I don't think the things listed in the OP need be specific to Western liberal democracies. Most of them seem like things brought about by the natural progress of society. Is democracy better than dictatorship for it's people and more likely to result in advances in society rather than a tinpot dictatorship where 98% of people live in poverty? Of course it is. But this doesn't mean that our system is the driving force behind every advance in the world just because we may be "better" in certain areas. It doesn't mean that our system is perfect or that another system might not be better either now or in the future.
Are we that liberal? Can you be too liberal? What is liberal? What areas are we judging when we talk of being liberal? And are we judging that by how the law currently stands in these areas or what the majority of the populace's attitudes are towards these things?
How democratic are we? Aren't we a "democracy" that is very much weighted in favour of wealth and status? A sort of democracy/plutocracy? Who do you think would have most chance of affecting their local MP - an unemployed man or the owner of a multinational company? It might be one person one vote but there's more to politics than elections.
Is our society that equal? There is no sexism or racism to speak of either within individuals within our society or even within large institutions present in our society? Don't think so.
This much vaunted freedom of expression is a very strange thing. We don't actually have it for a start because the law of the land must come before that in order to safeguard society. What people usually mean is relative freedom to express yourself so long as you don't break any laws - otherwise you will be prosecuted. Freedom of expression is actually a misnomer. It's really freedom within certain parameters. But, yes, we have more freedom than others.
The abolition of slavery. Well, first let's remember that slavery is not the natural state of things. To begin with someone developed the idea of slavery (and we - US and UK - perfected that better than anyone) and then eventually civilization saw fit to end it and this was relatively recent in the grand scope of our species existence. Even so, we still have Bangladeshi sweatshops making our clothes and people stuck in poverty in our own country and tied aid contracts with third world countries and, again, we seem to be at the top of the pyramid as far as that goes. I say we but really it's the wealthy industrialists of the 19th century who started all that and it's continued since then really. It's perhaps not slavery per se but it's in that ballpark.
Parliamentary democracy. Ha ha ha. Yeah, okay. If that's working for you then that's great.
Artistic and scientific achievement. That's the enlightenment. It's western, it's liberal, but not so sure about the democratic part. The democratic word suggests the state and the system were responsible whereas I see it more as the people and in particular, the intellectuals of the time, and most of them were anti-authoritarian and reacting against the authorities of the time (church and state) who would have happily shut them up if public opinion allowed it. I think the age of enlightenment would have happened under a great many systems.
Acknowledgement of same sex relationships. It's dubious how advanced we are in that one too. As a society it was illegal up until a few short decades ago. Then civil partnerships in the 90s (?). Now weddings very recently. That's not really a long proud history of tolerance really. So that's the state's progress report. As for the people.....well, depends on who you ask. There are some people who haven't accepted it so you can't really boast about how well we're doing on that one anyway. In any case, this is just reversing the terrible laws we had in the past. That hardly seems like something to be proud of. More like it should never have been any other way to begin with.
Religious toleration and secularism - enlightenment. And not all that tolerant really if we judge attitudes rather than laws. Also - can you be too tolerant? How about if it's some cult that wants everyone to kill themselves on January 1st? Do we tolerate them and let them take out a billboard and run tv adverts? This is the same as freedom of expression. We are relatively tolerant without being stupidly so and even that's debatable.
We might be "better" in some regards than other societies but we aren't all that great really. And all the actual progress was done by other people, mostly from generations past (and actually mostly German and French IMO). And in many ways I would argue we've regressed. For example, up until around the 1970s there was a broad strand of intellectualism throughout our arts and even within the national broadcasting. That has all but disappeared. We've dumbed down in many ways and gone for lowest common denominator - in the arts, politics, education system possibly. More than anything we've developed the attitude that intellectualism is to be sneered at and have gone for populist choices at every juncture.
I know I'm being picky and argumentative but I'm not fond of chest-beating over these things. I'll give us a C+. And when I say us I mean the UK solely.
I don't think the things listed in the OP need be specific to Western liberal democracies. Most of them seem like things brought about by the natural progress of society. Is democracy better than dictatorship for it's people and more likely to result in advances in society rather than a tinpot dictatorship where 98% of people live in poverty? Of course it is. But this doesn't mean that our system is the driving force behind every advance in the world just because we may be "better" in certain areas. It doesn't mean that our system is perfect or that another system might not be better either now or in the future.
