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Notes -
You hit on something that's at the core of failed western thought and has ruinous implications for foreign policy.
America (and by and large, chunks of Western Europe) have this fundamental understanding of the universe where obviously they're the best, and considers that downstream of their political system, ideology, and culture.
They can't conceive of a world where that isn't the case and considered that a won argument because the liberal democratic tradition won so hard. Why don't you like American hamburgers? The French now prefer it to the jambon-beurre, that must be because the hamburger is superior.
It codes as incredibly, moronically arrogant to people outside that culture, and of course, they don't realize this at all, because for them it's like arguing about the sky being blue or water being wet. The idea that people would freely and willingly choose religious warfare in 2025 isn't something they can even conceive of, let alone the idea that this still fuels conflict worldwide.
I was reading a history book talking about Episcopalian death squads running around killing Presbyterians in Britain, in the 17th century. About half the book is a game of musical chairs where various sects are persecuting eachother, none of them even that distinctive besides the Puritans who just hated fun... totally different mindset to today.
Likewise, just the other day, I was reading on twitter about how Sunnis were bullying Shia and Sikhs in British 'multi-faith prayer rooms', hiding their prayer books and similar. How they'd treat others were they in charge is pretty clear, they're pretty pushy even as a minority. You don't want to be Shia in Saudi Arabia. There are some actual differences in nationality for this, so it's more explicable.
I think it'd be funny to tell social liberals sanctimoniously 'read more and educate yourselves about history!' but it wouldn't work.
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