--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> IMHO, most liberals and leftists have the same
> problem as
> neoconservatives: they hate "traditional and
> dictatorial rulers" like
> the pre-war Iraqi government and the Iranian
> government today, but,
> given half a chance, populaces in the Middle East
> flock to illiberal,
> anti-imperialist Islamists rather than nice liberal
> democrats, let
> alone nice liberal socialists. The reality:
> democracy (even much less
> than full democracy) in the Middle East = the rise
> of illiberal
> political leaders in the Middle East, for populaces
> there are not
> liberal.
This is an obvious and true, but often ignored, point.
Underlying Western political discourse in general, on the universalent side of things (be in neocon or liberal or whatever) is the unspoken assumption that "democracy" and "democratic values" of the sort with which such people identify is the default mode of humanity, and all you have to do is get rid of external circumstances that are supposedly suppressing it ("dictators" or whatever) and it will instantly reassert itself.
Kind of odd considering that liberal ideas are only a few hundred years old.
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