[ExI] The Evils of the West

[Lee Corbin]

Eschatoon Magic wrote:

> Thanks Lee for this very smart observation.

Well, thank you, but in places it was rather badly written, I'm afraid.

> Many of "us" are nice people... because we can afford it. In the past,
> when we could not afford it, we were not nice.

Yes, but to be more precise, being nice can arise
out of habit. For example, it might take a nice,
and healthy and wealthy person in our society
many months of extremely grueling conditions to
change over.

And I believe I did state that the converse sadly
isn't true: some comfortable people and some comfortable
groups have been surprisingly wicked.

> Many fellow human
> beings born in other cultures still cannot afford being nice, and they
> are not nice. Many fellow human beings born in _our_ culture still
> cannot afford being nice, and they are not nice. Simple as that.

Yes, though speaking about individuals, it is the exceptions
to this rule that are quite interesting. Sometimes you'll
find someone who's had a very rough go of it, but somehow
manages to have amazingly great empathy for others.

Born with a lot of it, I guess.

> It follows that we should do our very best to give everyone the
> possibility to be a nice person.

On the world stage, this means trying to help all societies
acquire the Western institutions that deliver the goods.

Within nations, this means attempting to rub out subcultures
(the cultures, of course, not the people in them) that nourish
viciousness.

Lee