Why Is the American media so hellbent on pointing fingers. but become silent when it comes to allies?

[ArnoldRimmer]

PDF said:

ArnoldRimmer said:

In his well-known book "clash of civilizations", Samuel Huntington states that hypocrisy and double standards are ultimately inevitable side-effects of the west's "universalism":

"Hypocrisy, double standards, and "but nots" are the price of universalist pretensions. Democracy is promoted, but not if it brings Islamic fundamentalists to power; nonproliferation is preached for Iran and Iraq, but not for Israel; free trade is the elixir of economic growth, but not for agriculture; human rights are an issue for China, but not with Saudi Arabia; aggression against oil-owning Kuwaitis is massively repulsed, but not against non-oil-owning Bosnians. Double standards in practice are the unavoidable price of universal standards of principle."

Hmm maybe I will reread Clash of Civilizations.  I remember not being a big fan of it in school.  I know I didn't like Fukyama "End of History" and it's kind of a response to that.

You read Clash of Civilizations in school? Wow, I'm kind of jealous - I'm sceptical that this book would even be allowed as official school literature in my country...

I still consider it being one of the best/most enlightening books I've ever read; just like Brzezinski's "The grand chessboard", I think even if one does not agree with everything, one will find many interesting insights in these books.

I didn't even know/remember it was a response to Fukuyama, but that actually makes sense: In one of the later chapters, Huntingon even says that the central thesis of his book is that belief in western culture etc. being universal is wrong, immoral and dangerous. Instead, he suggests that Fukuyama's mindset is actually rather typical for a culture in decay; At a certain point in their development, cultures tend to arrogantly believe that their culture, institutions etc. are near-perfect and thus superior to the rest of the world, and thus they foolishly believe in a kind of "end of history", for they expect the only remaining development to be other countries finally realizing their culture, values etc. to be superior and thus adopting them. Which, as I understand, is very close to what Fukuyama suggested in his book.