Well, off the top of my head we gave up beheading those who insult our religion, murdering adulterous women (we never did murder raped children - we're insufficiently religious I guess), burning homosexuals, and keeping slaves. We don't intentionally target civilians, or shoot school children in the back, or kidnap and torture to death those who simply happen to be a different religion. We no longer have colonies. We're not demanding that our lands be off limits to those of other religions. And we pay the going price for your natural resources rather than simply taking them because we're stronger. Surely something in there strikes you as an improvement.
Killing others who insult your so-called religious views is not being religious, but anyway, you make some good points. So instead of beheading people, we just lock them up with a lot of other criminals and let them live that way for years. Seems like an improvement. I want to know about these beheadings you speak of. I know the media likes to put forth stories such as these but I haven't seen many lately. I'm sure if there were as many beheadings and burnings as you mention, the media would be all over it.
Are you talking of the West being better in the 21st century or the 20th century as well? How many people were killed in the West by fellow Western countries? How many other people across the world, including Japan, were killed by the civilized, modern and educated West?
What about the tyrants the West puts in place all across the world? Anyway, that's what the West does outside its own countries. As far as colonies go, they were probably becoming too costly to maintain so that might be one reason they were done away with. Do you really believe if the colonies were easy to maintain that the Western countries would have easily given them up?
The West only looks better by its clean streets, more so-called educated people, better technology among other things. Beneath all that, the same problems remain. We have the same amount of hate, same amount of corruption, same amount of greed, same amount of jealousy etc.
When we see other people in other countries on our TVs, we feel a separation from them. The media wants to make its audience feel emotion. That's a big reason why there is a huge divide among people across the world. Do you really think the guy in a tiny village in India or Africa or anywhere else knows what people in the other country think? These people are the prime candidates for easily being duped. That's the case in America as well. People in power, whether they are politicians or the media, easily dupe people into hating others. It's unfortunate most people seem to be followers rather than being independent.