Are we that liberal? Can you be too liberal? What is liberal? What areas are we judging when we talk of being liberal? And are we judging that by how the law currently stands in these areas or what the majority of the populace's attitudes are towards these things?
How democratic are we? Aren't we a "democracy" that is very much weighted in favour of wealth and status? A sort of democracy/plutocracy? Who do you think would have most chance of affecting their local MP - an unemployed man or the owner of a multinational company? It might be one person one vote but there's more to politics than elections.
Is our society that equal? There is no sexism or racism to speak of either within individuals within our society or even within large institutions present in our society? Don't think so.
This much vaunted freedom of expression is a very strange thing. We don't actually have it for a start because the law of the land must come before that in order to safeguard society. What people usually mean is relative freedom to express yourself so long as you don't break any laws - otherwise you will be prosecuted. Freedom of expression is actually a misnomer. It's really freedom within certain parameters. But, yes, we have more freedom than others.
The abolition of slavery. Well, first let's remember that slavery is not the natural state of things. To begin with someone developed the idea of slavery (and we - US and UK - perfected that better than anyone) and then eventually civilization saw fit to end it and this was relatively recent in the grand scope of our species existence. Even so, we still have Bangladeshi sweatshops making our clothes and people stuck in poverty in our own country and tied aid contracts with third world countries and, again, we seem to be at the top of the pyramid as far as that goes. I say we but really it's the wealthy industrialists of the 19th century who started all that and it's continued since then really. It's perhaps not slavery per se but it's in that ballpark.
Parliamentary democracy. Ha ha ha. Yeah, okay. If that's working for you then that's great.
Artistic and scientific achievement. That's the enlightenment. It's western, it's liberal, but not so sure about the democratic part. The democratic word suggests the state and the system were responsible whereas I see it more as the people and in particular, the intellectuals of the time, and most of them were anti-authoritarian and reacting against the authorities of the time (church and state) who would have happily shut them up if public opinion allowed it. I think the age of enlightenment would have happened under a great many systems.
Acknowledgement of same sex relationships. It's dubious how advanced we are in that one too. As a society it was illegal up until a few short decades ago. Then civil partnerships in the 90s (?). Now weddings very recently. That's not really a long proud history of tolerance really. So that's the state's progress report. As for the people.....well, depends on who you ask. There are some people who haven't accepted it so you can't really boast about how well we're doing on that one anyway. In any case, this is just reversing the terrible laws we had in the past. That hardly seems like something to be proud of. More like it should never have been any other way to begin with.
Religious toleration and secularism - enlightenment. And not all that tolerant really if we judge attitudes rather than laws. Also - can you be too tolerant? How about if it's some cult that wants everyone to kill themselves on January 1st? Do we tolerate them and let them take out a billboard and run tv adverts? This is the same as freedom of expression. We are relatively tolerant without being stupidly so and even that's debatable.
We might be "better" in some regards than other societies but we aren't all that great really. And all the actual progress was done by other people, mostly from generations past (and actually mostly German and French IMO). And in many ways I would argue we've regressed. For example, up until around the 1970s there was a broad strand of intellectualism throughout our arts and even within the national broadcasting. That has all but disappeared. We've dumbed down in many ways and gone for lowest common denominator - in the arts, politics, education system possibly. More than anything we've developed the attitude that intellectualism is to be sneered at and have gone for populist choices at every juncture.
I know I'm being picky and argumentative but I'm not fond of chest-beating over these things. I'll give us a C+. And when I say us I mean the UK solely.
I'm not talking about 'us' as in 'the UK'. I'm referring specifically to the democracies of Western Europe.
Either way, if you'd give Western society a mark of C+ then what would you rate as higher than C+ that is outside Western society?
I'm not talking about 'us' as in 'the UK'. I'm referring specifically to the democracies of Western Europe.
Either way, if you'd give Western society a mark of C+ then what would you rate as higher than C+ that is outside Western society?
I don't know other societies well enough to judge. Japan interests me because they seem so unique but I couldn't judge them. All I know is as an outsider reading other people's accounts and I think you need to live within a country for years before you can really know it.
