What
coffy describes
are atrocities.
"Since when are Democracy, egalitarianism, and respect for people's basic rights a cultural attribute?" I agree that these things are good,what I understand they mean, but I recognize that they grow out of a long social and political tradtition that has deep roots in England and its history.
As for calling mathematics, electricity, and antibiotics cultural imperialism, well, where can I begin.
For antibiotics, the assumption must be made that only antibiotics cure, or prevent infectious disease; there is some debate on this subject.
The reason people outside the "charmed circle" of mathematics and electricity mostly live in the squalor they do, is not only, or even primarily, because they have been left behind by progress. Less developed countries, like poorer neighbourhoods, become dumping grounds for the richer.
However, this is not the reason I'm noding here. The American Model of Democracy, as imposed upon Nicaragua, Cuba, or even Canada, leaves much to be desired.
And the belief of many Americans that liberal means what they want it to mean, in defiance of all other traditions...
In America, as Noam Chomsky, and others, have long observed, the process of Newspeak has proceeded so far, so fast. This is what I mean by cultural imperialism. American media--say AOL-TimeWarner-Emi--export words, language, ideas, stories, histories, ways of thinking, not all good, and all without regard for what is already there.
As a Canadian, I have witnessed this all my life. It is almost impossible for any American, or any citizen of an Imperial Power, say Roman, to reflect upon this.
They do not see their culture as a national culture; they see it as a universal culture--until it collapses.