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West is Best

Entry 1902, on 2018-02-24 at 16:12:49 (Rating 4, Politics)

Warning: This post makes the controversial claim that Western civilisation is superior to all others. If you are a "snowflake" and are likely to be "offended" by controversial opinions of this sort, you might not want to read this post.

I am often seen as a defender of Western civilisation against alternatives, such as Islamic or indigenous cultures, but I'm not trying to say that everything about the Western World is perfect, and everything about the alternatives is wrong. Far from it, in fact.

Actually, my real aim is to reject the simplistic (and yes, yet again, I will say it: politically correct) notions that everything about traditional and other alternative cultures is so wonderful and better than what we have created for ourselves in the West.

I have a large collection of maps (over 100 - I really like maps) showing various aspects of different parts of the world, and while looking at them I noticed similar patterns indicating the superiority of Western nations. So here's a description of some of these maps...

Look at a map of the world showing life expectancy. In the top category is most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and Jordan. The US isn't in the top category, but is in the second top, just a few years behind. So clearly the best life expectancy is found in the Western World, plus a few others.

But what about the worst? Well, that would be most of Africa, where some countries (for example, Angola) have a life expectancy of less than half the top category! Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia are also fairly bad, with a life expectancy 20 to 30 years less than the top category.

So if a long life is important the western world (plus a few others) is clearly superior. But what do other indicators show?

What about happiness? In the top category is all of North America, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, and Brazil. All of Africa is unhappy or very unhappy, and so is most of Asia.

Next, let's look at freedom. Well, it's the usual suspects: Canada, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, most of South America, India, Mongolia, Japan, and a few countries in Africa (including South Africa). But most of Africa and most of Asia are not free.

Now let's look at peace. The most peaceful countries are Canada, New Zealand, Chile, Scandinavia, Japan, Germany, and a few other central European countries. The rest of Europe, Argentina, and a few other countries in various locations are the next most peaceful. The US is somewhere near the middle. Most of Africa and Asia (including Russia) are near the bottom.

So let's look at corruption. The least corrupt countries are New Zealand, Canada, Scandinavia, Germany, and the UK. The USA, Australia, and Japan are also fairly high. Africa is right at the bottom, followed by Asia and South America. The least corrupt country, New Zealand, scores about 90, while the most corrupt, Somalia, scores less than 10.

Finally, let's look at intelligence. Do I even need to tell you? I don't, but here are the countries in the top categories: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Russia are in a high category, but China and Japan are even higher. Needless to say, most of Africa is very low. In fact, in some countries the average IQ is less than 65, making the average person technically mildly mentally retarded.

There are a few issues with what I have presented above.

First, I know I mixed up countries and regions. For example, I know Scandinavia isn't a country, but the countries in that region tend to cluster together so using that label was just convenient.

Second, have I just cherry picked attributes which fit my hypothesis? Well I don't think so, because I looked at many others too, and I just couldn't get anything which didn't make the West look good. One possible exception is air pollution deaths where the data was difficult to see a real pattern in, but at least this is one where I was relieved to see Africa do relatively well!

Third, are the measurements done by Western countries, and would some innate bias just make them look good as a result? There might be some element of this happening, but it is unlikely that the same result would occur for every measure I looked at. Also, I found multiple maps from multiple sources for most measures and they generally agreed fairly closely.

Fourth, what exactly are Western countries? Have I labelled countries that way based on positive results rather than the other way around? Well, no. What is a western country is not always well defined, but people know them when they see them. They usually have all or most of these characters: democratic governments; capitalist economies, usually with significant socialist aspects; traditionally Christian but often tending towards atheism now; still dominated by the culture of a European power which controlled them in the past; usually speak English, apart from Europe. One definition at Wikipedia shows Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, and the USA. Sound familiar?

Fifth, it seems that the evidence is irrefutable, but the reasons are more interesting. For example, some people might say the non-Western countries are repressed by the West and prevented from reaching their full potential. Or they might say they are improving, but are just a bit behind the West, and they just need a chance. Or maybe this is all just part of the global conspiracy by old white men designed to maintain their position of power. I'm not planning on discussing the reasons here, but I find all of these constitute improbable conspiracies.

Sixth, many of the attributes I selected are difficult to measure and might involve some self-assessment, subjective opinion, or varying interpretation based on political and philosophical preferences. For example, how can freedom or happiness be measured in a culturally independent way? Maybe they can't, but I maintain the overall picture is so overwhelmingly clear that any variations caused by imprecise measurements aren't that important.

So it seems to me that the conclusion is inescapable: the Western World is the best, and New Zealand (where I live) along with Canada, Australia, and Scandinavia look like the best of the best! Anyone who disagrees is welcome to try living in Russia, or Somalia, or Afghanistan. Judging by the maps they would be booking a return flight pretty quickly. Make sure it is on a western aircraft (Airbus or Boeing), OK?

Comment 1 (5865) by Ken Spall on 2020-12-04 at 17:13:09:

Thank god someone else also has arrived at the same conclusion. I also feel that some races are superior to others, but that's a discussion I hesitate to embark on given the current political and social climate.

Comment 2 (5881) by OJB on 2020-12-05 at 09:30:21:

I didn't mean to claim some races are better than others, although that is possible. My claim is that some cultures are better, surely an indisputable claim, I would have thought!

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