Why Bother? by Robert Gore
You try to ignore the ravings of the paranoid lunatic on a street corner, but if he’s waving a gun, you can’t. Protecting yourself is your first considerations. He may kill himself, but he may kill you. You certainly want to get as far as possible from him. As an intellectual exercise, imagine how the Chinese and Russian leadership look at the United States, its government, and those of its allies. It will get you labeled as a “sympathizer” or “agent,” but take the risk and try seeing the world through their eyes:
This is an excerpt. For the complete article please click the above link.
This is an excerpt. For the complete article please click the above link.
Russia has no real geological barriers to invasion, and has experienced repeated waves of barbarians sweeping through their lands. This tends to lead to cynical, fatalistic thinking and suspicion over other people's motives, so any approach to a Russian should be primarily an exercise in developing trust. The problem any form of representative government has with trust issues is the sometimes ephemeral nature of its promises, dependent on the changing will of its people. Seeing how we broke our promises of support to South Vietnam is enough to give any other nation pause on how much we can be trusted.
China's recent history over the last couple of centuries has been a pattern of abuse by other nations, both Western and neighboring Asians (Japan). Chinese are a proud people, bordering on racist in their conviction that the Han are the greatest people on Earth. Protecting the race is all important, even at the risk of violent conflict, though non-violence is preferred. As with the Russians, they view Americans as well-intended, bumbling, and dangerously unpredictable, like a child with a loaded gun. Our current President is a caricature of that image, so he has a steep hill to climb in gaining the trust of either nation.
I think all of this is very slowly going away because the reason for nation states is going away, but it's here for the rest of my lifetime.
Your view of other countries is mostly the governments'. The people of the world are finding amazing new ways to serve one another, with inventions that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and just want to be left alone.
However, after stating the obvious there is one more thing to consider, barbarism; and it's rampid. How can we contain it, how can we allow it to work it self out or destroy itself into non existence letting the rest of the world breath easy and move on to the long over due evolution of consciousness, peace and cooperation.
It's easy to see but difficult to swallow that progressivism has always put the cart in front of the horse...when will we learn that this is our true enemy, our true failing and might very well be our downfall.
I'd really like to have a better outlook than that but it's hard even when I can see through to the amazing abilities of humanity...I still see no way out of what's to come.
I may at some point, abandon my wish for immortality.