Question

Refute (offer arguments to disagree with) one of the two examples of themes that dominant discourses use to legitimize inequality and injustice: (A) The “economy” is more important than anything else; OR (B) The “West” is best: developed, democratic, and the apex of civilization.

Answer 1

The west is not the best developed ,democratic ,and the apex of Civilization.

There is a wrong notion exist in the world that the west is the best. In the case of development, democracy and civilization it is considered like that. But it is not like so even though the west is experiencing positive signs especially after Renaissance and industrial revolution. That itself is at the cost of poorer countries of Asia Africa and Latin America through colonialisation.  

West actually looted the entire human and natural resources of the other continents through unjust manners.  So nobody can say West is the best on the basis of this positive signs during these periods.

Look back to the history of human civilization. There were so many civilizations like Egyptian ,Mesopotamian, Chinese and Indian flourished and sustained democracy and development for hundreds of years in human history. All these civilizations had glittering experience of wisdom, discoveries, technologys, democratic form of governance, and economic development in their respective ages.

Take the case of economic development. There were several examples in human history about civilizations achieving highest economic prosperity during their ages. We can see such developments in ancient Egypt Messopotamia and India. All these developments are made by themselves and without exploiting any country or region in an unjust manner. They achieved prosperity through agriculture and trade.

But in the case of waste things were not like that. There were elements of extreme exploitation, use of money and muscle power over other Nations in the case of West. Britain is the better example. It exploited several countries including India for several centuries and became the best. Can anyone say this was best practice.

Take the case of democracy, there were several examples throughout the human history that democracy existed in several forms in several civilizations. For example in India during the period of Buddha 'janapadas' where existed. It was a beautiful case of ancient form of democracy.

The west actually copied democracy from its predecessors and using it. That does not means that the west introduced democracy to the world. So how can we say the west is the best in case of democracy.

Take the case of civilizations. There are births, growth, development,decay, and end for every Civilization as Ibn khaldoun discribes it in his book 'the muqadhima '. So every Civilization has birth growth ,decay and death.

There were so many civilizations emerged, developed and disappeared in human history. Most of them where appex civilizations. Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China were best examples.

They all were frontrunners in their respective time periods. Civilizations emerges and ends like this. Yet,  no Civilization can claim Apex authority over the other. The only option in front of every civilization is to be fair, equal and just towards the rest of the world.