Barbaric culture judges Western culture

In a recent interview with Globes, Prof. David Passig, a futurist and head of the School of Education’s Virtual Reality Laboratory at Bar Ilan University discussed, among a variety of topics, why he believes the disdain for Western culture, among other cultures, is behind the desire to eradicate it rather than peacefully co-exist with it or even be tolerant of the many differences. 

When asked how he sees the way Western culture is examined through the lens of other cultures, he responded by saying, “Many people in the West do not understand that the other cultures want to completely eliminate Western culture, because they believe that it is disgusting and terrible. To these people, Western culture is a spoiled, secular, degenerate civilization that does not sanctify the belief in God or higher powers, and so they want to eliminate it completely. They don’t want agreements. They don’t want compromises.”

Citing that it poses an existential threat to the West, Professor Passig believes that it needs to be internalized by them in order to wake up people who, perhaps, still don’t understand the extreme danger that could await them.

What is particularly egregious about the viewpoint held by these other cultures, as it relates to the West, is that their opinion constitutes a harsh judgment on Western society, which they believe is inferior to theirs, given its many sins and indulgences. While some in the West may, indeed, be guilty of having contributed to a collapse in our once cornerstone values of faith, family and country, that cannot be a blanket indictment on all of the West since there are still those who honor the Biblical principles of loving God and their neighbor as themselves. 

But other cultures don’t have to leave their own backyard in order to point a finger at degenerate behavior. Iran, one such culture that aspires to destroy both Israel and the U.S., is guilty of just about every human rights abuse that exists. Christians and Jews are held in contempt, with a number of clergymen having been jailed for their beliefs. Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American Christian pastor is one such individual who, in 2012, was imprisoned for supposedly having been a threat to national security.

Another insidious example was the 2022 senseless “death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died after being arrested in Tehran by Iran’s notorious ‘morality police’ who enforce the country’s rules on hijabs and other conservative Islamic modes of dress and behavior.” Amini’s great sin was improperly wearing her hijab head covering. 

Following protests in Iran over the death of Amini, checkpoints were set up and cars were searched. Those suspected of having taken part were arrested, tortured and raped. That included men and women. A quick Google search on Iran violence or Iran rapes will provide a treasure trove of information that rivals anything the West can ever dish out.

Simple freedoms that Westerners enjoy, such as access to the Internet, are forbidden in countries that include Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Cuba, Egypt, North Korea and China, just to name a few. Other repressive nations also have limited or no access as well, keeping their citizens in the dark while they control what they read and to what information they are exposed. Of course, these same countries do not allow for freedom of speech as well as so many basic rights and freedoms that are taken for granted in Western civilizations. 

When speaking about genocide, which is being used these days as an accusation towards Israel, relating to Palestinians, it would be good to remember that China is truly an inhumane regime that has been accused of practicing genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups, but no one seems to refer to that as disgusting. “Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps,” and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms.”

While the above are only a few examples of very serious infractions, all of which attest to the tight-grip, smothering control that other civilizations impose on their citizens, the list is endless when it comes to the hypocrisy of lavish lifestyles, which the leaders of these “morally superior” cultures are all too happy to adopt. These men live in the lap of luxury, refusing themselves nothing while women in their culture are muzzled, abused and generally have little or no value, with the exception of birthing children and cooking. 

It's been widely reported by Human Rights Watch as well as many other organizations and news sites on the plight of women in Afghanistan. According to one report, “Afghan women and girls are facing both the collapse of their rights and dreams and risks to their basic survival. They are caught between Taliban abuses and actions by the international community that are pushing Afghans further into desperation every day. The Taliban have banned women and girls from secondary and higher education. They dictate what women must wear, how they should travel and enforce these rules through intimidation and inspections.”

All of these cases, which are just a fraction of what goes on in other cultures, highlight a sick, repressive culture of dominance with no regard for human rights or dignity and a culture that glorifies violence, torture, murder and rape against both women and men! But, to quote them, Western culture is disgusting. These types of cultures have almost no redeeming value for humanity and are so much more deserving of scorn and rejection by the enlightened world, but it seems that it's so much easier to see the flaws and stains of the more virtuous.

There’s a saying that comes out of Western culture, and it’s one that can be applied to this very issue. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Perhaps, these other cultures should take a long look at their own disgusting practices, think about how they would feel if they were the victims of the heinous crimes they perpetrate on others and maybe then come to the realization that the evil is within them. 

Until that time, however, Western culture, with all of its many faults and failings still beats the type of hellish existence that they claim you have to endure in order to be deemed a righteous and moral person who is accepted into heaven.