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Bit of background for those who might not know what I'm talking about: on here "pulling a Meiji" refers to a non-Western power managing to equal the West's technological, scientific and industrial development in the 19th century through reforms, allowing it to stand on equal terms with Western powers by around 1900 or so. Well, it's a broader term than that but it'll do as a basic definition.

In OTL the only power that can really be said to have accomplished this is Japan, hence the term "pulling a Meiji" in reference to the Meiji Restoration, the opening of Japan and its rapid development. You could argue the Ottoman Empire qualifies but to my mind, while not really "Western", the OE sits on the periphery of Europe and takes part in its wars and trends, meaning the OE's status as a fading but still extant Great Power in 1900 can be attributed to it 'being part of the greater European system' rather than being an isolated alien power taking deliberate decisions to emulate Western developments. And of course there are those countries that at least managed to preserve their titular independence, such as Ethiopia, but to pull a Meiji means you must be able to project power and stand equal to Western countries elsewhere, rather than just being able to repel them from your homeland.

Now a lot of WIs on this forum centre around the idea of more countries, or different countries, pulling a Meiji: China, the Mughal Empire or another Indian power, Korea and so on. But let's turn this around. What if Japan never reformed, being either colonised directly in the 19th century or at least being sidelined and divvied up into spheres of influence the way China was? What if no non-Western power managed to pull a Meiji?

One obvious conclusion is that we would probably be looking at a culturally more racist world thanks to this white exceptionalism. OTL's "white man's burden" was often predicated on the idea that European supremacy was a fluke rather than due to intrinsic superiority (contrary to how it is often represented now) and nowadays we have Jared Diamond coming up with socio-economic arguments to explain the rise of Western powers. In TTL on the other hand we can expect a consensus that European race, tongue, religion or all three are required elements for a scientific revolution, industrial development, perhaps the idea of liberalism and tolerance, and so on.

That is not necessarily going to happen but I think it is more likely than not. How else might culture and attitudes be different in such a world? Discuss.
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