How have developed Western countries affected non-western developing nations during the modern period? Explain how three politic
al, economic, and/or cultural approaches by European and other Western countries shaped the developing world over the last 250 years. Use evidence and examples from the course to support your ideas and opinions.
If you view industrial revolution as the beginning of unsustainable development, then that would be one massive economic approach. Industrialized nations are now the largest consumers of natural resources and have shaped the current state of the developping world. Every person on this planet now only wants to buy the cheapest of two items or service that are the same... except if you have personal relationship with the vendor. Garbage from the industrialized nations is dumped into developing and poor nations and thereby increasing quality of life in the west while reducing it in the global south.
Political: One huge Sociopolitical approach was eugenics. It created the superiority inferiority imbalance which now is seen as racism.
Cultural : Imperialism is defined as imposition by one usually politically or economically dominant community onto another, nondominant community. Cultural imperialism results in barriers like language barriers which in turn creates heirarchies in all societies where all things western trump over all things non western. The imposing western community forcefully extends the authority of its way of life over the other population by either transforming or replacing aspects of the nondominant community’s culture. Examples : English, German, French and Spanish are desirable language skills. Swahili, Bengali, Tamil, Yupik languages are not desirable.
