The West keeps misunderstanding the Third World. It sees poverty as “spiritual,” chaos as “vibrant,” and institutional decay as something that can be fixed with money, education, and modern institutions.

In my latest essay for Counter-Currents, I explain why this view is fundamentally wrong. The gap between the West and the Third World is civilizational—it unfolds over millennia, not decades. Superficial encounters, political correctness, and short-term exposure create romantic illusions that ignore the deep malice, disorder, and value deficits that actually define these societies.

Without internalized reason, morality, and restraint, surface modernity quickly turns into dysfunction.