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| Posted by: Team Member |
6/15/2007 |
Last weekend Alisha and I were in Longview, TX visiting Alisha’s grandparents. David, Alisha’s step-grandfather (her biological grandfather passed away several years ago and her grandmother has since remarried), said something that really struck me as interesting. David served in the US army in the mid-1950s; he was stationed in Germany. David told Alisha and me quite a few stories from his time in the service, and all of it was interesting, but there was one simple statement, said almost in passing, about which I’ve reflected upon more than once in the last week. “I was in Germany 17 months to the day,” David said. “And in that time, I bet I didn’t go fifteen minutes without someone saying something about how the Soviets could attack at any moment.”
In the book Erring: A Postmodern A/theology Mark C. Taylor states, “The Western theological tradition, in all its diversity, rests upon a polar or, more precisely, a dyadic foundation. Though consistently monotheistic, Christian theology is repeatedly inscribed in binary terms. The history of religious thought in the West can be read as a pendular movement between seemingly exclusive and evident opposites” (8). Taylor then provides a diagram, complete with represented pendular movement, of some of the more notable dyads: Good/Bad, God/World, Eternity/Time, Permanence/Change, Transcendent/Imminent, Height/Depth, Speech/Writing.
If, as Taylor states, the Western theological tradition rests upon such dichotomies, certainly no less is true of the whole of Western metaphysics. One dyad not listed in Taylor’s diagram, but nonetheless most certainly foundational to Western thought, is the Self/Other dichotomy. The Other is always marginalized in the worldview of the Self. Chinua Achebe’s treatment of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness in the essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/achcon.htm) is one of the most famous critique’s highlighting this act. Racism, stereotypes, jingoism and xenophobia are the propagandistic tools of ethnocentrism.
By the time I was born in 1978, the Self/Other had already been firmly established and these propaganistic tools(“I bet I didn’t go fifteen minutes without someone saying something about how the Soviets could attack at any moment.”) were so ingrained that I was born into a worldview that was USA against USSR, Capitalism versus Communism. And there was no doubt about who was the enemy.
I can remember being terrified of the Soviets as a child. When I think back on those years I can’t remember one single face other than Gorbachev’s. His pale complexion, bald head and the patent birthmark stood in stark contrast to the warm, jovial smile of Ronald Reagen. I remember evening news reports about the Soviet Union showing soldiers mechanically marching in that straight-legged fashion in front of the Kremlin. They weren’t people to me; they were enemies. As a child, though, “enemies” doesn’t quite define what I felt. To me, they were monsters. They were the opposite of us. They were against the freedoms upon which our country existed. They were against our way of life and they were waiting for the most opportune time to try and take away our way of life. They hated freedom.
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Re: Curmudgeon, Part 2: Mayberry was a Place Where Values Thrived...for White People--Brian |
By Ernest T on
6/15/2007 |
| Ok Brian, I think we can all agree. You ARE smarter than a 5th grader. BTW coincidentally didn't "The Wall" come down when you were in 5th grade? |
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