I guess I'll give you your troll snack for the day. European Jews are a part of Western civilization. It's bigoted of you to suggest that they are not. (Although it's probably because you refuse to recognize that the US is part of western civilization.)
Western civilization tried to eradicate European Jews throughout centuries. If you were around back then, you would likely be calling for their demise because of assimilation issues, etc. But look what the two you said did - they are great scientists. Bringing them up does not support your argument. It supports mine.
The US is also not a Western country. It's a hybrid.
And it doesn't really matter what percent of a population are philosophy majors.
Yes, it does. The US does so well because we have that word you dread so much: diversity.
Successful scientists do it because it interests them. Just like a lot of western art and entertainment (that is exported around the world) comes from westerners being able to express themselves and taking interest in things like literature and philosophy.
Really? Europe, the bulk of the so-called Western world, has very little cultural exports nowadays. Lots of Asian countries are much more popular culturally nowadays. The UK is pretty much the only European country that fits your description.
It also seems that their main type of expression is hatred.
Let's not forget that a lot of philosophers were instrumental in bringing about the western democratic ideals and free markets that have brought COW so much.
Sure, but let's not forget that those ideals were also shaped by people outside the Western world. And critically, the West did not invent democracy. In fact, the West/Europe have historically tried to usurp democracy.
Now, if you want to say that the West created Cannibalistic Dictatorships, then I would agree with you.
It's the kind of "be an engineer or doctor to make your parents happy" that helped make India and China stagnate until recently. There can never be too many new ideas, but there can be too many unquestioning lab drones.
This is why we're going to decline. People like to think "Oh, we're the creative ones, it's ok, it's a good excuse!" But are we really creative in terms of science anymore? We can call other people lab drones, they'll call us ADD children.