Love to Learn, Learn to Love.

Here and There and Everywhere Juice …

Another JuicyLesson from 🇨🇦 Jerry 🇨🇦. [Completed : 08-03-2021]

   I remember during the first Gulf War I started off watching exclusively US coverage. Then one day, either accidentally or not – can’t recall – I tuned into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and wow what a fucking difference in coverage. Whereas United States’ media was all “wine and roses” in their reporting on the progress of the war, the CBC gave what I saw as much more balanced reporting, as well as a more realistic portrayal of what was really transpiring in the Gulf region. The fact of the matter was that even though it wasn’t in dispute that the United States was winning the war, things were not as rosy as American media would have one believe. The U.S. was suffering more casualties than one would have thought if one confined his/her viewing to CNN, NBC, ABC and/or CBS. 

   For Canadians who don’t yet know, the Canadian women’s soccer team has ousted the U.S., relegating  the latter to a Bronze medal contest against Australia while Canada will enjoin the battle against Sweden, the winner getting Gold. Some American media hardly even mention Canada’s women’s team  when reporting the  American team’s loss on the football pitch (soccer field).  It’s all about the United States which, I guess, is understandable if not justifiable because this type of approach is reflective of the ethnocentric nature of the political culture in our neighbour to the south. 

   In my humble opinion, the easiest way to understand what “ethnocentrism” means, to equate it with “egocentrism” on a personal level. An ethnocentric political orientation leads many U.S. people to believe that their country is the best country in the world, that they represent the beacon of light on the hill, an example for other countries to imitate. An egocentric person believes that he/she is more important than most other people, leading to a selfish and self-centred world view. 

   On the other hand, It may be important at this juncture in the history of the United States to praise American achievements given the need to bring the country together, I don’t know. On the other hand, being a believer in the Marxist dialectical view of history, according to which history progresses through a series of antagonistic contradictions until some finite point is reached with egalitarian society being the end result of this series of contradictions, I take exception to the need to unite the States. This is because getting it together soonest would seriously undercut the progress of history as well as interrupting the continuation of the dialectic. 

   The Marxist Dialectic, if followed to it logical conclusion (pun intended), would end with an ultimate Synthesis. In other words, unless a dimension was added to the process, history would end. (Many years ago I was  informed that that is the conservative interpretation of Marx and I continue to be at a loss to understand why.) Mao Zedong, the first Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the first leader of Communist China added a non-antagonistic element to the Dialectical process. Whereas Marx discussed antagonistic contradictions as these related to the conflict between Thesis and Antithesis, Mao added a dimension that is based on the ultimate perfectibility of man/woman where this perfection was reached via a series of non-antagonistic conflict between Thesis and Antithesis which leads to the greater truth, the perfect love, the Platonic “Universal” as it were. So instead of history reaching some kind of finite end as would occur within a framework where all contradictions are antagonistic, history can continue indefinitely within a context that deals with the perfection of man/woman, the pursuit of ultimate ideals in other words.

   One more thing – the Dialectic works as follows: The contradiction between Thesis (T) and Antithesis (A) will result in a Synthesis (S) regardless of whether the contractions under study are of the antagonistic (Marx) or non-antagonistic (Mao) variety. Once a Synthesis is reached, this Synthesis (S1) then becomes Thesis 1 (T1) which will interact with Antithesis 1 to produce a different Synthesis 2, S2 and so on.  

Peace out

No Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *