Western universalism functions as imperialism from the perspective of non-Western societies

Evidence

The collapse of communism exacerbated this discordance by reinforcing in the West the view that its ideology of democratic liberalism had triumphed globally and hence was universally valid. The West, and especially the United States, which has always been a missionary nation, believe that the non-Western peoples should commit themselves to the Western values of democracy, free markets, limited government, human rights, individualism, the rule of law, and should embody these values in their institutions. Minorities in other civilizations embrace and promote these values, but the dominant attitudes toward them in non-Western cultures range from widespread skepticism to intense opposition. What is universalism to the West is imperialism to the rest. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 489

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The closing aphorism — ‘What is universalism to the West is imperialism to the rest’ — is a paradigm-shifting reframe of the entire liberal-internationalism project. This is among the book’s most cited and most contested lines.
• XREF: ‘A missionary nation’ connects to Frances FitzGerald’s Fire in the Lake and to the American-exceptionalism literature — also to Edward Said’s claim that Western universalism masks imperial intent. — connects to: Decoloniality rejects postcolonialism for complicity in Western universalist thinking — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 267; Decolonial theory replaces universal worldviews with pluriversal ones and subaltern standpoints — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 268; Western theory’s self-contained account of Europe conceals its production by imperialism — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1783 (+1 more)
• SEED: Article angle: how the same policy reads as principled universalism at home and imperialism abroad — the asymmetry of moral framing across the global power divide.