Democracy is a form of government, not an overall mindset of the populace, which is what we're talking about--culture. — SleepingAwake

I think the form of government plays a large role in the overall mindset of the populace. In the west, democracy is seen as the best form of government. This fuels a belief in the superiority of democratic societies over non-democratic societies. That belief in the superiority of the form of government is held by the individuals, and cannot be prevented from filtering down, and manifesting itself as a belief in the superiority of the individuals themselves, of that society. So despite the fact that democracy holds the equality of individuals as a high principle, we tend not to include those outside of democratic societies within this equality, in our "mind set", as we see them as having a lower form of government and therefore inferior to us.

In the west, democracy is seen as the best form of government. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't really know about that... maybe a good decision strategy, but as we've seen lately, our democrats apparently don't understand the meaning of "demos-kratia," or they simply choose to ignore it altogether, in favor of politically correct, passive-aggressive facism in the guise of "social progress." I've long held that the government should be subservient to its people, rather than a selectively hive-minded regime that shits on common people for perceived "hate crimes," like some Orwellian dictatorship, as though being a government official makes them any better than us.