My C+ wasn't because I thought there was an A+ society out there, but because I think if A+ is as good as a society can be in the things you've listed then we are about C+.
I don't know other societies well enough to judge. Japan interests me because they seem so unique but I couldn't judge them. All I know is as an outsider reading other people's accounts and I think you need to live within a country for years before you can really know it.
My C+ wasn't because I thought there was an A+ society out there, but because I think if A+ is as good as a society can be in the things you've listed then we are about C+.
But the point of my thread was to argue that Western civilisation is the pinnacle of human civilisation so far. Will there be superior civilisations in the future? Possibly, but as things stand at the moment I don't see much competition either from the past or the present.
Japanese culture has been, since 1945, very heavily influenced by Western culture.
Western liberal democracy has an inbuilt expiry so it is completely flawed.
It allowed desert Christianity to engulf and dominate it. And as we speak, we are building mosques in the EU for the next take over.
If Western Democracy was truly 'democratic' there would be a vote on the state of islam in the UK and whether the people want anymore more mosques and I don't think they would.
The fact that this vote will never take place, along with referendums like the abolition of the House of Lords, end of the TV Licence Fee and other archaic feudal systems, shows in fact, we have a very weak form of democracy... certainly not the one of the Ancient Athenians who could vote directly on issues effecting them.
We are on a river on a rudderless boat - we just get to vote on the captain and then boast how we live in a Western Democracy...
But the point of my thread was to argue that Western civilisation is the pinnacle of human civilisation so far. Will there be superior civilisations in the future? Possibly, but as things stand at the moment I don't see much competition either from the past or the present.
Japanese culture has been, since 1945, very heavily influenced by Western culture.
In most ways I think it is, in some ways I think it isn't. Mostly I think society advances through the ages and we should be mindful that most of the actual advancement was done for us by our ancestors or adopted from previous societies - Babylon, Persia, Carthage, Egypt, Greece, China, Rome. That's where the "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote comes into it.
Of course we should be better than previous societies because we adopt their advances and use them as our own. You'd have to be pretty rubbish as a society to actually regress scientifically. In terms of advances made then early societies would probably beat us hands down because there was more work to be done then.
In terms of pinnacle of civilization so far. Maybe - I don't know. If you want to argue that then I couldn't disagree but there are 200 countries or so in the world and I've lived in 1 so I wouldn't make that claim myself. I wouldn't even know how to begin to assess such a thing as the pinnacle of civilization could incorporate a great many things and is very subjective. And to make it even more complex we then have to ask whether we are talking about the laws of the land and how the state treats certain areas, the attitudes of the people and whether that correlates with the law, and all sorts of other stuff. Then you have to ask whether we take account of history and stuff like colonisation and how that gave us a head start over other societies and whether our advancement had any ethical base. Is our current liberal democracy ahead of the rest in large parts due to our global conquests in the past and how does that sit with us morally? And how do we judge civilization - is it attitudes of the people, combined with laws of the land, combined with scientific progress, combined with living conditions of the people? That's hard to judge.
It's all very complicated. I'll say in very general terms we are better (as far as I know or am led to believe) than most others. Personally I like the Scandinavians as far as attitudes go.
"Slavery is a feature of Utopian life and it is reported that every household has two slaves"
"There is no private property on Utopia"
"All people wear the same types of simple clothes"
"Premarital sex is punished by a lifetime of enforced celibacy and adultery being punished by enslavement"
"Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain"
"Women are restricted to conducting household tasks for the most part"
"Slavery is a feature of Utopian life and it is reported that every household has two slaves"
"There is no private property on Utopia"
"All people wear the same types of simple clothes"
"Premarital sex is punished by a lifetime of enforced celibacy and adultery being punished by enslavement"
"Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain"
"Women are restricted to conducting household tasks for the most part"
The ideals of utopia are generally understood in a modern. You already responded about Star Trek and that's my point. The inspiration of the idea of Utopia comes from the book but you can take it beyond that as I did to mention something like Star Trek.
As ever you are trying to apply selectively aspects you want to use to frame me and categorise me. I refuse.
