[keerthiko]

this is the most holier-than-thou (literally and figuratively) broad strokes opinion phrased as if it's a nuanced opinion about cultures.

i think it's self-evident from history and society that "importing" "barbarism" into "society"* is how we even started doing things like not unashamedly harming marginalized groups in the West. if i'm not mistaken most christian sects, whether in europe or america have had various levels of being okay with ostracizing and harming queer and trans people until very recent times. your comment smacks incredibly of thinking only western white civilizations are capable of overcoming "barbarism" and evolving into a more just society for people over time, especially using the common scapegoat of other cultures taking longer to catch up on LGBT rights.

fascinating that other people's systems of being is "barbarism" and yours is "society". and thus, it's reasonable that most of the world thinks american society was barbaric with their deep rooted slavery and racism, and european society barbaric with their violent colonial extractionism defining much of their past and present.

[sensanaty]

> your comment smacks incredibly of thinking only western white civilizations are capable of overcoming "barbarism" and evolving into a more just society for people over time...

I'm neither a Westerner, nor am I (entirely) White (1/2 Serbian, if you count it as white (you'd be surprised), 1/2 Indonesian). I also grew up in and lived in Indonesia the majority of my life. Nowhere did I state that only Western societies are the good ones, either, I tend to believe that Taoist and Buddhist countries have a better track record both in the modern day and in the past for the most part.

I'd appreciate if you didn't build a strawman of me, because I'm probably not the person you're imagining in your head. It's shocking, but people outside the west can also believe the west is doing things right and would like them to continue doing so, often because of the cultures they've observed back home.

No, what I consider barbarism is a system of being in which it's okay to commit a brutal beheading because the victim dared to show some drawings of a guy you call a Prophet. Or the one that throws people they don't like off of buildings. Or the one that buries people in the ground and chucks rocks at their heads until they die. Or preventing little girls from attending primary and high schools.

How many beheadings of innocent people exercising their freedoms provided by the nation they were born in are we okay with until we finally admit, maybe we shouldn't be letting them play in our nice garden if they're just going to kick the flowers and rip out the roots?

I grew up in Indonesia, and the entire reason I'm in the West is because of these types of people who'd do such heinous things. And guess what? The Europeans welcomed me with wide open arms, whereas many of my own countrymen would have me grievously harmed due to not being a follower of their hideous beliefs.

[keerthiko]

it was evident to me from your other comments that you yourself are an immigrant to the west, but it was also evident that you believed the west is in a better place because "it is doing things right", and therefore other places (including where you came from) are doing things wrong. my comment was less about who you are (ethnically, passport-wise, etc), but about the cultural superiority you ascribe to the west with your comment (which many non-white non-westerners do). i myself am an american citizen by immigration, probably for similar reasons to yourself, after having lived approx half my life in 4 other countries, but i don't know how relevant that is either. that these countries have welcomed you and i with open arms doesn't reinforce your opinion that they won't harm someone who didn't follow their beliefs, it just so happens that we follow their beliefs and so we get along. in fact, your comment is literally arguing for not welcoming people who don't follow your beliefs (assuming they are of violent intent).

this discussion imo is far too complex for a HN comment thread, but your depiction of "barbarism" is deeply rooted in western narratives omitting details such as many people from those places also find those atrocities terrible, and they are perpetuated because of a few powerful bigoted people and lots of propaganda. when atrocities are justified with propaganda, i think it's crude to think the people or the societies are barbaric as much as the leaders (usu. religious ones) are. western societies moved past honor killings, feudalism, slavery, concentration camps and other barbaric practices not-so-long ago, and to a great extent because of the resources they extracted from other countries during that time afforded them to bandwidth to focus on equitable societies. following that, wanting to isolate people of those other societies from also becoming part of these more equitable societies by precluding them as barbaric and therefore shouldn't be allowed here, imo, is what is barbaric.

the contemporary west has also repeatedly shown itself capable of direct barbarism too, like brutally levelling a school of innocent children in Pakistan or drone-striking innocents as collateral damage with no restraint. or what, is unjustified murder & cruelty only barbaric when done on your own soil, and fair game done in someone else's country with citizen tax dollars?

also somewhat unrelated but yes, serbian is white insofar as they genetically present features mostly associated with western white society (light-colored eyes, hair color other than black, caucasian bone structure) so without considering family circumstances/political background, that's white, at least on observation. of course with your mixed heritage i understand this may not be true of you specifically.