western supremacy- artificial excellence

My education was able to give me the hits of Western society: philosophy, science, culture, art, and supposedly the best of all of them. It depresses me. This shouldn’t be excellence, because ​the only thing excellent about it was its ability to be troublesome for my learning. At a school so egocentric, the worst experience is the true measure of its educational capability. I wish Columbia University wasn’t as influential as it is but for 270 years it has successfully put itself in the spotlight as a beacon of Western thought and producers of exemplary humanity. But this excellence is artificial. Getting a supreme Western education like attending Columbia is supposed to be a pipeline to excellence. It’s one they’ve hijacked though, to direct the flow of intellect and potential towards themselves and starve the rest while claiming the rest naturally have less.

It’s artificial excellence— manufactured, appropriated, stolen, taken, exaggerated. It looks so real to us because we’re at a point in time where all the generations that exist are people completely of the West. Even though we have knowledge of colonial ancestors our society, with the multiple technological revolutions and rapid ages of invention, has unique aspects distinct to the West. So we think no humanity could’ve done this before because they haven’t, which makes the West better than the rest. The truth is, progress would’ve always happened because time doesn’t stop. Revolution and change is inevitable. What was completely avoidable was the damage humanity did while the times changed.

So the perceived excellence of the West is a shiny illusion. What happened in excess was violence and for a long time it outwardly praised itself for its savagery. I’ll speak for modern American history, that the 60s and 70s was a period of great social change where people finally had to reckon with the lies of civility they told themselves. Within America the definition of a human being genuinely expanded. I think there’s a time like that coming again, because the destruction in the world is so enormous and humanity’s rage is roiling. Real human being, love and acceptance, positive collaboration is where we’re going. It’s certainly where I plan on going.