The ideals of utopia are generally understood in a modern. You already responded about Star Trek and that's my point. The inspiration of the idea of Utopia comes from the book but you can take it beyond that as I did to mention something like Star Trek.
As ever you are trying to apply selectively aspects you want to use to frame me and categorise me. I refuse.
I'm not convinced there's such a direct line of descent from More's Utopia to Star Trek as you're trying to suggest. The similarities are vague, broad strokes rather than specific detail.
Btw, which societies would you rank above those of Western Europe?
I'm not convinced there's such a direct line of descent from More's Utopia to Star Trek as you're trying to suggest. The similarities are vague, broad strokes rather than specific detail.
Btw, which societies would you rank above those of Western Europe?
I'm pretty sure your average American would argue for the good ol' USofA! After all, I'd suggest The States has more of an influence on Western Europe than Western Europe does on The States.
I'm pretty sure your average American would argue for the good ol' USofA! After all, I'd suggest The States has more of an influence on Western Europe than Western Europe does on The States.
Yes, I'm sure they would. Despite its undoubted technological contributions it's hard not to regard the USA as sui generis with too many peculiarities that set it apart e.g. rampant fundamentalist religious belief and support for the death penalty, neither of which I really associate with Western liberal democracies.
I'm pretty sure your average American would argue for the good ol' USofA! After all, I'd suggest The States has more of an influence on Western Europe than Western Europe does on The States.
Undoubtedly.
Personally I'd say that not buying into the idea of exceptionalism gives W. Europe the advantage. We don't have the luxury or inclination of pretending we aren't a small part of a much bigger world.
Personally I'd say that not buying into the idea of exceptionalism gives W. Europe the advantage. We don't have the luxury or inclination of pretending we aren't a small part of a much bigger world.
Yes, the USA is a strange sort of hyperculture where everything is dialled up to the max. I'm quite uncomfortable with the notion of America as 'leader of the free world'.
Never heard of the adage; knowing where you come from to help understand who you are and where you are going? You don't have to agree with it but surely you have heard of such a concept?
Oh, I've heard of the adage.
I'm just not sure why the fact that some asian cultures used to be quite enlightened is important when quantifying how egalitarian they are now.
I'm just not sure why the fact that some asian cultures used to be quite enlightened is important when quantifying how egalitarian they are now.
Well they didn't just suddenly pop into existance did they? You can't explain it very well unless you trace backwards and recognise the mechanisms by which the changes happened.
Yes, I'm sure they would. Despite its undoubted technological contributions it's hard not to regard the USA as sui generis with too many peculiarities that set it apart e.g. rampant fundamentalist religious belief and support for the death penalty, neither of which I really associate with Western liberal democracies.
Well, anyone can cherry-pick the bits which don't fit in with a particular theory!
With regard to the somewhat dramatic "rampant fundamentalist religious belief" comment, it's not as though specific religions are banned in The States. The US is still dominated by Christianity (although Islam is growing rapidly with a 66% rise between 2002 and 2012) but that's for historical reasons; not because of a lack of religious freedom.
Earlier, you said "the trick is in making the civilisation last, which is easier said than done." Let's compare the USA and Western Europe on that one. For how long has Western Europe been a unified "civilisation"? 70 years? A bit early to be popping the Champagne corks, methinks! ;-)
Comments
Are we that liberal? Can you be too liberal? What is liberal? What areas are we judging when we talk of being liberal? And are we judging that by how the law currently stands in these areas or what the majority of the populace's attitudes are towards these things?
How democratic are we? Aren't we a "democracy" that is very much weighted in favour of wealth and status? A sort of democracy/plutocracy? Who do you think would have most chance of affecting their local MP - an unemployed man or the owner of a multinational company? It might be one person one vote but there's more to politics than elections.
Is our society that equal? There is no sexism or racism to speak of either within individuals within our society or even within large institutions present in our society? Don't think so.
This much vaunted freedom of expression is a very strange thing. We don't actually have it for a start because the law of the land must come before that in order to safeguard society. What people usually mean is relative freedom to express yourself so long as you don't break any laws - otherwise you will be prosecuted. Freedom of expression is actually a misnomer. It's really freedom within certain parameters. But, yes, we have more freedom than others.
