Observing our Petri dish would be better if we didn't keep sticking our thumbs in it to draw conclusions. Some more primitive societies might just indeed be more comfortable being primitive societies, even if there's some Brownian Motion or other movement of progressive thought within the culture.
I guess bringing the cannibals to Jesus is a noble sentiment in some way, but some peoples are not quite ripe for democracy or market economies or whatever it is this should all evolve into. Odd that we barely gave a shit about the 5 year war around 2000 in the Congo that killed 5 million, except to wail about the horrific rape gangs much more than the actual horrendous deathtoll (not to diminish the horror of rape - often followed by murder - gangs. But still, Congo is comfortably back to primitive and we don't waste trillions or send troops or bombers to try to speed their evolutionary shift. Nor in Mali where they occasionally kidnap unwise or unfortunate tourists, and then there's Brunei where they have a quasi-enlightened Muslim dictator who either treats the people well or poorly - nobody's reported on Brunei in 100 years, at least not in any journal read in the West, so it remains a peaceful if somewhat fantastical land far off on the horizon. Papua New Guinea has largely stopped serving people au gratin or tartar so we don't much care about their progress or lack thereof, only that we hope the nearby Aussies are paying attention if anything untoward comes up. Or not. Lots of jungle cover, so what they do is between them and whatever Gods they have. Not on our to-do list (yet?). Chechnya on the other hand was too close to home (NY/LA/DC/sometimes London media centers presumably - not sure any other measures of importance), so our response was palatable if just a bit feeble & ineffectual. Worth noting all the attention on the "horrors" in Donbas, with perhaps a few hundred dead during the Russian-backed uprising, whereas the living conditions are still likely better than a number of Trump's "shithole countries" - not to mention 4000 daily deaths in India back in June & 1300 daily deaths in Indonesia this month. Einstein's Special Relativity Theory at work. And with corruption ripe in Africa and elsewhere, that greasing-the-palms that largely drives Afghanistan's inner workings is nowhere near unique - worth commenting, I suppose, yet we seem less interested in this basic "not quite free hand of the market" behind so much of the world's economies than we do that the women are required (by Islam, by the men, no thought/allowance that some is self-choice, despite the history of nunneries) head/face coverings. Presumably Brunei is too humid for the face bit and Saudi has too much oil or they'd all have our fervent attention to come in and do something. Meanwhile, ugly capitalism has revolutionized the world the last 50 years much more than any revolutionary doctrine - as long as the borders (Soviet? Chinese? Central American? SE Asian?) came down long enough to allow. Yes, Churchill was slightly off - capitalism (with a bit of socialism) is the wost possible system except for all the others. Even democracy not quite needed in all cases (it doesn't seem to be helping Britain right now). Ugly & warts and crude behavior and certainly the need to be contained in a myriad of ways - "free markets" must be maintained and groomed, not just run wild - but there's more hope in the urge of Afghanis to make money than in them seeking out ennobled behavior. Selfish motivations in the long run work best, though in the long run we're all dead as well, so where is that parallax? Even global warming wants to know, now that we got rid of our previous overpopulation demise. Or will we shift to pandemic after pandemic as our new catastrophe scenario, sinking planes & boats being so 70s?
Liberalism’s graveyard | Sumantra Maitra | The Critic Magazine
Oh to return to traditional American values everywhere?
https://youtu.be/ovhzeqIaggY?t=111
Or maybe something a bit more ritualistic and female affirming:
https://youtu.be/Q9U8jseaqxU?t=144