Lots of BS to unpack here, but I'll start with:

IF you think that *the modern West* is the finest society ever created, AND you think *the modern West* is uniquely self-critical, THEN surely this self-criticism is something you should be celebrating, not whining about

In fact, I think it doubtful whether "the modern West" is a meaningful descriptor of a single society. When Americans say this they often mean "US + NW Europe" or some equally partial construction. This is not an area that shares a common education system or approach to history.

So one might ask: what is he actually talking about? School curricula? College courses? Popular books? Academic research? When one whines about "how X is taught" one should be able to specify where and exactly what contexts one talking about.

In any case, the idea that "the modern West" is uniquely self-critical seems inherently dubious when one reflects that "the rise of the West" has been the predominant Western frame for WORLD history for most of the past century, before which this history was rarely taught at all.

And this centring of the West and its progress is true of widely used textbooks, of popular histories, of many academic monographs, as well as of historical coverage in mass media and online. As far as I can tell, it's true even in many historically-themed computer games.

To judge from searching terms like "western civilization", and "western society" on Amazon, you are more likely to find textbooks complaining that "the West" as such is denigrated than you are to find textbooks that actually denigrate it. Of course...

That raises the question of what "wrong and terrible things" Bo thinks people are being taught about the West. He doesn't specify, of course. I could be unkind but not unwise and judge from his position as a failed race scientist who believes in four or five "continental" races.

Or I could judge by the kind of details of "Western" history that people who echo Bo's complaining tone seem to want downplayed (or, to use the correct term, suppressed) -- as being "woke" or "postmodern" or associated with SJWs, or perhaps "Marxists", etc, etc.

Given the time they've spent on the 1619 Project, slavery is clearly central. I think several ideas are at issue

1. The slavery shaped the modern West;
2. That Atlantic slavery was distinctive, in part because of racism;
3. That slavery and racism had post-emancipation legacies.

To the extent that they identify the US and former colonial powers as "the modern West", they must reckon with the fact that slavery was part of what tied the West together at the height of the Enlightenment. To the extent that they wish to idealize the West, this pains them.

But slavery is not the only problem they have with history. The history of empire itself presents myriad unpleasant but sadly well-documented facts, starting with flimsy justifications for conquest and continuing with brutality on a massive scale against Indigenous people.

Again, debating this history involves contesting a series of ideas:

1. That colonialism shaped Western progress;
2. That it was more devastating than not for its targets;
3. That the violence of empire was in some sense a choice; that alternatives were conceivable at the time.

(Again, I am going here by discussions I've seen; by and large these jeremiads avoid citing/discussing specific examples of the actual historical work that bothers them; 1619 Project, perhaps because it is a widely-read magazine issue rather than a monograph, is a rare instance.)

To my eyes, slavery and empire are the two largest aspects of "Western" history that Bo and his ilk want suppressed. But there are other flashpoints as well.

The transhistorical coherence and singularity of the West itself is a significant one. Hence global approaches to history, and work that highlights the interpenetration of what are supposed by celebrants of the West to be distinct cultures, societies, or races, pose problems.

Perhaps the most damaging idea about "the West" one could hold, in this context, is the idea that it *is* only an idea -- often a retrospective, hyper-politicized, methodologically dubious construction -- rather than an essential feature of past experience or an agent of history.

On a more concrete level, the following facts, among others, prove bothersome:

1. The Roman Empire was neither "European" nor "white";
2. There were Black people in medieval and early modern Europe;
3. European science relied on a variety of non-European sources and agents.

What's at stake is an idealized image and narrative in which the West is predestined to be uniquely good and do uniquely good things, with any evils explained away as either universal (everyone does that) or inevitable features of the time (everyone did it then). Problems abound.

One thing I agree with: historians ("Western" and non-) are better positioned than ever to analyze many problems with this idealized and ideological narrative, as well as to appraise the role it has played and still plays in projects such as race science.

That's a good thing.

One other observation I have as an early modernist: the early modern period (generously, 1400-1800; stingily, 1500-1750) is at the centre of this analysis. If Bo and his ilk wish to contest the facts that prompt this, they would do well to offer their own accounts -- if they can.