I agree with some aspects of your OP but I think it's framed in a somewhat inflammatory way
But lumping China and India in with that - both of which have considerably longer histories of civilisation than does Europe - veers pretty close to out-and-out racism.
Also agree with the above that Trump/MAGA is a serious internal threat to liberalism
It's framed in an extremely inflammatory way. It's one thing to criticize say, the Chinese or Iranian (or Indian) government; it's a whole other thing to call their society degenerate and inferior. OP completely lost me there. The phrase to use is "repressive government" not "inferior society."
I do believe certain societies can warrant that label, but we need to be very careful.
Think of different societies as being like plants. Some are corn plants, some are palms, and some are cacti. Each evolved to survive its own set of challenges
Governmental systems are about the survival of a society rather than about some higher good. Basically, what's healthy for a corn plant will kill a cactus.
Like the US and its allies did for 20 years?
The US public isn't even willing to support Ukrainians, who are actually willing to fight for their freedom in large numbers and seem plenty competent enough to win if given decent support.
And note: the US didn't try to push democracy on South Korea originally. It applied some pressure, but that was largely internal, as it generally has to be.
There are moral facts. — Bob Ross
As guardians of other countries, yes. Candidates don't run on aggressive foreign policy. The American people have just elected an isolationist president who doesn't give a sweet ff about other countries.Do you think members of a government, in representative republics, are self-appointed??? — Bob Ross
Because:No empire conquers other peoples in order to help them.
- Why not? — Bob Ross
conquest is far more expensive than aid, and many representatives oppose even the barely adequate level of aid that might prevent those bad effects you want to march in to remedy.The US isn’t in a position to be funding external wars right now; that’s why US citizens are fed-up. They have a serious budgeting problem that needs to be fixed. — Bob Ross
I absolutely do. By prevention - like, not propping up and arming bad leaders; like not bombing civilians or supplying bombs to those who will; like empowering the common people; like supplying medicine and technology. Not by conquest. That only substitutes a foreign oppressor for a native one.You don’t think we should try to help oppressed people in other nations?
I'm opining that your subset is a pipedream.You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them. — Bob Ross
Besides the point you are trying to make maybe, but
I don't think you get to strip away everything that is salient about a concrete situation, and still have something usefull or applicable to say about how to act in that situation.
China is at least acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it.
Does it really need to be an existential threat?
So maybe my counter-example wasn't the best example for the point I was trying to make, that morality by itself seems like a poor reason to attack a country.
When nationalism is defined as identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations, then it's totally logical to oppose this idea.
I surely do love my country, but I won't think that my country and it's people are better than others as I've met a lot of foreigners too
So what's wrong with patriotism then?
Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?
But don't be so cocky and full of hubris that you think you have to expand your values to others
If it works well, they can copy it from their own free will
Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.
The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences. — Bob Ross
None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US. — Bob Ross
Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics. — Bob Ross
Yes, that. No country invades another country and kills its people for their own good. After the pillage and installation of a governor, the conqueror might bring some of its more advanced technology and introduce its own - sometimes - more efficient admininstrative style ... usually to the detriment of the local culture and class structure; usually with the result of another war for that country's independence."Actual good" in war is usually merely things valued from the perspective of the one citing it as a justification for war. — ChatteringMonkey
I get that. You're wrong, it's illegitimate, it kills more people than it saves and it doesn't work.
That’s not always true though. You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them. — Bob Ross
Why should it be so?The nationalism I was advocating for can sometimes be at the detriment of the interests of other nations — Bob Ross
Sovereignty is one crucial thing for any nation. And we shouldn't "make some country worse and worse". Those countries that have internal problems, those are for themselves to solve. If the idea is to let's say make North Korea part of South Korea, just like the allies fought Nazi Germany then well, there's a war to be fought over that. And that kind of "helping" isn't what helping other nations is about. Only If they make their problems to be a problem for other countries, then there is a reason to respond.Is there any disparity in values between your country and another that would make you think it is better? What if we kept slowly making your country better and better and another worse and worse—when, roughly, if at all, would you say “yeah, my country is objectively better”? — Bob Ross
So are jingoism and ultra-nationalism also part of nationalism, then why promote a term that has also such much negative aspects and can be misunderstood? One can surely define just what one wants to promote. People surely can understand the benefits of a collective idea of a nation and a state and can understand how these ideas can be also abused.Patriotism is a form of nationalism. — Bob Ross
Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?
Hah!E.g., westernize Talibanian Afghanistan. — Bob Ross
Wow.E.g., if my neighbor likes different food than me, then no big deal; but if they like raping women...now I am going to intervene and subject them to better morals. What you are saying, e.g., is that we shouldn’t ever intervene because it is ‘cocky’. — Bob Ross
Bob Ross
Wow.
So what society is OK with their daughters being raped? Tell me what society in the World is where parents are OK with that? Seems that you have quite the obscure ideas about the morals of "inferior people" or "inferior nations".
Sorry Bob, but now perhaps your ideas of other people are coming out...
Yes, the Mongol Horde made quite a wreck of places. Although it wasn't enslavement, but ideas like clearing the people away to make grasslands for the horses. I remember it was a Chinese person that had to persuade the Mongol rulers in the benefits of having humans around to pay taxes.But I know one "civilisation" that has plundered and enslaved mankind economically by military force. — Swanty
How irrefutable has this been in the 2010's and the 2020's?And that is historically irrefutable over the last 110 years. — Swanty
I believe in free speech,so Bobby is free to explain and give his opinions. They are very instructive to me.It is topic that ought to be discussed, but those kinds of arguments will just get someone banned in the end. But I would give Bob the chance to explain himself.
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