Western liberals

Feministe’s Favorite Fraudster | Clarissa's Blog

It’s very weird that Western liberals continue to defend these guys (Putin and Mugabe). Or at best, they remain silent. It’s some kind of ideological need to side with something that is definitively non-Western. In a way, and I know this sounds odd, but it seems to be related to having too cerebral a perspective and not really being able to imaginatively put oneself on the ground where the action is taking place. Being a few steps removed from the experience of living in Russia or Zimbabwe, and viewing these issues through a lens of abstract morality, means the conclusions one draws are kind of crazy. I think a lot of this is caused by binary thinking about good and evil. American liberals like to feel generous, so they do not want to label a third world leader as doing wrong. The default position is “Western colonialism is evil, therefore third world leaders are good.’

As Nietzsche said, if you start your measurements with designations of evil, and good is only an afterthought, then there is probably something really messed up with you. Healthy people begin with a feeling (not necessarily a concept as such) of good, and then consider unfavorable actions as “bad”, but only as an afterthought, and not with much focus or obsession.