I’m Mr. Beat And I’m here in
the Western World where we do Western Things and we have Western Values.
You know what Western Values are, right? Right? What’s that? Oh you don’t? Wait, is that why you
clicked to watch this video? Very well then. Let’s attempt to define what “Western Values”
are. Well first, let me go find my good ol’ trusty dictionary. (Turning to Ellie) Hey
while I’m searching for it, could you play that clip right there (pointing). Yeah that one.
That was from a wonderful debate from 2013 hosted by Intelligence Squared in which they spoke about
whether or not “The West” should be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western Values.
I’ll be showing more clips of it later in this video, just hold onto your butts for that.
Now wait a second, I got my dictionary, but perhaps before we look up the definition
of Western Values we should look up the definition of “The West.”
(reading from dictionary) “the direction toward the point of the horizon
where the sun sets at the equinoxes, on the left-hand side of a person
facing north, or the part of the horizon lying in this direction”
(looking up) Well that’s not terribly helpful at all now, is it.
You might be thinking, I should already know what “The West” means. After all,
I spent at least hundreds of hours studying for overpriced Western Civilization classes I took
in college. And yet, years later I still found myself Googling what “The West” actually was.
Is it a reference to the Western Hemisphere? No, not really. It basically is a reference to
Europe or any part of the world that has historically been heavily influenced by Europe.
For that reason, The West is often expanded to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Now remember, the opposite of west is east, so at one point there had to be a divide.
The divide between West and East we see today has its roots in the cultural and religious divide of
the Roman Empire. For example, folks in the western portion of the Roman Empire
often spoke Latin, while folks in the eastern portion of it often spoke Greek.
Later, the divide became more evident when the western portion no longer was a thing
yet the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire,continued on. And then,
in 1054, there was the East–West Schism, aka The Great Schism, which was the first
major split of Christianity. After it, there were now two denominations in Christianity,
the Catholic Church in the west and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East. This split, combined
with the early Muslim conquests that spread Islam throughout Western Asia and Northern Africa, made
it so that Western Christianity developed a more separate identity...oh, and VALUES (supposedly) .
When European explorers began to travel the globe to conquer and colonize foreign lands,
they brought these values with them. And missionaries followed them who eventually
were successful at converting millions to Christanity. Or I should say, WESTERN
Christianity. So where these ideas were not heavily influenced were presumably not “The West.”
If you’ve got 9 minutes, I strongly recommend my friend Dom’s video called “What is ‘the West’”
over on his channel Cogito. He goes into it deeper than I just did.
Ok, now that we established what “The West” is, let’s now attempt to define “Western Values.”
Are they simply the values that people who live in The West have? Well no, not really.
More on why that is in a bit, but know that Western values are rooted in Western civilization
itself. Western civilization is the heritage of customs, belief systems, social norms, political
systems, economic systems, and technologies of the West. Basically, the values attached to
western civilization are Western values. More than anything, Western values have been most
influenced by the BIG THREE: Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Judeo-Christian culture. But to
assume those three influences didn’t overlap with other influences outside of the West is silly.
For example, there are quite a bit of similarities when it comes to Western and Eastern religions.
And here’s another thing. When I researched examples of so-called Western Values, I began
to realize that these are values that most human beings have, whether they live in the West or not.
By the way, here is a list I compiled of examples of what folks called “Western Values:”
Much of these ideas arose out of the Age of Enlightenment, and you...yes you
watching this video right now...probably value most if not all of this stuff.
I mean, the only ones on the list that might be a bit controversial are probably the “capitalism''
one, or maybe the “morality comes from a higher power” one. Ok, maybe the “free trade” one, too.
Some of these seemingly contradict each other. But overall, even if you don’t live in The West,
you share many of these same values. And for that reason, "the world is Western."
Now, it can be problematic when folks say that those values I just mentioned are
EXCLUSIVELY Western values. Take that last video I just played for you.
Earlier in that video, Ben said: "these are values the West can exclusively claim."
This is simply not true. We’ve seen these values in other parts of the world throughout much of
human history. For example, hundreds of years before the Scientific Revolution
happened in Europe, science thrived in the Islamic World of the Middle East
and Northern Africa. China has valued science more than a thousand years before that!
