Is Saudi Arabia The Ultimate Evil Empire?

I'm making a stronger point really. It's that it doesn't matter whether or not a culture is ready to accept certain values; we can still talk about whether those values are good and should be accepted.

For example, the value of clothing half your population in bags and denying them education or equal rights and making them de facto serfs to the other half, is less ideal than the value of equality, measured with human flourishing. There is simply less human flourishing with that first set of values.

(please don't post about how some muslim women want to wear the hijab; that is not a critique of my position. I can show you men who want the right to rape women on private property, that does not mean that we should feel uneasy about our rape laws and that maybe they are too provincial and do not represent a step forward for humanity)

 

Uhm, well firstly, just because they are pragmatic enough to make use of other culture/society's technology and stuff does not mean they are unreasonable if it stops there. Did we in colonial times did otherwise when we were taking advantance of what their cultures and societies (from middle east to India to the americas) had to offer?
Secondly: many people in such cultures like Saudi Arabia ARE open to humanistic values, and yes, many are not. It's not just the citizens/culture here that often block such values from being implemented in their society in a western way, it seems to be often that they are under the thumb of their government. Iran was a good example of that in the former century. It is also a great example of how western culture/society and certainly western governments can advocate things but shouldn't press or force it like they did there. I think stuff like trading sanctions are the most pressing we should do. But yeah, then a country like Saudi Arabia might just find another business partner

 

The regime in Saudi certainly do appear to use Islamic law as a means to oppress and control their people. I'm not sure to what extent they really believe that they're doing the will of Allah.
It's hard to say how the ordinary people would react if they were free to choose. In Egypt, after the Arab Spring, they ended up electing the Muslim Brotherhood, so that might make you think that the ordinary people either support Islamic law, or they have no information or ideas about how things could be different. In Egypt, there is a minority of more progressive people, but they got drowned out by conservatives.

You're right that back in the days of imperialism we didn't absorb much in terms of culture or values from those other cultures. In fact in some cases, such as the British Raj in India, there was a definite policy designed to prevent people from 'going native' as some did during the early period of colonial rule. Nonetheless, look at how popular Yoga is now in the west - so maybe there was some subtle influence.
Also, it's often been said that it was in India that the Brits learned about personal hygiene. And may Indian words are now part of the language - pyjamas, khaki etc.

Far less influence from Muslim countries. The only Brit I can think of off the top of my head who went partly native was Lawrence of Arabia.

Quoting from personal experience however, I know of 2 people who have converted to Islam. So there is some influence, even if it's only on a very small scale.