<The concept that Western Culture may actually BE superior to most others in the modern world is anathema to the left and the academics, almost to the point of generating apoplexy in such people. Even moderate liberals violently reject the idea on instinct, despite the fact that all objective evidence shows this to be true

You're right, I do resist ranking cultures. It makes cultural achievements sound too much like a dog food commercial jingle of my youth. ("My dog's better than your dog/ My dog's better than yours/ My dog's better 'cause he eats KennelRation/ My dog's better than yours.") Civilization isn't a sport, with points awarded in competition. It's a continuum. Initiative passes from group to group. Right now it's our turn. This too may pass; we'll see.

I don't want to live in any other culture than the one I live in right now, because it's the best one for me. But I resist ranking because I want to resist the arrogance that can develop out of "We're # 1" fever. To me, it's less important to be better than "them" and more important to be better than we were yesterday. To keep the initiative, we have to keep improving, not merely to appear to improve by saying we're better than someone else.



I think you've proven the point I made in the first paragraph. ;)

Our culture--Western Culture--IS better than the Taliban. It's also better than the Third Reich was, better than any Marxist nation ever was, and better than almost any third-world thug-ruled hellhole you could name. Damn straight I "rank" them. I'm not keeping score, I'm making value judgments. Avoiding value judgments is only a way to allow evil to stand next to good on an equal basis. I don't see this as "arrogant," because it's based on objective facts.

I will grant you that it is possible for those without a philosophical underpinning to allow more superficial judgments (based on things that are philosophically extraneous, like skin color, dress, technology, language, and the like) to decay into jingoism, manifest destiny, colonial attitudes, "white man's burden" ideas, and other less-than-exemplary attitudes that have infected Western Culture in the past.

Keeping an eye on the principles of individualism and individual rights that are the source of our success can help us avoid such traps.