The Greatness of Western Civilization
In this age of diversity-worship, it is considered virtually axiomatic that all cultures are equal. Western culture, claim the intellectuals, is in no way superior to that of African tribalists or Eskimo seal hunters. There are no objective standards, they say, that can be used to evaluate the moral stature of different groups. They assert that to deny the equality of all cultures is to be guilty of the most heinous of intellectual sins: “ethnocentrism.” This is to flout the sacred principle of cultural relativism. I disagree with the relativists—absolutely.
There are three fundamental respects in which Western culture is objectively the best. These are the core values or core achievements of Western civilization, and what made America great.
Reason. The Greeks were the first to identify philosophically that knowledge is gained through reason and logic as opposed to mysticism (faith, revelation, dogma). It would take two millennia, including a Dark Ages and a Renaissance, before the full implications of Greek thought would be realized. The rule of reason reached its zenith in the West in the 18th century—the Age of Enlightenment. “For the first time in modern history,” writes one philosopher, “an authentic respect for reason became the mark of an entire culture. ” America is a product of the Enlightenment.
Individual Rights. An indispensable achievement leading to the Enlightenment was the recognition of the concept of individual rights. John Locke demonstrated that individuals do not exist to serve governments, but rather that governments exist to protect individuals. The individual, said Locke, has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. The result was the United States of America. (Disastrous errors were made in the West — for example, slavery, which originated elsewhere, and Nazism—but these were too incongruent with Western values to last and were corrected, by the West, in the name of its core principles of reason and rights.)
Science and Technology…..