Western Hypocrisy Is Western Supremacism
Published on Aug 9, 2026, filed under politics, philosophy. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
One thing that stands out in Western behavior—one that you can’t unsee once you see it—is Western supremacism. It follows a pattern, one you can spot in these random examples:
It’s not a problem to hijack or assassinate the leader of another nation—but all hell would break loose if anyone did that with a Western leader.
It’s not a problem when a Palestinian is killed—but all hell breaks loose if an Israeli (considered “Western” by themselves and by the West) dies.
It’s not a problem to kill Iranian children, destroy Iranian civilian infrastructure, or otherwise try to force Iranians into submission—but all hell breaks loose if Iran so much as exercises control over its waterways.
It’s not a problem when Americans, Europeans, or Israelis lie, that other people were terrorists and had weapons of mass destruction or such—but the same statements against these countries, countries that happen to have a colonial (terrorist) past or present and that own weapons of mass destruction, are dismissed out of hand.
A lot of things are not a problem when a Westerner does it—but very much so when anyone else does it.
“Hypocrisy” Is a Euphemism
At first, this looks like hypocrisy—but it really is supremacism.
Westerners act as if they were worth more than non-Westerners, than people of color, than people of other religions and cultures. *
What makes this supremacism so dangerous—for all of us—is that it lacks a fundamental insight: Not only is the assumption of Westerners being “better” simply wrong, we will never be able to be truly happy, be truly well off, even be truly safe as long as Westerners cling to supremacy.
This is because we are all connected—the misery anyone brings on another, no matter how far away, is coming back to us. Call it the butterfly effect, call its opposite the illusion of separation, but it’s not hard to actually understand how this comes back to us. (The Israeli–American war on Iran—in what increasingly looks like a war on Islam—will teach the West this, the hard way.)
When Will We Finally Flip the Script
The way forward must be one that actually changes the script for all of mankind:
If we make the well-being of others our priority—don’t just think Palestinians and Muslims, think people with different beliefs, migrants, women, the elderly, trans people, anyone and everyone (and absolutely including animals, too)—, we invert the whole dynamic and change our entire trajectory.
The best is: If we do that, we cannot but be happy, well, and safe.
Supremacism, any and all of it, must die—for us to live.
* This is preceded by the similarly misguided pretense that humans were worth more than animals, and succeeded by the idiocy of men acting as if they were worth more than women. You find it everywhere, and it’s literally killing us.
About Me
I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)