China was inventing paper, printing press, gunpowder, public exam system for government officials, straps that go across horse's chest instead of their neck so you can attach a plow without choking them (europe would literally never figure this out until cars were invented), systematized formal philosophy, etc. while Europe was fucking sheep and living in mud and grass huts and dumping their shit into the street and ransacking more civilized people like the romans and ottomans. europeans are so warlike and barbaric they could not even stop from pillaging and enslaving each other in viking raids. Europe was a primitive literally shit covered backwater until the industrial revolution made textile production less lucrative for the ottomans. the first european king charlemagne was an illiterate warlord who could not even spell his own name. europeans literally did not believe in washing their hands, that was 'moorish heathenry' not for christians. european royalty would use dogs to lick their hands after meals, peasants would simply go filthy. europeans would wear flowers to cover the smell of shit and sweat and piss. europeans thought of chastity as a virtue, and in some communities in europe it was considered improper for a woman to ever bathe, to preserve her 'chastity' and ensure she was never sexually attractive to men. european vikings would wash their face and blow their nose in the morning, in/into a single tub of water, passed around one after the other, in order of seniority, without changing the water, much to the chagrin of Islamic travellers chronicling their disgusting hygiene. europeans did not have divorce, in many cases of legal marital dispute the man and woman were forced into marital duels with both stitched into leather suits (bearing a cross so you know its holy) and the man waist-deep in a pit with a club, the woman free to move and armed with a stone wrapped in her wedding veil (see below).
this family member is nothing short of an ignorant racist fool, a history channel watcher who, via dunning-kruger, thinks they are well informed and educated on history.
i can excuse the western chauvanism/rascism. But I draw the line at suggesting anyone study Margaret Thatcher
but reddit's /r/AskHistorians is full of threads about how Europe was this dark backwater with no civilization while all over the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and in the Americas, vast advanced civilizations fluorished and did great things. If you wanted to be petty you could look for those, compile the best examples, and send them to this family member, because they sound like they really need to learn that West is not best, it's the worst and is the latecomer to the stage of global civilizations.