"The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former."
--Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996

That's an excellent quote and it's interesting how, in our modern World, how much the contributions and the noble aspects of Western Culture (as defined by the United States) have helped the rest of the World progress. With success comes scrutiny and there are certainly aspects of our society that could be held up to higher standards but, overall, there is more good than bad.

For those who don't want to believe that, you'd have to ask why so many of the World's citizens want to come here.

From the NYT (4/3/03):

In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.

What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?

"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

Around him, the crowd roared its approval.

And who wouldn't?

Democracy, not so much. Whiskey and Sexy, I approve.

Good quote.

Huntington is right. America's 21st century popular culture is the absolute worst thing this country exports.

Really? Worse than showing nudity and pornography on network television in many countries within Europe and South America? Worse than rampant (and in many places legal) drug abuse and overall alcohol abuse in many parts of the World? Worse than totalitarian, communist regimes or sheikdoms where persecution, maiming and executing people is exercised as common practice in societies where virtually no freedoms exist?

So, I’ll guess that you think that Huntington was right because a misguided young woman like Brittany Spears overexposes here t!t$ and bares her midriff.

There you go: America bad; World good.

We’re not perfect, but where is it written that we should be or held up to a higher standard than other countries that we share the Planet with? Yes, we can do better, but we need to get a grip.

asdf, I think you may have misread the previous post. Mick was pointing out what he believes to be the worst thing America exports. Last time I checked we didn't export communist regimes.

While I agree that we're not perfect, we should demand higher standards of ourselves regardless of what other countries do. Call it naive idealism but I still believe the US to be the leader of the free world.

My point is that there are a lot worse things out there than the smut or otherwise tainted pop culture that we export and those things are perpetrated by the very regimes and governments that criticize the U.S. in particular and Western Civilization in general.

I agree that we should strive for a higher standard and just the fact that we're discussing this with reference to the quote shows that we are aware of our shortcomings and would work toward improving. But Western Culture, even with it's flaws, has certainly added more than it's subtracted.

I must confess, I was shocked that I could get MTV in Saudi Arabia.

See! The spell we're attempting to cast over the rest of the world by exporting our cultural smut is working.

Trying to ban these things doesn't work. Drugs, for example. Attempts to ban it have only created an underground crime empire. There is a solution to the problem though. If we annihilate the welfare state, the family, the church, and society will once again come to play the roles that have now been supplanted by an uncaring bureaucracy. If you want charity handouts to get back on your feet from the church, you had better stop smoking crack. The government has neither the time nor the inclination for the investigations that your friends, family, and religious authorities do.

A great book on this is "Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Policies" by Douglas B. Rasmussen: http://www.amazon.com/Norms-Liberty-Perfectionist-Non-Perfectionist-Politics/dp/0271027010/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0156554-6380065?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189957632&sr=8-1