From the Alvin Lin blog, by Alvin Lin on 2008-05-17 11:35 AM (original link)

Agree or disagree? Is this writer unintentionally White supremecist, or does this writer have merit or validity?

Article

Titled ‘In Defense of Cultural Imperialism’

Western civilization of science, reason and democracy is superior to all others, and hopefully will be adopted by everybody. There is nothing specifically western about it - it is the birthright and greatest hope of every human on the planet.

Other races aren’t backward. As America shows, western culture belongs to all races. But other cultures are backward, and hopefully will die out. Nobody plans to force them, of course, because forcing would be against western culture (though not against traditional cultures). Instead, we plan to seduce them. It is strange but companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, shows like Baywatch, and people like Madonna do deserve a medal of honour in the struggle for human freedom.

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The writer does try to separate the difference between culture vs. race.  But I think he’s taking a very limited view of things.  America is the leader in science largely because of money.  Prior to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a strong argument that China was the leader in scientific discovery could be made.  And there’s no question that much of the China-bashing that goes on in the west comes from a growing fear that China will overtake much of the western hemisphere economically, which would eventually lead to growth in areas such as science and business.

Other races aren’t backward. As America shows, western culture belongs to all races. But other cultures are backward, and hopefully will die out. Nobody plans to force them, of course, because forcing would be against western culture (though not against traditional cultures)

wow that’s confusing haha

I was having a similar conversation with someone the other day, and one of the things that was brought up was the whole “Consumerism” aspect of American culture.  The American economy relies heavily on consumerism...and to a lot of people, this is one of the major negatives about American culture.  Everyone is brainwashed to some extent that they need to buy more...rennovate the kitchen, buy the new cell phone, get the latest fashion, etc.  It is this consumerism that leads to personal debt, which continues to be a huge problem here.  It also influences the whole “instant gratification” culture that America is obsessed with. 

In addition, American culture is extremely litigious.  The entire medical and healthcare industries are falling apart because of fear of malpractice law suits.  Everything is about legal liability, and it drives the culture towards a me-first mentality.

American culture is still very young.  There are lots of things that are very good about American culture, but to say that it is “innately superior” is premature at best, and very clearly biased.

The multiculturalism vs assimilation in America debate also comes into play too, I think.  It’s possible to adopt systems like capitalism or science or intellectual property framework, while not sacrificing your own culture or heritage or history.  The flawed attitude towards assimilation is that you need to reject parts of your culture or history and basically adopt White norms or attitudes or behaviors, where White people are at the top.

Japanese and Chinese seem very driven by trends and right now America has all the trends

but are trends centralized around just one culture or all?

right now they’re focused on americans which is why people are getting surgery, etc. i always thought surgery was looked down upon by anyone...has that changed?

for some people it has. its pretty common now. theres no more natural beauty in hollywood...why would you expect other to be different

its funny that you mention that because playboy doesn’t want models who are fake looking anymore but more natural because thats whats popular now. which it should be, no matter what race you are

i wonder what changed in order to have double lids be favored over single

time…

its not only asians that follow it but their stars too. you hear a lot about celebrities getting surgery and you don’t see that many natural ones. if they were to just remain untouched, maybe it’ll become more popular