Culture-clash arguments foreclose the possibility of non-Western progress

Evidence

In Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said reminds us what such culture-clash explanations accomplish. Considering Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis’s argument that expanding the Western literature curriculum to include non-Western works would soon take us down the path of slavery, polygamy, and child marriage, Said notes that, their comic dimensions notwithstanding, Lewis’s arguments, predicated as they are on ‘a highly inflated sense of Western exclusivity in cultural accomplishment,’ but also reflecting ‘a tremendously limited, almost hysterically antagonistic view of the rest of the world,’ foreclose ‘the possibility that any advance over tyranny and barbarism could or did occur outside the West.’ We end up with ‘a murderous imperial contest’ that has the effect of driving the non-West ‘into a violent rage or, with equally unedifying consequences, into boasting about the achievements of non-Western cultures.’ The actual conditions of arranged and cousin marriages, or any other patriarchal practices, remain completely unexamined when we engage in imperial contests. Since ‘all roads lead to the bazaar,’ then such details are unnecessary. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 269 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

East Asian economic development is altering the balance of power between Asia and the West, specifically the United States. Successful economic development generates self-confidence and assertiveness on the part of those who produce it and benefit from it. Wealth, like power, is assumed to be proof of virtue, a demonstration of moral and cultural superiority. As they have become more successful economically, East Asians have not hesitated to emphasize the distinctiveness of their culture and to trumpet the superiority of their values and way of life compared to those of the West and other societies. Asian societies are decreasingly responsive to U.S. demands and interests and increasingly able to resist pressure from the United States or other Western countries. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 281 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modernization theory located blockage to progress inside non-Western societies; Modernization theory blamed underdevelopment on internal cultural flaws within societies; Culture follows power, so declining Western dominance erodes Western culture’s reach (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Culture-clash arguments foreclose any possibility of progress outside the West. #corroborates (1.00) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 269
• Economic success generates cultural self-assertion and resistance to Western pressure #complicates (0.82) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 281