Our worldview is in need of a refresh if we wish to successfully predict the future and avoid global conflict.
Our? Who is this ‘our’? Who are ‘we’? ‘We’ and ‘our’ are the ‘West.’ Us Westerners could be described as those living peacefully under some form of liberal democracy or those outside who approve of our value system. Think the US, Canada, EU, small but important parts of Asia, segments of South and Central America, and shrinking parts of Africa.
The West is not related to race, religion, or location, it is related to worldview.
Without our largely tolerant and freedom-oriented belief system, our societies could not function — not for long at least. We can make certain assumptions about future prosperity in the West based on actions taken today given our understanding of the system we live in. The predictive value of our worldview, however, runs into a brick wall when we attempt to extrapolate it onto other societies with diametrically opposed life philosophies.
The Western worldview has lifted billions out of poverty and yet it provides us with few tools to understand why struggling Afghanistan was not fertile ground for nation building. A progress minded worldview does not explain why Russia invaded Ukraine. It fails to predict why Hamas used financial aid and cross-border economic opportunities not to improve lives of Gazans but to fund terror attacks on Israelis.
I am not the first person to identify the flaws and limitations in the Western worldview. I will not be the last. I am, however, not one who believes that its fallibility in assessing life outside of Western borders makes it a poor tool for assessing life within them. Instead, we should approach the Western worldview as we do any tool. We must acknowledge its limitations and supplement other knowledge and prediction strategies where it proves lacking.
Western liberal understanding of humanity has increasingly led to a less individual world. One can see this in Europe and in the US where free speech and expression are under legal and moral attack. Look to France and its belief that secularism would be something that millions of devoutly faithful Muslims from the Arab world would gladly meld into after immigrating or seeking refuge within France's borders. Look also to Germany who believed that working with Russia on massive pipeline deals would allow them to improve their carbon footprint with zero consequences.
Within but also opposed to the liberal worldview, Western conservatism and nationalism are structured on a basic belief that what is one’s own is best or at least worth preserving. Not quite realpolitik, conservatism allows room for the acceptance that different peoples are different in fundamental ways. GK Chesterton once wrote that, “Cosmopolitanism gives us one country, and it is good; nationalism gives us a hundred countries, and every one of them is the best.” Chesterton was also a fervent critic of the Nazis long before WW2, showing that one could understand nationalism’s benefits while also respecting the dangers of its power when taken to extremes.
Chesterton’s view of nationalism of course opens the door to competing nationalisms, each of which believes themselves to be best. Alternatively, its base acknowledgement that a people believe their worldview, culture, and geography to be best or at least worth loving allows one to approach differences in societies with mutual understanding. For example, a conservative American may dislike being lectured by a Briton about gun rights. This protective instinct, however, may lead them to think twice about lecturing a Brit about the Monarchy regardless of their views.
Modern liberalism, in many ways, looks to mid-20th century conflict and believes that the risk of nationalistic competition is too dangerous a fire to play with. It instead seeks to achieve peace through equality. In the 80s this manifested itself in a form of Moral Relativism. Young Westerners of that era, particularly the highly educated, could not imagine telling a third world society’s inhabitants to not practice wife burning. Allan Bloom discussed this in his famous book ‘The Closing of the American Mind.’ Students took an open-minded view toward all behavior and did so at the cost of developing their own practicable and healthy values.
Professor Bloom, sooner than many, realized that Moral Relativism posed a far greater risk to Western society than stodgy conservatism. He witnessed too that this supposed relativism would eventually lead to an intolerance toward clear moral thought.
If one believed all views equal, the idea was that they would inevitably oppose any belief system that sought to present itself as best or superior to some alternatives. The philosophical paradox of this belief system has been noted by left-wing thinker Noam Chomsky. Chomsky suggested that if one believed in Moral Relativism, or Relativism more broadly speaking, their own view should be dismissed as irrelevant because it was just as equal to all other views.
Moral Relativism is still paid lip service (often manifested in both-sideism), but a left-wing totalitarianism has taken its place, particularly among the young in America.
While students in America side with evil in cases like terrorist attacks on Israel, there remain traditional liberals who ignore this worrisome behavior given their belief in the “proof” of statistical prosperity. This is to say, if America’s and the West’s GDP continues to rise, the world will eventually become better and more just.
While economic growth is crucial for prosperity, the assumption that the former is inherently by-produces the latter is incorrect outside of the Western context, and often within it. The Reagan era saw this ideology promoted widely but tempered it with a clear morality toward Communism. The modern view of Western liberals has embraced the free marketeers' beliefs albeit absent the same moral backbone.
To see an example of how this view has failed as a prediction model outside Western borders, we can turn to China. China’s economy has skyrocketed in recent decades. However, in recent years and months President Xi has made a distinct movement away from the past liberalization efforts that helped these gains be realized. The result is a sort of Red dragon Saturn devouring its offspring.
