The crux of the problem facing the West is that neither the conservatives nor the liberals, neither the right wing nor the left wing, understand that history changed direction at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The era of Western domination is coming to an end. They should lift their sights from their domestic civil wars and focus on the larger global challenges. Instead they are, in various ways, accelerating their irrelevance and disintegration.
It is not inevitable that China will lead the world, even though it is inevitable that China will have the world’s largest economy. Nor is it inevitable that the past two centuries of Western domination of world history will be replaced by two centuries of Asian domination, even though it is inevitable that the Asian share of the global GDP will far surpass that of the West.
It is inevitable that the world will face a troubled future if the West can’t shake its interventionist impulses, refuses to recognize its new position, or decides to become isolationist and protectionist." [from the opening paragraph of the last chapter in "Has the West Lost It?"]
To get a decent eight-hour-sleep usually takes me three days which is why I'm in the habit of taking a nap in the afternoon, but even that didn't happen this time because I left the radio on and listened to Kishore Mahbubani who has written a dozen-or-so books - click here, among them "Has the West Lost It?". What a totally cerebral treat!
I know the West has definitely lost it when I compare the intellect of Kishore Mahbubani to our own lamebrained politicians on both sides.
