the white hat vs. the black hat
Ahh the wild west visual cliché is unfortunately still alive and well. Maybe not so obvious but still there. Still makes me laugh when I flick on the TV halfway through a western (pre-sergio and clint westerns that is) and wonder who the good guy is for about one-one-hundredth of a second. The shining example of good in a dark and evil world. Phew, I feel safer just knowing he's out there. Damn, he isn't is he. Or she. Nope, they just 'aint real.
For my lifetime to date we have watched historical footage and read about the evil and tyranny of World Wars. The spin of the spread of some unseen evil through whatever country, state or suburb. Then we feel glad that we had and have the good old allies there to protect the World. Ready to give lives so that many can feel safe and sound. The black hat and the white hat facing off across civilisation.
The problem with the theory of being the white hat is the reality of corruption. Not just political or fiscal corruption but more the corruption of integrity and morality. The old saying "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" has proven to be true time and again. I think the same can be seen with an unchecked 'white hat'. If you're the so-called 'good guy' for too long without serious analysis some of that there evil can sink in there. It was always there but just makes it's presence a tad more pronounced. Little stuff like invading another country behind the banner of saving it. 10 years after actually fucking up parts of it and about 20 years after installing the very problem the country suffers to power. The allies. We march behind a banner of 'white', feeling so supreme and righteous because we've always been the good guy yet surely certain actions would prove that our white hat is in fact a tad closer to grey.
quote for the day:
"There aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just...
It's just... It's just a bunch of guys."
- Steve Arlo
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)
"We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero . . . assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."
- George Herbert Walker Bush (Dubya the first
in his 1998 book A World Transformed)
For my lifetime to date we have watched historical footage and read about the evil and tyranny of World Wars. The spin of the spread of some unseen evil through whatever country, state or suburb. Then we feel glad that we had and have the good old allies there to protect the World. Ready to give lives so that many can feel safe and sound. The black hat and the white hat facing off across civilisation.
The problem with the theory of being the white hat is the reality of corruption. Not just political or fiscal corruption but more the corruption of integrity and morality. The old saying "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" has proven to be true time and again. I think the same can be seen with an unchecked 'white hat'. If you're the so-called 'good guy' for too long without serious analysis some of that there evil can sink in there. It was always there but just makes it's presence a tad more pronounced. Little stuff like invading another country behind the banner of saving it. 10 years after actually fucking up parts of it and about 20 years after installing the very problem the country suffers to power. The allies. We march behind a banner of 'white', feeling so supreme and righteous because we've always been the good guy yet surely certain actions would prove that our white hat is in fact a tad closer to grey.
quote for the day:
"There aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just...
It's just... It's just a bunch of guys."
- Steve Arlo
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)
"We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero . . . assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."
- George Herbert Walker Bush (Dubya the first
in his 1998 book A World Transformed)
posted by brent c. airey at 7:25 PM
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