Jan 11, 2020, 11:22 AM
The Iranians are a Face-Before-Truth culture so they can’t do what Europeans do, which is say “We don’t know until we’ve investigated”. Instead they just denied – a Face-Before-Truth response. It’s the same reason we can’t believe anything that comes out of that part of the world – the muslim world is Face-Before-Truth, and Respect without Earning it. On the other hand europeans won’t speak the whole truth and explain why the conflict exists, nor do we state that it’s aristotelian truth, literacy, rule of law, capitalism, and reducing the reproduction of our underclasses – not democracy – that made the west successful. And that democracy is a disaster for non-europeans who have not also developed those institutions. In europe our honor comes from truth before face, and respect when earned. This is heroic. It is to bear personal sacrifice on behalf of the polity. And it puts constant pressure on the ‘lower classes’ to improve their behavior. So this is why europe is high trust, builds large organizations, relatively free of corruption, and why it’s materially good for underclasses but they’re continuously under social pressure to ‘mature’ into paying the high costs of truth before face, earning respect by behavior, defense of the commons, and doing one’s duty regardless of cost.