Ben Shapiro: America was founded on liberty, not slavery

Screen Shot 2021-02-25 at 4.40.50 PM

Why Has the West Been So Successful? presented by Ben Shapiro

Western civilization. It's been around for a while, but suddenly everybody is talking about it. Some are anxious to save it; others are happy to see it go.

But what exactly is Western civilization?

Is it the great cathedrals of Europe or the Nazi concentration camps? Is it the freedoms secured in the US Constitution or chattel slavery? Life-saving medicines or poison gas?

The left likes to focus on the bad – genocide, slavery, environmental destruction. But those have been present in every civilization from time immemorial.

The positives are unique to the West – religious tolerance, abolition of slavery, universal human rights, the development of the scientific method: these are accomplishments of a scope and scale that only the West can claim.

These aren't the only achievements that make the West special and uniquely successful. As Western thought evolved, it secured the rights of women and minorities, lifted billions of people out of poverty, and invented most of the modern world.