It is the West that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians, recognizing and defending their rights. The notions of freedom and human rights were present at the dawn of Western civilization, as ideals at least, but have gradually come to fruition through supreme acts of self-criticism.

Abolitionism did not find positive response in Africa as it did in Western societies and cultures.

Discussions of Western civilization are too often confined to works of high art that reflect a relatively narrow element of public taste and experience.

You can't grow up without taking a few knocks on the way. All parents know that, but children when they're growing up, they take some knocks, and nasty knocks sometimes if they've been too protected.

The idea that the West was economically successful because of slavery, it's just nonsense.

Of course slavery and the Muslims were deeply implicated in the slave trade, Islam was an Imperialist religion which destroyed Christianity in the Near East, yet nobody mentions those facts.

By working and living in New York, you are breathing Western civilization, continuously reminded of its benefits and its values.