"Everything the World Has Culturally Appropriated from the West"

"In my research on cultural appropriation, I’ve uncovered a shocking truth, a great, unspoken crime against humanity, hidden in plain sight. It is the greatest, longest-running, and most heinous act of appropriation in global history."

The appropriation of Western Civilisation. 

Half-Pakistani in descent, I feel a personal sense of guilt at how non-western countries have unapologetically oppressed their fellow nations. I’ve therefore taken it upon myself to compile a list of all the things the world has culturally appropriated from the west, in hope that this injustice might one day be corrected. 

Philosophy 

Alfred North Whitehead described philosophy as “a series of footnotes to Plato.”

Architecture 

Look out at the skyline of any modern, non-western city, and you will find it looks strangely similar to a modern, western city.

Free Speech 

People are so obsessed by free speech that they’ll actually fight their own countries just to appropriate it. 

Due Process 

This is another western cultural creation that causes non-westerners to go into rabid fits of appropriation-addled hunger. Entire wars have been waged and governments deposed for the chance to appropriate these.

Political Ideologies 

Aside from Islamic countries, some of which are making a commendable effort to restrain themselves, most countries around the world have adopted a western political ideology of some kind.

Vaccines 

Country doctor Edward Jenner invented the vaccine in England, 1776. 

The Scientific Method 

Yes, science can be appropriated. As postmodern feminists tell us, science is just another cultural/social construct. And it’s one that’s been stolen from the west.

The Automobile 

Asian drivers might not have the greatest reputation, but the fact that they’re driving at all is down to the western invention of the car.

Video Games 

Have you ever been beaten by a Korean person at Starcraft? Now you can feel personally racially victimised. 

The Computer 

Every time an Indian worker answers a tech support call, they are stealing another piece of western culture. 

The Internet 

“This is for everyone,” said the British inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. A traitor to his own culture if there ever was one. 

Campus social justice warriors insist that the greatest victims of cultural appropriation are non-western cultures, like the Native Americans, Japan, and Mexico. No doubt, they would use some sort of intellectual contortion to claim that western culture can’t be appropriated. Something about “punching up,” or “culture plus power” no doubt. 

But looking through history, a neutral observer can’t fail to see that western culture is the most appropriated of them all. Other countries have been borrowing, imitating, and remixing western culture for centuries. 

And that, unquestionably, is a good thing. Look at what the Japanese have done with video games, computers, and animation. Look at the brilliance of Korean composers, trained in classical European music. Look at the industriousness of China. Western culture has enriched the world, just as non-western cultures have. It’s certainly possible to condemn it. But then, as demonstrated above, your arguments would look ridiculous.

Via Instapundit.