Introduction and Western vs other thinking

I’ve decided to, in a sense, put myself through the political science related courses that MIT has now made available – free, online. Of course, this won’t be the same as actually doing the courses, with active debates and feedback from lecturers, but I can’t afford the cost of signing up to any course, so this is the next best thing :) – for me, at any rate.

This blog is where I will record my thoughts and attempts at assignments (sadly, not marked by lecturers … and thus possibly less restrained and sober than if they were going to be :) ), as well as some comments from time to time on what is happening in politics now that has gained my attention.

I’ve still to get started properly, but one initial impression I have is that the introduction to political science is exclusively focused on the Western tradition. That is, perhaps, understandable, but I consider there may be some advantages in considering other views – for instance, whereas western thought seems to me to be the individual against society, an inherently combative and sacrificial approach, the (traditional?) Asian approach is more about the individual with society – how to harmonise both for mutual benefit.*

Now, one of the concerns that immediately springs to mind - for me – is that the latter may suppress some rights that have been hard won in the West, such as anti-discrimination laws, but one could also, perhaps, view those laws as removing the block of disharmony that is discrimination to better allow people to be themselves and thus contribute more effectively to overall harmony of society and themselves. To put that another way, when same sex attracted (SSA), bisexual (B) and trans/gender diverse (TGD) people are not fighting against pressure to suppress or change themselves, they can more efficiently find harmony in themselves and with the larger society they exist in, as well as that larger society stopping picking on something which is, in the broader “scheme of things”, minor, and turning it into a suppurating mess that it shouldn’t be.

To choose a mechanical engineering analogy, removing discrimination removes attempts to force a bamboo cog to behave as if it is a metal cog, which thus allows both the cog an the overall machine to function more effectively.

More to come – at odd intervals :)

* PS - western history leads to adversarial approaches, whereas eastern admits the possibility of a win-win solution