Pretty much, you can’t eat “freedom.” “Freedom” can’t provide shelter, or dignified and equal treatment as a human being, or medical care, or other necessities of life. The west celebrates negative freedoms, a series of hypotheticals that ultimately all hinge upon the completely neglected material conditions for their empowerment- the rich and poor alike have the “freedom” to march on the street as open Nazis, the “freedom” to hike rents, exploit laborers, and engage in all kinds of corruption and cruelty as they please (and can afford), the “freedom” of choosing to sleep under a bridge (and be removed by cops exercising capital’s “freedom” in turn to remove “eyesores” or to sleep in mansion.
What substance there is to the genuine western “freedoms” (as someone who is trans, and a racial minority, etc) is ephemeral, treated as an easily-revoked privilege rather than fact. Just table scraps, fought over (with said fights, demagoguery, divisions, culture wars being instigated and set aflame by the state and all the pillars of capital) as the foundations of actual human sustenance and all freedoms are stolen from under our feet.
Maybe most other cultures may be “socially backwards” in many aspects, and/or less permissive- or rather, most are. But once again, it is the material conditions (which the west has destroyed across the globe) upon which real progress is built- and frankly if you ask me, within decades if even that no one with sense will be able to claim societies like China are less “free,” less socially developed than the west (rather the opposite); given enough time (albeit much more, as the west has strategically promoted Islamism and reactionary monarchies over secular government in the region and those scars will last a long time), I think the same can even probably be said of the Gulf states or even Iran, if things continue as-is. Because these societies are not built upon exploiting the divisions, at least certainly not to any extent comparable to that of the west; because these societies do actually focus on uplifting the material conditions of their people (from which the social uplifting in other ways can then thrive); because these societies, flawed as they (and all societies) are, still have an understanding of a basic human dignity to be maintained, even if that understanding all too often only extends to their own citizenry; because these societies, for all that they have played a role within the imperialist world system, are not generally speaking directly imperialist (not in any comparable sense, anyways) themselves, but rather are indigenous and have built themselves up of their own merits and production, and do not face the same contradictions like that of the west.
Pretty much, you can’t eat “freedom.” “Freedom” can’t provide shelter, or dignified and equal treatment as a human being, or medical care, or other necessities of life. The west celebrates negative freedoms, a series of hypotheticals that ultimately all hinge upon the completely neglected material conditions for their empowerment- the rich and poor alike have the “freedom” to march on the street as open Nazis, the “freedom” to hike rents, exploit laborers, and engage in all kinds of corruption and cruelty as they please (and can afford), the “freedom” of choosing to sleep under a bridge (and be removed by cops exercising capital’s “freedom” in turn to remove “eyesores” or to sleep in mansion.
What substance there is to the genuine western “freedoms” (as someone who is trans, and a racial minority, etc) is ephemeral, treated as an easily-revoked privilege rather than fact. Just table scraps, fought over (with said fights, demagoguery, divisions, culture wars being instigated and set aflame by the state and all the pillars of capital) as the foundations of actual human sustenance and all freedoms are stolen from under our feet.
Maybe most other cultures may be “socially backwards” in many aspects, and/or less permissive- or rather, most are. But once again, it is the material conditions (which the west has destroyed across the globe) upon which real progress is built- and frankly if you ask me, within decades if even that no one with sense will be able to claim societies like China are less “free,” less socially developed than the west (rather the opposite); given enough time (albeit much more, as the west has strategically promoted Islamism and reactionary monarchies over secular government in the region and those scars will last a long time), I think the same can even probably be said of the Gulf states or even Iran, if things continue as-is. Because these societies are not built upon exploiting the divisions, at least certainly not to any extent comparable to that of the west; because these societies do actually focus on uplifting the material conditions of their people (from which the social uplifting in other ways can then thrive); because these societies, flawed as they (and all societies) are, still have an understanding of a basic human dignity to be maintained, even if that understanding all too often only extends to their own citizenry; because these societies, for all that they have played a role within the imperialist world system, are not generally speaking directly imperialist (not in any comparable sense, anyways) themselves, but rather are indigenous and have built themselves up of their own merits and production, and do not face the same contradictions like that of the west.