make the argument, hypothetically, that if people in the West consume too much, if they use too much energy, well everybody who moves from the developing world into the West, also becomes one of those consumers.
And yet, the same people who think that the Western lifestyle is the most horrible there is, at the same time believe that there should be open borders, and everybody should come in and be part of that lifestyle.
So I think you actually hit the nail on the head: there is a guilt thing going on.
There is a sense— which we see by the way in no other culture, no other civilization— the only civilization that goes around the planet apologizing for everything is Western civilization.
No Muslim is apologizing for the conquests of the Islamic world.
No Chinese is apologizing for the role that China has played historically.
So this is a very specific Western thing.
There are people out there who believe that the world was a harmonious place until Western Imperialism happened, when in fact, everybody did Imperialism.
The Mongols did it, the Chinese did it, the Persians did it, the Romans, Greeks, Aztecs, Egyptians…
For most of civilizational history, they were empires.
This is not something that the West was inventing.
The history of States is a very young one. You could argue that the West (came up with) the idea that Nations, despite being in unequal power relations and unequal in size, are the same as the member of a family of Nations.
That’s actually a fundamentally Western idea.
The older I get, the more tired I get to constantly run around the world to apologize.
When people defend China, Russia, Hamas, that’s all fine, but my first question is, would you actually want to live there?”
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WATCH: Ralph Schoellhammer | Kate Wand Podcast
youtu.be/cmdfHR8pG78
WESTERN EXISTENTIAL GUILT