Tom Donnelly Quotes

The great question of the 20th century is whether the Anglo-Saxon of the Slav is to impress his civilization upon the world.

So ubiquitous is Western influence that most of the time it is no longer seen as an alien element intruding into non-Western societies. It is an influence that has become integrated into the mind and body, the heart and soul of the non-Western human being. Western dominance, in other words, has become normal, it has become natural. By making it so natural and so normal to be 'Western', the centres of power in the West have achieved their ultimate triumph.

The main reason western culture has been dominant is because Europeans have controlled political, economic and social power including educational policy for the last several centuries.

The things and ways the West took to the rest have become the ways of the world.

Often, these downplay the power of cultural imperialism - in that sense, playing the game of US interests - by reassuring us that the global success of American mass culture is not as bad as all that.

The domination of western values, beliefs and way of life has angered many from the east and in developing countries.

In the modern world, those who are weak will get unambiguous advice from foreign visitors which way to go and what policy course to pursue.

We all know what is meant by the term 'international community,' don't we? It's the West, of course, nothing more, nothing less. Using the term 'international community' is a way of dignifying the West, of globalising it, of making it sound more respectable, more neutral and high-faluting.

American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

I think that there is a limit on how far you can export democracy.

Unlike more traditional conquerors, we are not content merely to subdue others: We insist that they be like us.

When you start exporting ideas, philosophy, behavior, products, ways of living, it becomes an assault on the culture. Americans have to understand that.

Although no one likes a hegemon, America will be a better hegemon than others would be.

The best American internationalists reject the idea that their nation holds a global copyright that gives it a mandate to churn out replicas dotting the world.

It is control and domination over information, ideas and knowledge that has enabled the centres of power in the West to shape the world in its own image. More than information and ideas, the West has also succeeded in molding some of our most fundamental values through a whole variety of avenues ranging from comics and cartoons to films and music. The attitudes of significant strata of non-Western societies towards attire and architecture, fashion and food, life and leisure have been determined to a large extent by values transferred from the West. Indeed, it has reached a point where even our thinking on certain aspects of male-female relations, on the position of the woman, on the upbringing of the child, on the family, and on the community are now being conditioned by Western values and worldviews …. Long before Western values and ideas on these aspects of life began to penetrate our societies, we had already structured law, administration, government and the economy on Western models.

Promoting democracy is one goal of U. S. foreign policy dating back at least 100 years. But it has always been one goal of many, often negated and outweighed by other competing interests.

People the world over now see democracy promotion as a dishonest, dangerous cover for the protection of U. S. power and influence.

Empires can only decline when other nations decline and make way for them.

One thing that is not to be underestimated is American culture's influence on the rest of the world.

I think subsuming political and economic conflicts into some grand 'clash of civilisations' theory or 'the West versus the rest' binary is a particularly insidious form of ideological deception.

America wants its respect.

Yes, I would agree that America, just like Spain was in the 17th Century, is the main empire of the world and they are the ones who, on the surface, are the most pushy: pushing their language, pushing their culture - or what there is of it - pushing by force their system on others.

Nothing the European mind ever devised was meant to do anything but to facilitate the European's control over the world.

I love Washington, D.C.; I love this country, but I think over the last hundred years we've built up would I call an arrogant empire: people who think the rest of us are too stupid to make our own decisions.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.