There is an old saying about, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Just the other day it struck me that this could be expanded to explain at least some of the otherwise illogical hatred for Western Civ out there.
“The perfect is the most deadly enemy of the (pretty darn) good.”
Western Civilization objectively (simply using common units of measurement) simultaneously provides much greater personal freedom AND prosperity for more people and for a larger percentage of its people than any other that has ever existed.
Because it isn’t perfect, that some people are still oppressed or in poverty, its opponents insist it must be destroyed and the (prsumably) perfect civilization built on its ruins.
Yet surely any logical person should be able to recognize that when you destroy a pretty darn good civilization, what replaces it is much more likely to be pretty darn crappy than perfect. Or even as good as what you just destroyed.
I guess there is a shortage of logical thinkers around.
Or Obama could not have campaigned successfully on “Hope and Change,” implying that ANY possible change will by definition be an improvement.
It’s the humanist worldview that leads them to believe that they can do better, if only the existing order was destroyed.