Quote:
Originally Posted by heep223
I don't disagree with most of that. That was my best effort at explaining because I can't for the life of me figure out what should be done. Yes that liberalism has led us here ok, but shouldn't we continue to see it through? To support global societies in developing their version of what we have? Most people in the non-western world want their own version of what we have. I don't know what the answer is or what to do.
As to the bolded above, it's the only thing that you said that I may disagree with. There has always been a huge amount of anger and anxiety and war in the world. It's just more visible and accessible now. As much as you hear about rising inequality, you don't hear that the world's standard of living has been steadily rising for the past 100 years and the number of global citizens living in abject poverty has also been dropping significantly. It's hard to see sometimes especially on days like today, but I firmly believe the world was a better place in 1900 than in 1800, in 1950 than in 1900, in 2000 than in 1950 and in 2016 than in 2000.
|
I don't disagree, and what you are saying was certainly widely accepted in the post-Cold War era - Fukuyama's End of History and all that. However, in the intervening years since, we have seen the rise of nationalism - again - not only in places like the Balkans, but across Europe, and finally, in North America. This is with rapidly declining levels of poverty, disease, hunger etc... So the relationship is not as strong as our historicist narrative (the idea that history is History) says it should be.