The “ethnocentric” in the title is coded language¹. It was triggered by a paper² I just stumbled over but is the product of by now over two decades of observation (and, to be fair, festering resentment).
I bring attention to a key phrase in the conclusion of this otherwise meandering and unclear paper:
Thus, we suggest that policymakers in China consider emphasizing more on the reciprocity benefits and build a collaborative effort across the scientific community.
What. A. Coincidence.
A study published in the (western) journal³ Humanities and Social Sciences Communications comes to the conclusion that the Chinese government needs to emphasize the benefits of open data sharing.
Yet the very same culture that preaches loudly “open data sharing” and other such nigh-utopian ideals, in a stunning example of “do what I say, not what I do” also practices the precise opposite. For example the Chinese are specifically barred from cooperation in space ventures⁴ with anything that NASA is affiliated with (which is, essentially, all space ventures and most such conferences).
This is not, however, just the USA and just China. Canada (my nation of citizenship), for example, routinely issues thundering condemnation of any nation that treats indigenous peoples badly (unless that nation is aligned with Canada, in which case Japan’s treatment of the Ainu and Taiwan’s treatment of their assorted indigenous groups gets passed over with an embarrassed cough) while it treats its own indigenous peoples in ways that are positively shocking even to this day, despite the facade of rapprochement. (Keep in mind that the last of Canada’s horrific residential schools was closed in 1997—I was 31 years old at the time!—and that in Canada being a native means you are not a “visible minority”, a term fraught with its own weird baggage.)
And you’ll find similar ethnocentric, hypocritical bullshit all over the west, even down to all the (well-deserved!) official condemnation of Hamas over the October 2023 attacks while standing by in embarrassed silence as Israel commits open genocide both in and out of Gaza starting well before October 2023 and continuing to this day.
So… My current view is that western powers are a large collection of hypocritical twats whose views can and should be safely ignored by other peoples of the world as far as is possible when so many (chiefly) American guns and bombs are pointed at them threateningly.
Change my view.
¹ Decoding it: “white supremacist”.
² https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03570-9
³ Yes the primary authors are Chinese in Chinese universities. There are reasons for this.
⁴ The fact that this has backfired, both directly and indirectly, on the USA multiple times is a never-ending source of amusement to me.
I’d say only about 20% of white Americans are white supremacists, the problem is that’s a large voting bloc that will only support one party, so they get catered to.
I can’t change your mind, you’re mostly right.
Lets get the repugnicunts out of office forever and change that.
Now this is going to be largely anecdotal as many of the places I’m speaking about don’t allow studies for things like this, but… Having now lived in over a dozen countries and been on scores of ExPat compounds the world over, I can safely say that every country and race on the planet has those that think they are superior to everyone else. This isn’t an exclusive thing about the West. Heck, Canada and the US aren’t even in the top 3 worst examples I can think of. I’ve seen it in a much stronger form in Saudi Arabia. We’re talking US slavery-era levels of racism there, and that’s currently.
Oh I certainly agree, last year I passed some time lurking the forums of unironic Mongol Supremacists and their rancidness was very similar to what we see on MAGA darkweb forums.
And also I have personal experience that you are right about SA in specific, and a good chunk of the Middle East in general.
I’m not saying the U.S. is the worst, but white supremacists have actively been trying to overthrow our government so I’m more focused on them right now.