The_Barnacle wrote on Mar 15^th, 2014 at 12:06pm:



I would agree with that definition.
I would probably add that displacement of the population would be the really major marker. If you have high levels of displacement, refugees etc then I think you probably have a population where there is lawlessness and where people don't feel safe or feel there is a future for their family.

I don't think it is always about money. I was reading once that yearly income wasn't a reliable indicator of happiness as some very poor societies showed a fairly high degree of happiness. But I suspect those societies were settled, social traditions were upheld and probably most people were in the same boat.
I can remember once talking to a woman who said that she had a very happy childhood but she now realised her family was probably on the poorer side. But that she never knew that at the time as everyone else in the family and all the neighbourhood was exactly the same.

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 15^th, 2014 at 12:19pm:


I would agree. Over the last 20 years or so, there has been a bit of  PC wave of thought that tends to insist that we see all people, all religions, all societies as 'equal' and just as good as any other.

People take offence if there are any claims one way of life is any better than another. You see it, for example, if any study dares to suggest that 2 parent families are generally better for children than being in a single parent family.

But it applies on a broader front too. Western society got ahead because it was stable enough for technical innovation, empire-building, inventions and discoveries to go ahead. There was enough food and security for some people to spend time on those things instead of simply fighting for existence.
That doesn't mean western society was perfect with everyone getting a fair deal, or that there was no poverty, just that there was enough stability and enough general wealth for those countries to forge ahead.

It's not easy, is it.
But I will have a go.

You know how they often rate Melbourne as the world's most liveable city?
Apparently it is based on surveys-things like access to health, education, housing, services. How satisfied people are with their life/lifestyle.

I would say you also need to look at change in a society & the expansion of the knowledge base.

So.. is the society fairly stable, with law and order? Are most people voluntarily staying put?
Is it a society that has some shared values?

Education and skills are important as they can make life more comfortable and give that society an edge.

Maybe you won't agree with some of these as 'ahead' but I think you have to ask yourself-why, in the last 150 years, did the USA see such a rush of migrants and people wanting 'in' to their society? I would suggest it was because a lot of those migrants saw USA as offering a 'better' life.
If they had to rate the countries, they were in fact putting USA ahead of their own.
Why do we currently have a lot of people trying to get into Australia? Do you ever hear of huge numbers of Aussies trying desperately to get citizenship in Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan? Why not?

Thee are some very politically/socially unstable parts of Africa at the moment. Would you like to go live there, or prefer to stay put?

What about groups that didn't get 'ahead' in science/technology? Was their society necessarily any worse? Take the aboriginals (as they seem to be everyone's fav topic on this forum). I am sure they had stable societies, there were rules, people were probably happy in their communities.
But basic food was sometimes a problem, they got by but had to work at it. And in the end, was the spear or boomerang any match against a gun? Or the sheer numbers of outsiders? I would suggest not.

When we look back at past civilisations, what are some of the things we look at? Not just their beliefs, but their buildings, their innovations, what put them ahead of their rivals.

I'm not necessarily suggesting wealth or knowledge or technology makes for a moral superiority, but stability, a feeling a safety and enough wealth to allow some to tinker with technology & science sure makes for a society people want to live in.

Maybe that is a good enough definition of ahead. A society a lot of people want to live in.
Oh-but ahead also implies some movement/change. can't stay static.

sherri wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 7:47am:


You can only know the price paid for getting ahead from your own experience.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 9:24am:


And that's only because political correctness forbids Britain and America's current crop of de facto Social-Marxist academics from claiming a superiority for the West that might embarrass and upset China for its 'Third World' status.

Of course our academics know full-well why the West succeeded whereas China continued with its agrarian rice-bowl economy ...

The Chinese lived under a succession of rigid dictatorships that forbade any deviation from the norm. The strict hierarchal system ~ similar to the Vatican ~ stifled liberal individualism to the extent it quashed any creativity that was not directly under sanction of the Royal Court of the prevailing dynasty. 

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 9:24am:


And who kept tactfully silent on anything that might have caused them to 'lose face'. It's an old strategy for currying favour with those not of British or American background.

Tickle their tummy, and tell them they're just as good as those who they have had a chronic inferiority complex about (the English, et al). I've done this many times with Greeks and Italians, much to their appreciation.

Read any books lately by academics giving an honest critique of pre-settlement aboriginal traditions and cultural practices?

Of course you haven't.

That would spoil the Victimhood 'narrative', and make the Brits not look so bad by comparison.

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 10:06am:

Good ole, English cynicism... The cornerstone of 'divide and rule'.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 9:24am:


It's been written about quite a bit. But you've got to read the texts written before the 1960s. From the 1960s onward history was taken over by Marxists and post-structuralists. Instead of examining and revealing its achievements, they went for the complete "oppression" angle. That said, you can often find a historian here and there that doesn't cower to trendy "oppression" theories.

The_Barnacle wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 10:46am:


You're making a common mistake. You're applying modern day trendy morality to past acts. This in no way actually gives an insight into the time and why things occurred as they did. True history involves understanding the morals, laws, mores of an era and how they were justified. Just looking back and claiming the past was 'barbaric' reveals more about the values of the person making the claim than anything in history.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 11:47am:



There's a book by Ricardo Duchesne called The Uniqueness of western Civilization that explains in detail the differences between China and Europe, particularly Britain, from about the 14th century to the 19th century century right down to things like the size of crop yields.