chdarat: Many of us feel you, brother. Try not to measure farangs’ opinions from the message boards! Reasonable people don’t judge a country only by its GDP and its shopping malls. We like Thailand’s mix of beauty, affordability, kindness, style and, for the lucky among us, career opportunity. If it was all about “development,” I’d move to Singapore … and, speaking personally, I’d rather eat glass.

Enjoy reading this especially the comments.

It feels good to read the discussion as sometimes I’m totally overwhelmed by some farangs attitudes!

At the risk being accused of being anti westerners, I like to say this. Stop judging us by your standards, please! Even if your standards are high, they derived from your cultural and historical needs and not ours.

We, here in Thailand, have been rescued by westerners playing brave knights so many times that some of us only wait to be rescued by you. Making it hard for us to gain perspective and we are losing sight of makes us who we are!

Yes Thailand is a developing country and this does not mean develop to be like the west.

Look at us now; success means having your lifestyle at a very high cost!

We are aping you in material status. To be equal means a permit to cheat, lie and step on people, to get there.

That will not help us, correction, has never helped us! Instead it leaves us feeling shallow and we will always be walking behind you instead of alongside you.

If you want to understand then why not put yourself in our shoes instead of making us wear yours and feel how uncomfortable they are right now! We do not wear the same size! They will never fit!

Democracy’s all very well when it means open markets …

Democracy = open markets?

Lack of open markets means what exactly to the so called third world vis-à-vis democracy?

MongerSEA: Yes, there’s a huge demand for democracy in the underdeveloped world. It’s just a pity there’s not an equal demand for it in the West. Hussein, Pinochet, Mobutu … kept in power by who? Democracy’s all very well when it means open markets but God help the third world when it doesn’t.

I’m a Westerner myself. You’d know that had you taken the time to click on my linked user name rather than jerking one’s knee.

If you’re distressed by my rebuttal to MongerSEA but not to his comments then perhaps you’ll be unlikely to consider a different opinion at all.

Perhaps Dan might integrate a bio page?

There is a huge demand in the underdeveloped world for those social, economic and cultural things of which the West was the pioneer, from noble notions of democracy and it’s underpinning egalitarianism.

Western Social Values: I got mine eff you!

Western Economic Values: I got mine eff you!

Western Cultural Values: Mine’s better than yours!

Western Egalitarianism: Unions suck! Socialism sucks! Liberals suck!

There is no corresponding demand in the West for corrupt oligarchies.

Indeed, that demand has already been met. To wit: The Oligarchy that it is clearly evident America has become.

All the evidence clearly indicates that in the arc of modern history that the West has won.

Rather all evidence is clearly revealing itself daily that the exact opposite is true. The West has failed miserably to fulfill the vaunted ideas enumerated in your comment. Moreover, it has succeeded in fulfilling the basest consumerist fantasies. Much to be proud of there.

… and has done so by virtue of a superior system of values and practices.

There you go with those superior, er, Western, er, egalitarian virtues!

No amount of bleating liberal theory will erase this simple fact.

Yet more egalitarian “values.”

As to bosunj’s remarks, it is probably enough to respond to his comment that “[the] criticism presumes that Westerners are better, smarter and more clever” with a simple invitation to review the empirical evidence. Thailand and many other nations define themselves as developing; they clearly consider that they’ve got a lot of modernization to do. And what is the context for those efforts? Simply, to meet the standards set by the West and by Westerners.

There is a huge demand in the underdeveloped world for those social, economic and cultural things of which the West was the pioneer, from noble notions of democracy and it’s underpinning egalitarianism right down to the more crass consumerism of “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.” There is no corresponding demand in the West for corrupt oligarchies, nor for takraw, somtam or donkey carts.

All the evidence clearly indicates that in the arc of modern history that the West has won, and has done so by virtue of a superior system of values and practices. No amount of bleating liberal theory will erase this simple fact.

Farang are nurtured by their corporate press to believe that Pepsi is better than Coke or vice versa, the Red Sox are better than the Yankees or vice versa all the way down the line even to the high school level.

The Western paradigm is that for me to win you must lose.

Westerners are trained to believe what I have is better than what you have. My faction is better than your faction. Or, deeper down – my faction is right therefore it must be good so that means your faction is wrong therefore it must be bad and as a member of that faction you must be bad. To wit: FOX News.

Kill or imprison the bad guy. That has worked so well for the West hasn’t it?

In that context is it difficult to understand why many Asians and Thais don’t want to hear about how you do things back where you come from?

In Houston Texas in the 80s there were bumper stickers on many pickup trucks that expressed a similar sentiment: “We don’t care how you used to do things up north”.

Criticizing Asians and Thais for not wanting to hear or rejecting Western values is mildly racist at its core. That criticism presumes that Westerners are better, smarter and more clever.