[nova]

> You seem to think "reflecting on its past" is one of the advances that came with Western civilization

Not if taken so far as to become self-destructive.

> Not sure what "modern western ethnomasochism" is,

It means that here in the West we are (were) the best (in relative terms) but we think we are the worst, and wish for our own end.

> Can you really have one without the other?

Oh yes. Godspeed to Asia which will inherit the future, learning the good bits from the West without the suicidal self-flagellation.