I have been singling out Mr. Tea because of all the members of this board, i judge the content of his character to be the best representative of the average educated Western mind and a pretty damn good measure of popular opinion among an entire subsection of society, from the happy-go-lucky cheerful disposition to his subscription of most-if-not-all the prevailing attitudes, and support of most-if-not-all the hegemonic ideologies of the day. Over many years he has exhibited a whole hearted and unquestioning belief in the goodness of things like Rationalism (religion is for sheeple!), Progress/Modernity (toilette paper is better than soap and water!), Capitalism (not perfect but it's the best we've got!), West-centrism (we cause/have problems but hey, at least we don't rape babies to cure AIDS and throw acid on our sisters' faces!), etc.
Most importantly, with regard to our topic at hand, which is pandemic, systematic, structural, enduring violence, exploitation and injustice on a global scale, he repeatedly makes proclamations -- "racism is nothing new, nor specific to colonialism, everyone has had African slaves, etc." -- which all firmly rest on the dominant philosophical position of the perpetrator countries, a position which in its fundament can be boiled down to 3 words: might is right. The purest expression of which is: *shrug*. And perhaps: "Just thank the lord that we're on the winning team LOL!".
According to those like Tea (which in my estimation is the vast majority in Europe and the US), history is the story of people with bigger armies and better guns decimating and exploiting those with smaller armies and weaker guns, and: "it isn't pretty, but that's the way it goes." *shrug*. And often with the addition (but not sure if Tea thinks this): "we've got bigger armies and better guns in the first place probably because… we're that much more clever, innit" --- Well not exactly, because it can be easily demonstrated that military and technological advantage is always purely circumstantial, accrued over time.
And time and again, they will use extremely distorted and stupid comparisons to nature-on-television to justify man's systematic violence: "look at the lions and zebras! and how the chimps go at each other!" ---- Well no, the violence of lions and chimps is for survival, but they do not build gold palaces and subway systems for themselves from the blood and sweat of millions of other animals over hundreds of years or engage in genocide.
But of course, in a way, they have a point. For that IS the way a lot of recent human history as we know it has been shaped. But the simple, uncritical *shrug* and acceptance of it as simply "the way it is", at least to me, is the single most sad and depressing thing in the world. For it equals a cowardly acceptance of that most vile aspect of human possibilities, a cynical embrace of that most ugly part of ourselves, as us, and as our very "nature".
People who think like this are the ones who voted against the end of slavery.
And they are my enemy in this life.
