but, when you look at these different civilizations, like...

they don't all want the same thing. liberal naivete is a bad idea, here. you have to listen to what they're actually saying. if you treat the chinese the same way as the europeans, you shouldn't be surprised when you get spit on.

i do think there's a real dividing line between the east v the west, but it can be stated as defining the west as greek civilization and the east as chinese civilization. you have to essentially write off africa, australia and the americas as "indigenous barbarians" under this analysis, but the facts at least uphold an unequal level of development. another way to look at this is that the west is judaic in character, whereas the east is vedic. you would draw the line, then, somewhere through historical persia. a maximum extent of western civilization would probably be alexander's conquests; even the most minimal concept would fully absorb both islam and russia. on the other hand, both zoroastrianism and the historical celtic civilizations would be on the eastern side of the divide, which had it's maximum western extent during the hunnic and mongol invasions.

so, i consider the muslims to be a part of the western world, not a part of the eastern world. and, they're pretty clear on what they want: they want to eclipse. they want to be the hegemon, but not via conquest, so much as via transformation. their maximum extent may encircle the far west of the old world, up through spain to southern france on one side and pushing into vienna on the other, but europeans inevitably misunderstand the context: they were just completing their conquest of rome. they are barbarian usurpers, historically, as were the gemans, but islam is a successor culture of the roman empire. america's interaction with islam should be seen in terms of a conflict within western civilization, rather than in terms of a clash of self-contained civilizations. the fuckers were at least right about one thing: it is a battle for hearts and minds. and, you know what side i'm on. i suppose that if you are standing in america and are a muslim, you may have a different perspective on this issue than i do. but, i see this simply as a struggle between religion and secularism. the cultural and ethnic layers of it are mostly illusory - the muslims are just as greek, just as roman, just as judaic, just as european, and even just as white, broadly, as any other western subculture.

russia is also a part of the western world, and is the actual cultural successor of the eastern empire. they are the closest direct descendant of late greek civilization. and, despite america's best efforts to cast them as an adversary (something that is so old that thomas paine made note of it, even going so far as to erect russia as the new french, a concept that is particularly daunting in the context of the thousand year war between britiain and france over feudal land ownership), the russians do not hate us. the russians see us as lost cousins, which is what we truly are. they wanted to join nato, for fuck's sake. treating the russians as an enemy or a threat is largely ignoring the evidence.

the fact about india is that it is developing too slowly to have these discussions, yet. and, climate change will be particularly damaging to them, even as they keeping spewing the carbon out. from the vedas, through to alexander, to the mughals and the british, india has actually always remained in what is today called the global south. they have an ancient culture, but they are not an ancient empire. a united india is probably not going to make it through this century. the thing the west should be concerned about regarding india is the question of it's instability, and what that means in terms of things like migration.

but, the chinese are a different animal. they are a vedic civilization, like india, but they are also an empire. they have almost no shared historical norms with the west. they are not judaic, not greek, not roman, not carthaginian - and only persian in deep abstraction. so, they see the world through an entirely different concept of history. but, the thing i'm trying to get across is that they're actually pretty much our mirror reflection. like us, they are expansionist. they have a history of colonialism. they see the world outside of their borders as existing for their own benefit. they are an actual, legit alien civilization that is never going to see us as cousins or siblings. and, we will need to find a way to compete or co-operate, at least until we can effectively integrate.