Western culture dominates the global community. Being educated in the country that leads the West, I am surprised at how little I have been taught about the other systems and ways of life of the world. We are taught that it is foolish for a person to live a sustainable life without money, but many people are trying to continue doing exactly that. People who live sustainable lives, producing the essentials for their families and communities, are often forced to change their ways. The more powerful and money-driven cultures of the Western world want to change the “others,” often for their own benefit.

People of developing countries are often forced to leave their homes and change their ways of life in order to work for the Western system, so that people living comfortably in their Western homes can get some more material crap for a little bit cheaper.

Simple farming villages can no longer produce enough for themselves, because everything must enter the market. Worse, these farmers may have to move to a city to work in a sweatshop making Nikes or some other unnecessary product, all for some pieces of green paper.

It has reached the point that in order to succeed as a developing country, you must adopt the Western system. The West often silences the voices of reason that come from these developing countries, for many Westerners believe in the Manifest Destiny theory -a crazy idea that the U.S. has been ordered by God to spread its “superior” system.

The system is far from flawless, yet if you disagree with it you are unpatriotic or even worse, a Communist.

Many minds believe that bringing Western styles of development to the poorer countries of the world would be good for everyone. This dream is impossible however; there simply are not enough resources. There is just no way for everyone to use as much as the United States, therefore other countries will always remain less developed than us.

The term “development” has come to mean the Westernization of cultures.

Believe it or not, there are people who don’t want to be like us.

There are people who see greed and competition, along with materialism, as immoral. As long as we force people to be more like us and make them buy our crap, there will be people trying to resist. And yes, terrorism is a form of resistance.

The best way to prevent small bands of “terrorists” from attacking countries and peoples of the West is to let them live their lives their way and not ours. It boggles my mind that our leaders believe fighting a war no one wants will protect us. If anything, it will bring more to want to fight us.

As the richest country in the world, we should help people to develop and improve their lives by building hospitals, schools, roads, etc., as well as eliminating the debts they owe us. Do we really need their money? I think not. We have enough.

Poverty in the “other” countries of the world is much more extreme than Westerners can even fathom, but we are often comfortable enough to not even need to think about it.

The world is better off without Western development and money, and if anything, the cultures of the West need to be mentally developed by these “others.”

Let’s open our ears and stop being so arrogant. We should listen to the voices of the oppressed and work to help them, instead of harming them even further.