I loved this article. I don’t have much to add.

When you mentioned how much “Western civilization” hates other civilizations, I remembered this footnote from Wealth of Nations:

These statements [made by Adam Smith] of the living conditions in China are horribly distorted. Such stories and myths were likely told by eager European traders and sailors, who bore extreme expense to travel to China for trade, but became disgruntled and suspicious when upon arriving they found a closed, but extremely rich society. An imagined poverty and savagry of the Chinese people made for a good excuse when the sailors returned home to explain how they came up so empty-handed.