Steve, I am not sure I get your point. The European enlightenment (which some Europeans are still fighting against...see Glenn Beck for details) was, in my opinion, a great step forward in human thought, but its a moving target (e.g. the postmodern woo spewing out of European Universities is also a product of that enlightenment, though a mostly undesirable one in my opinion) and just like Europeans adopted some good ideas from elsewhere when needed, others are adopting features (and bugs) of the enlightenment even as we speak.
Anyway, my point is not that all cultures are the same. They are obviously not. But its always worth keeping in mind that all cultures are in motion and features and bugs both exceed the capacity of any simple formulation to sum up. People in the US are not free of bias in favor of authorities they know and trust and people in Afghanistan do have an idea of "objective truth"....