Learning vs arrogance [Note: Content Warning - discussion on, and links to reports on, war and colonialism. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

 

If one is not too arrogant to do so, it is possible to learn from others. 

As an example, the newly independent USA sought intellectual property (IP) (including, I recall reading once, by nefarious means) from others - perhaps one of the purest examples of learning - after their War of Independence. 

As a later example of learning, after helping to win World War (part) Two, the USA sought to learn what it could from Germans - not only rocketry and science, but, for instance, defence tactics. 

However, when they started brainwashing their kids into (wrongly) believing that they were exceptional, the USA stopped learning from others - and from themselves, which is a bit like the block one of the ancient Greek philosophers supposedly put on the development of one area of knowledge (along the lines that everything was known, and therefore no further exploration/thinking/research was needed ... ). 

Others have fallen into that mistake of arrogance - for instance, the British Empire’s arrogance led (in part, at least, in my opinion) to it’s military failings in the (Second) Boer War. However, acknowledging  that  and  learning from it led to the British army in the early stages of World War (part) One being extremely (relatively) effective. 

Similarly, the USA learned - militarily - from the failures its arrogance had led it to in the Việt Nam War. 

Political lessons are a different matter - one that a lot of nations have struggled with, especially the colonialist ones. 

As an example, the USA’s failure to learn not to jump to military reactions, as it did when it misinterpreted George F Keenan's warning about the need to “contain” the USSR after World War (part) Two, which led to the Cold War, also led, in my opinion, to a series of political failures leading to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and, to some extent, the war in and near Gaza. 

It is even possible to learn from one’s own mistakes and from the knowledge/experience of others in one’s personal life ... 

What is required to do this is, however, amongst other things, a genuine commitment to avoid the errors of arrogance ... which is a commitment easier to make than fulfil. 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.  

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/