The West’s peace signals a mature golden age preceding decline

Evidence

The declining grip of the West over the rest of the world is not a result of the diminishing impact of the institutions which first arose there but, on the contrary, a result of their global spread. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 128 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Merely to reassert the old formulas about “underdevelopment” and “the Afro-Asian mentality” is foolish enough; but to connect these causally with notions about the sad decline of the West, the unfortunate end of colonialism, and the regrettable diminishment of American power is, I must say as strongly as possible, rank folly. There is simply no way in which societies thousands of miles away from the Atlantic world in both space and identity can be made to conform to what we want of them. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 362 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Causal links between Western decline and non-Western conditions are rank folly — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 362; Third Worldism recast the golden-age myth of Western innocence lost — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1555; Nostalgia for an imagined golden age drives resistance and fear — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 199 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Western decline stems from the global spread of Western institutions, not their fading #complicates (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 128
• Causal links between Western decline and non-Western conditions are rank folly #complicates (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 362