The abolition of slavery. Well, first let's remember that slavery is not the natural state of things. To begin with someone developed the idea of slavery (and we - US and UK - perfected that better than anyone) and then eventually civilization saw fit to end it and this was relatively recent in the grand scope of our species existence. Even so, we still have Bangladeshi sweatshops making our clothes and people stuck in poverty in our own country and tied aid contracts with third world countries and, again, we seem to be at the top of the pyramid as far as that goes. I say we but really it's the wealthy industrialists of the 19th century who started all that and it's continued since then really. It's perhaps not slavery per se but it's in that ballpark.
Parliamentary democracy. Ha ha ha. Yeah, okay. If that's working for you then that's great.
Artistic and scientific achievement. That's the enlightenment. It's western, it's liberal, but not so sure about the democratic part. The democratic word suggests the state and the system were responsible whereas I see it more as the people and in particular, the intellectuals of the time, and most of them were anti-authoritarian and reacting against the authorities of the time (church and state) who would have happily shut them up if public opinion allowed it. I think the age of enlightenment would have happened under a great many systems.
Acknowledgement of same sex relationships. It's dubious how advanced we are in that one too. As a society it was illegal up until a few short decades ago. Then civil partnerships in the 90s (?). Now weddings very recently. That's not really a long proud history of tolerance really. So that's the state's progress report. As for the people.....well, depends on who you ask. There are some people who haven't accepted it so you can't really boast about how well we're doing on that one anyway. In any case, this is just reversing the terrible laws we had in the past. That hardly seems like something to be proud of. More like it should never have been any other way to begin with.
Religious toleration and secularism - enlightenment. And not all that tolerant really if we judge attitudes rather than laws. Also - can you be too tolerant? How about if it's some cult that wants everyone to kill themselves on January 1st? Do we tolerate them and let them take out a billboard and run tv adverts? This is the same as freedom of expression. We are relatively tolerant without being stupidly so and even that's debatable.
We might be "better" in some regards than other societies but we aren't all that great really. And all the actual progress was done by other people, mostly from generations past (and actually mostly German and French IMO). And in many ways I would argue we've regressed. For example, up until around the 1970s there was a broad strand of intellectualism throughout our arts and even within the national broadcasting. That has all but disappeared. We've dumbed down in many ways and gone for lowest common denominator - in the arts, politics, education system possibly. More than anything we've developed the attitude that intellectualism is to be sneered at and have gone for populist choices at every juncture.
I know I'm being picky and argumentative but I'm not fond of chest-beating over these things. I'll give us a C+. And when I say us I mean the UK solely.
I'm not talking about 'us' as in 'the UK'. I'm referring specifically to the democracies of Western Europe.
Either way, if you'd give Western society a mark of C+ then what would you rate as higher than C+ that is outside Western society?
If you'd give Western society a mark of C+ then what would you rate as higher than C+ that is outside Western society?
I don't know other societies well enough to judge. Japan interests me because they seem so unique but I couldn't judge them. All I know is as an outsider reading other people's accounts and I think you need to live within a country for years before you can really know it.
My C+ wasn't because I thought there was an A+ society out there, but because I think if A+ is as good as a society can be in the things you've listed then we are about C+.
But the point of my thread was to argue that Western civilisation is the pinnacle of human civilisation so far. Will there be superior civilisations in the future? Possibly, but as things stand at the moment I don't see much competition either from the past or the present.
Japanese culture has been, since 1945, very heavily influenced by Western culture.
Your idea of Utopia is probably vastly different to mine...
I'm not even sure exactly how I would define my own personal Utopia and I suspect yours would be different to mine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28book%29
Utopia like that. Or like in Star Trek. Not a caliphate. Not a Muslim only world.
I'd ask you to apologise but I've lost the energy to try and argue with your wildly inaccurate presumptions about me.
*sigh*
See my reaponse above.
You mean all American? No thanks. Be much much better if it was like depicted in the Star Wars galactic civilisation.
It allowed desert Christianity to engulf and dominate it. And as we speak, we are building mosques in the EU for the next take over.
If Western Democracy was truly 'democratic' there would be a vote on the state of islam in the UK and whether the people want anymore more mosques and I don't think they would.