Some historians also argue that ancient China also had a version of capitalism,
with competitive markets, free trade and private property. In fact, during the Qin Dynasty(Chin),
most property in China was privately owned. Again, the West doesn’t “own” these values.
Another thing that can be problematic is when folks say Western values are
far superior to all other values, to a point where forcibly spreading them around the world is ok.
That’s the second clip I’ve shown you from the extremely influential
British author Douglas Murray. Here’s another one:
Murray has made a career out of promoting and celebrating so-called Western Values,
consistently calling for spreading them around the world. So has this dude, the historian Niall
(nile) Ferguson. In Ferguson’s influential book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, he explains
why Western Values have dominated the world. Much of his argument centers on The Enlightenment being
centered in Europe and the unique circumstances that directly caused the Enlightenment.
At the end of the book, which he published in 2011 I should say,
he argued that the West had actually lost its edge
in the world, and that China, along with the rest of the world, would soon be catching up.
I gotta say, you may have not heard of them, but Murray and Ferguson have greatly
shaped the discourse about so-called Western values over the past ten years,
especially with regards to the Islamic world. Whenever both have talked about
the Islamic world, they talk about it as if it is diametrically opposed to Western Values.
I mean, I do get their points, especially when you look at sharia law and its effect on how women,
atheists, and the LGBT+ community are treated in places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
But then you’re ignoring all the reform movements WITHIN those countries. For example,
some within the Sahwa movement in Saudi Arabia have actively called for more rights
for women over the past few decades. In another Islamic country, Iran, women have led protests
in recent years against laws that require that they must wear hijabs while in public.
I don’t think Murray and Ferguson mean harm, but often when they talk about the values of
the so-called Islamic world we hear only about the extremists. And you know, pointing to extremists
as representative of an entire religion has often been a convenient way to discredit an entire
country or culture. Imagine if the world only associated the United States with its extremist
groups. Like, “don’t go to the United States amirite...all those white nationalists there.”
In fact, this oversimplification has caused a modern, worldwide culture war between The West
and “The Rest.” In other words, there are now at least tens of millions of people out there who
think that their Western values make them better people than those with...uh...non-Western values.
It also has arguably led to an increased fear of immigrants.
Often, when we see Western Values brought up these days,
it’s by people afraid we are apparently losing our Western values.
But hold on, I thought NATO was “protecting western values!”
Unfortunately white supremacists have also latched on to so-called Western Values
as a way to justify THEIR racist beliefs. Specifically, they often bring up Western
Values when promoting the white genocide conspiracy theory, which revolves around
the beliefs that powerful people are trying to prevent “white people,” whatever that means,
from having kids so that the world becomes...I don’t know…”less white” or something. Remember,
race is a social construct. It has no genetic basis, and was a term invented
by one group of people to justify that it was superior to another group of people.
Uh, yeah. Anyway...
In conclusion, most folks who speak about Western values mean well. However,
sadly it has also become coded language for something more sinister that leads to xenophobia
and racism. Perhaps continuing to label stuff in society that we like
“Western Values” is damaging public discourse and oversimplifying society.
Back to that Intelligence Squared debate I mentioned at the beginning of the video
and that I’ve been showing clips from throughout. After watching,
I found myself agreeing with the journalist
Here’s another video I came across from 2013, where this woman from Jordan calls out Eric
Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, after he talked about spreading Western values around the world.
I believe that calling values “Western” does more harm than good.
No one has to own values, and geotagging them is counterproductive. It can lead to
nationalism and xenophobia. Here’s a video where I present how nationalism can be problematic,
by the way. Basically, we all love most of these things- let’s just stop being
lazy with our language and making it “us vs. them.” Let’s just call them “values.”
But what do YOU think? Is using the phrase Western Values actually not that
big of a deal? What’s YOUR favorite Western Value? What’s your favorite Eastern Value?
What’s your favorite Southern Value? And finally, what is your favorite Northwestern Value?
Actually...what do you value? Do you value me? I hope you do. I value you.
Comment me, bruh. And thanks for watching.