If you haven't been paying attention, the cold war has been raging. However, it is mostly reported in the news technology sections. On another front, Russia and Ukraine conflict has been moving towards further escalation. While Israeli government seems to be taking the next step to the ultra-right slogan "from the river to the river" by bleeding annexation of the Palestinian West Bank.
In my recent tour of Canada, the US, Europe, and the Middle East I had the opportunity to listen to diverse views about recent world events from educated and non-educated individuals. It became clear that people have taken sides on every topic and they cheer their side as loyal fans cheer their sports team. In disregard to the abundance of current facts and actions that should open an eye to such blind support.
The war media washing does work on everyone and beyond what we can detect. It works not because it twists facts, but simply by eliminating critical thinking within the news pieces. Providing headlines with no context with wording that amplifies or downplays as the outlet agenda dictates. Tweaking vocabulary to ridicule a fact or instill fear by a rumor. It is almost always impossible to detect from within the bubble. A confirmation bias of our belief system of good and evil. One act is good if our people do it, and evil if someone we perceive as a threat does. a harmless intuition of human survival. Until it is not.
Nothing I mentioned here is new. Every media outlet has a sponsor; hence, inherently has a bias to suit the sponsor's agenda. Every news outlet caters to an audience segment; hence, the news is tailored to engage them and increase their ratings. This is not an argumentative point nor it vilifies a news organization. Facts of business. The concept of non-bias media is too idealistic to wish for.
By the age of the internet, our exposure to multiple versions of the same news, fake news even, we have awakened to how news is dressed up with the colors that suit the frame. The age of facts worship was the 90s. Today, facts are merely a building block for whatever argument to be made or an opinion is wished to spread. Old school journalism and fact-checking gravely suffered by the quick clicks blogs culture.
Therefore, we, the 21st-century readers, the ones that chose not to be intellectually extinct, have evolved. We identify news outlet sponsors and their stand on an issue before we read their article. We read the article not only to know about an event but more importantly to learn what the news and its audience segment project the event to reflect.
Furthermore, we read on the same topic from sources with known different biases. For instance, to understand the ongoing aspects of the U.S. vs. China, CNN and BBC are on one side and then Asia News and Global China news agencies are on the opposite side. Australia is managing its own perspective. They are all biased to their corners. And that is okay. Because as a reader with analytical reading skills, I can see the lens through which each article is written with. Sadly, analytical readers are a rare breed nowadays. Fast base modern life has no time to read 4 news articles on one topic. Most importantly, no one likes to read the enemy's sentiments within news lines.
Finally, my topic of the day; do you root for the U.S. or for China in this cold war?
Whatever your answer is, I hope it is based on your interest and humanity's pragmatic interest in a better future. And not based on vague sentiments of good and evil. The biblical binary sentiment was once ridiculed when Osama bin Laden adopted it, when ISIS adopted it, and in pretty much every religious war in human history. My sad realization of late, the west seems to embrace the same binary sentiment nowadays with its own vocabulary and mythologies. My conversations with the residents of North America always lead by such vague concepts. Of course, no one says evil, but hollow words like communist, dictatorship, and oppression are intended for vilification. No one seems to question the validity of the manufactured rivalry itself. As if peaceful coexistence is considered a long-term threat. As a reminder, humanity's main discourse promoted by westerners was based on coexistence and globalization since the early 1990s. Suddenly it lost its appeal once another nation benefited from it.
Capitalism has its benefits. Democracy has served humanity well within certain times and within time periods. But the arrogance of claiming that one and only type of system is the righteous one and vilifying all others is a 'sin'. Should we pariah all non-believers of those systems? Some humility can do humanity well. Maybe reminding ourselves of some good modern China has done that should impress a curious intellect;
China has done to the majority of its people what no other country has done in recent history; uplifting them from poverty and majorly expanding the middle age class.
It shaped itself into a global manufacturing force that feeds into Chinese pride.
It delivers more R&D and patents than any other country in the world.
Its business environment promotes innovations and startups in a creative soup mimicking the evolution soup that first created DNA (if you believe in evolution).
It has never contoured a country or killed millions of people in the name of spreading what righteousness of its beliefs.
It lends money to countries that IMF and world banks wouldn't under mutual interest business deals without muscle and interference with their political structure.
Most James bond-like technologies are affordable today to the average Joe thanks to China.
At the same time, China has restrained itself from a damaging response to US's recent actions:
Blocking Huawei 5G on a global level
Bulling all global vendors in the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to stop selling any advanced processors (less than 20 nm) or any of their production equipment to China
Arming and building a NATO-like alliance with China's neighbors including Japan, Taiwan Australia
In essence, my wonders as a third-party observer, who is bullying whom? tariffs and sanctions. Why was globalization a good thing enforced by the US for the last 30 years, and now that it has benefited another nation, it is suddenly problematic? Are nationalistic policies, nationalistic economic policies, and nationalistic agendas a good trending thing in this age? Hasn't that been what the "free world" fought against during most of the 20th century?
A lot can be said about that. I might dedicate an article to that purpose. My question to myself today is, why despite all these known published facts, do smart people tend to lean into the biblical good and evil? And how can the hypocrisy not be suffocating if we are on one hand telling religious groups to abandon their binary system of the judgment of "believers/non-believe" while on the other hand, the western world is adopting it as a foreign policy doctrine and religion?
- Child of Handa
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