Within Western borders we cannot avoid data showing increased rates of diseases like diabetes and an enormous increase in drug overdoses. These two statistics alone show that economic growth can lead not only to prosperity but to waste and self-destruction. Prosperity has helped Western countries to develop massive social safety nets, and these issues are partial results of its existence, in America in particular. God forbid we live to see what a universal basic income leads to if implemented.
It is vital to decouple the belief that economic prosperity will cure most of societies ills if given time and that enforced equality will lead to less human conflict. Liberalism must re-learn the realities of human nature if it is to remain as useful as it has been for over a quarter millennium.
A failure to understand that economic growth, more easily accessible education, etc., will inherently increase freedom and happiness continues to have catastrophic consequences when applied to countries outside of the cultural West. It is now showing signs of failure within our borders as well, albeit in less extreme ways.
When a prediction model proves as failed as Western liberal assumptions about economic growth leading to greater freedom, it need not be scrapped, but it ought to be replaced or reinforced in certain contexts.
Failure to come to grips with the realities of non-Western outlooks leads to confusion. People who think all souls long for freedom are shocked when countries ostensibly set up as democracies opt for totalitarian rule. They are perplexed when greater internet access leads not to enlightenment but rather to an easier means of spreading beliefs like antisemitism and provides opportunities for government censorship.
One can see the flawed western worldview in practice when its assumptions are used to prescribe the solutions to problems it has in part helped cause.
Consider countries we in the West view as bad actors such as Russia and Iran. We have consistently tried to let these nations into the Western world as a trading partner, military co-operator, or at the very least attempted to treat them like normal countries. We utilize our undeniable economic advantage and assume that it will help us to control the relationship and that liberalism will enter these societies through contact, making them future allies barely distinct from our own nations.
Did more McDonalds and Dominos restaurants in Moscow prevent the Ukrainian invasion? Did subsequent brutal sanctions lead Russia to exit Ukraine? No and no. Economic prosperity and equal treatment, if anything, provided Russia with the fuel needed to conduct their present ongoing military operations. Subsequent sanctions are too little and too late and maintain economics as the only tool with which a foreign bad actor can be reined in.
Iran’s Mullahcracy continues to oppress the Persian people, a historically important group who have contributed much to mathematics, science, literature, and beyond. While still highly capable, the continued success of everyday Iranians does not liberate them, but instead helps their theocratic dictatorship careen toward nuclear weapon development, fund terror groups across the world, and cause regional instability. Iran has been sanctioned considerably and their leadership has expressed no intentions of changing their attitude toward the West save for occasional window dressing measures designed to generate goodwill and temporary sanctions relief.
Our current liberal and materialist outlook is grounded not just in philosophy but in roots from recent history. Many Western leaders know that economic realities and moral advocacy helped topple the Soviet Union.
While these things played a major role in the USSR’s collapse, the dictatorships that have risen from many areas across its ash-ridden former borders should show us that economic failure does not automatically lead a people to change their culture and economic system. The chance to share in Western economic prosperity may appeal to Estonia in ways that Kazakhstan or Belarus find less attractive, regardless of what liberal assumptions might lead one to believe.
In school I was taught that the wars of the future would be fought over water and precious minerals. While true in some cases, this materialistic worldview was void of an understanding of basic human nature.
Putin does not focus on economics when discussing Ukraine. Instead, his logic is often spiritual, militaristic, or cultural. Putin has ruled Russia for over 2 decades with generally strong internal support. Russia’s economy has grown under his reign, and this has generated much good will among his people, many of whom recall the days of the Ruble collapse and post-USSR IMF assistance. However, sanctions seem not to dent his support (to the extent we can trust polling). His nationalism must therefore be viewed as being of greater importance to enough people to trump the material and reputational impact of his government’s recent behavior.
I believe the way to caulk the gaps and cracks in our liberal Western outlook is to supplement it with an understanding of how others view the world. This necessitates flavoring it with a degree of nationalism to counteract the impact of moral relativism and assumptions about economic growth leading to unlimited gains in happiness.
You or I can still thrive by believing in freedom, shared prosperity, entrepreneurship, etc., while also understanding that a Russian or Iranian may have other priorities, detrimental as those may be. We can also benefit ourselves and our neighbors by accepting that there is a limit to material growth improving our historically unprecedented life quality.
This is not to say their worldview is superior or even equal. It is merely to acknowledge the reality that one must understand the views of others if they wish to predict behavior. To acknowledge that economic prosperity is not the be all to end all is not an attempt to limit it. Instead, one must do factor this reality into their thinking if they wish to not be left confused and wrong when making strategic predictions and to avoid miscalculating the trajectory of key international decisions.
There are lives at stake whenever our leaders approach geopolitical decision making. Obtaining an understanding of non-Western nationalism, the Islamic worldview, and other less liberal ideologies is not an attack on Western liberalism, it is instead a means of edifying its good qualities. To obtain an understanding that not all think like you and not all wish to be free in the ways we see freedom is life affirming. It may prove to be lifesaving in the future.
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