It seems likely that every human culture has had some concept of gender and norms related to it. Those roles can be permissive or strictly enforced. They can match the expectations our culture gives us, or they can be surprising to us. Beside average size, and childbearing, there is unlimited flexibility in how a culture might define the roles and how they might enforce them.

While it is a tempting thought, it seems unlikely that we, here and now, have somehow managed to create the absolute worst human culture in the millions of years we have been at this. I agree that we should be watchful of that pitfall. Western self loathing, is in itself another way of assuming that we must be the main characters in the human story.

After the 2008 financial crisis (when the article claims the divergence started). The US and the EU chose different paths. The US chose bailouts and the EU went with austerity. Both were very unpopular, but one of them was also stupid. Helping the “wrong” people, it turns out was a better choice than trying to actively hurt all the people.

I’m sure there is a lot of other factors at play but EU governments getting religion about belt tightening and small-government in ‘09-‘12 was phenomenally stupid.