[Architect]

Yeah, the West is the embodiment of all that is good in human history. What has it brought the world?

Fascism. communism. Two World Wars. Colonialism. The Nation state. The atom bomb.

I'm not saying that the West hasn't brought many good things to the world as well. But the self-adulation in this post makes me want to puke.

Oh. By the way, Islamic fundamentalism has one and only one cause: the perversion of Islamic culture caused by more than a century of Western meddling and colonialism. The earlier Jihadism had been dead for a thousand years until we came along.

[walden]

Neither fascism nor communism are unique to the West, unless you decide not to count China, North Korea, Vietnam, various Islamic fascist regimes in the middle east and Africa, and various other kleptocratic fascist regimes in Africa. And, as I recall, Japan was a big player in WWII, although WWI was exclusively western. Furthermore, you may not like the atom bomb, but I firmly believe that it shortened WWII and saved many more lives than it took, not to mention preventing war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for 50 years through the policy of mutually assured destruction. As for colonialism, compare Africa now to colonial Africa, and then explain to me how Africa is now better off (you can do the same analysis on the middle east if you like.)

I think you missed the point of the article, though. The point is not that western civilization is perfect, the point is that it is light years better than the alternative. You may disagree with that conclusion-- being a westerner, as I assume you are, you are quite free to leave and go to the third-world nation of your choice. However, I notice that plenty of violently anti-western "intellectuals" choose to live in the west, despite its evil, and not in the third world they venerate (Edward Said and Susan Sontag come to mind, but there are thousands of others.)