The fact that this vote will never take place, along with referendums like the abolition of the House of Lords, end of the TV Licence Fee and other archaic feudal systems, shows in fact, we have a very weak form of democracy... certainly not the one of the Ancient Athenians who could vote directly on issues effecting them.
We are on a river on a rudderless boat - we just get to vote on the captain and then boast how we live in a Western Democracy...
In most ways I think it is, in some ways I think it isn't. Mostly I think society advances through the ages and we should be mindful that most of the actual advancement was done for us by our ancestors or adopted from previous societies - Babylon, Persia, Carthage, Egypt, Greece, China, Rome. That's where the "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote comes into it.
Of course we should be better than previous societies because we adopt their advances and use them as our own. You'd have to be pretty rubbish as a society to actually regress scientifically. In terms of advances made then early societies would probably beat us hands down because there was more work to be done then.
In terms of pinnacle of civilization so far. Maybe - I don't know. If you want to argue that then I couldn't disagree but there are 200 countries or so in the world and I've lived in 1 so I wouldn't make that claim myself. I wouldn't even know how to begin to assess such a thing as the pinnacle of civilization could incorporate a great many things and is very subjective. And to make it even more complex we then have to ask whether we are talking about the laws of the land and how the state treats certain areas, the attitudes of the people and whether that correlates with the law, and all sorts of other stuff. Then you have to ask whether we take account of history and stuff like colonisation and how that gave us a head start over other societies and whether our advancement had any ethical base. Is our current liberal democracy ahead of the rest in large parts due to our global conquests in the past and how does that sit with us morally? And how do we judge civilization - is it attitudes of the people, combined with laws of the land, combined with scientific progress, combined with living conditions of the people? That's hard to judge.
It's all very complicated. I'll say in very general terms we are better (as far as I know or am led to believe) than most others. Personally I like the Scandinavians as far as attitudes go.
Really?
"Slavery is a feature of Utopian life and it is reported that every household has two slaves"
"There is no private property on Utopia"
"All people wear the same types of simple clothes"
"Premarital sex is punished by a lifetime of enforced celibacy and adultery being punished by enslavement"
"Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain"
"Women are restricted to conducting household tasks for the most part"
The ideals of utopia are generally understood in a modern. You already responded about Star Trek and that's my point. The inspiration of the idea of Utopia comes from the book but you can take it beyond that as I did to mention something like Star Trek.
As ever you are trying to apply selectively aspects you want to use to frame me and categorise me. I refuse.
I'm not convinced there's such a direct line of descent from More's Utopia to Star Trek as you're trying to suggest. The similarities are vague, broad strokes rather than specific detail.
Btw, which societies would you rank above those of Western Europe?
I'm pretty sure your average American would argue for the good ol' USofA! After all, I'd suggest The States has more of an influence on Western Europe than Western Europe does on The States.
Yes, I'm sure they would. Despite its undoubted technological contributions it's hard not to regard the USA as sui generis with too many peculiarities that set it apart e.g. rampant fundamentalist religious belief and support for the death penalty, neither of which I really associate with Western liberal democracies.
Undoubtedly.
Personally I'd say that not buying into the idea of exceptionalism gives W. Europe the advantage. We don't have the luxury or inclination of pretending we aren't a small part of a much bigger world.
Yes, the USA is a strange sort of hyperculture where everything is dialled up to the max. I'm quite uncomfortable with the notion of America as 'leader of the free world'.
Oh, I've heard of the adage.
I'm just not sure why the fact that some asian cultures used to be quite enlightened is important when quantifying how egalitarian they are now.
Well they didn't just suddenly pop into existance did they? You can't explain it very well unless you trace backwards and recognise the mechanisms by which the changes happened.
Well, anyone can cherry-pick the bits which don't fit in with a particular theory!
With regard to the somewhat dramatic "rampant fundamentalist religious belief" comment, it's not as though specific religions are banned in The States. The US is still dominated by Christianity (although Islam is growing rapidly with a 66% rise between 2002 and 2012) but that's for historical reasons; not because of a lack of religious freedom.
Earlier, you said "the trick is in making the civilisation last, which is easier said than done." Let's compare the USA and Western Europe on that one. For how long has Western Europe been a unified "civilisation"? 70 years? A bit early to be popping the Champagne corks, methinks! ;-)