A Third Worldist in its oldest, most authentic and most indigenous form

 August 4,2022

Taiwan has gotten a lot of news attention, subliminally and openly, recently - and it may seem like overall, issues about Taiwan and high-tech industry, have gotten into the bloodstream of the political narrative. And me included. Why does it matter to me, an American born and raised, and an American educated person? It's not this youthful obsession with the world at the expense of the world at our fingertips, and at a glance around. The world outside our borders does have its mysteries. But it's not out of oriental superstition or jingoistic interventionism that I write about them.

This is a piece I wrote about this a while back. Why do I care about U.S. foreign policy in this way? 

I am a Third Worldist in its oldest, most authentic and most indigenous expression. That is what members of countries in the non-aligned block of nations called themselves during the folly of the Cold War. I believe in the so-called "Western values" of peace through prosperity, liberty and freedom of expression. I believe in the pursuit of happiness, for God and country. But I don't believe those are "Western" values. I don't believe anyone but for humanity itself has claim to ownership of those perfect ideals. I believe in opening minds around the world to those perfect ideals, but not under the flag and cloak of Western ownership, Western interpretation, and Western fiat. This country has security interests and some of those depend on global acceptance of peace, liberty and freedom of expression. Those radiant perfect ideals clothe Americans while they are abroad and guarantee them a degree of safety. But the concrete shapes those ideals take in other nations are best drawn up in their practicality by the native intellectuals of those countries, who understand their own culture and history, and can spot in their own culture and history the authentic expressions of peace through prosperity, liberty and freedom of expression. Those people may be extensively educated in a "Western" way, that is to say in Western institutions, or in the West itself, but the important point I am making is that those who should model ideals for a place are those who can live deeply embedded in a place without experiencing separation from its facts of existence. In that sense, a Third World "Western intellectual", so called, who has not lost connection to the facts of local existence, is not a "Western intellectual" if what they are espousing is really these universal perfect ideals. Shame on anyone, local to a Third World country or to a U.S. national elite, domestic or transnational, who uses that term for them disparagingly. Humanity cannot hold together and the individual cannot either without these perfect ideals of peace through prosperity, liberty, and freedom of expression. They belong to nobody in particular, no person, country, race, or school of thought, but they belong to all humanity and anyone who exercises them. They do not depend on personal belief in God but they flow from God's benevolence and cannot be given or taken away. They simply exist independent of borders or national territory or personality; they are personal rights and have more universality and power than any culture, Western or otherwise - Indian, Sudanese, Asian, Chinese, Korean, or Latin American, what have you. Cultures can change but these perfect and personal ideals of peace through prosperity, liberty, and freedom of expression do not change. They cannot be claimed, they cannot be owned by anyone or any group or territory or any force of men or woman opposed to another.