Monopoly on Freedom

When people are fortunate enough to be born white, male, and in the comforts of a wealthy home, there are certain assumptions about the rest of the less-fortunate world that seem hard to shake.

Other people want what I have.
I know how I got what I have.
I am therefore equipped to teach other people how to get what I have.

There are numerous flaws in each of these assumptions that, unquestioned, lead to the less-fortunate believing that you are a complete ass.

First, "other people want what I have." If "what you have" is understood to be equal opportunities, equal rights, equal access to the essential foundations of individual progress (education, health care, food, housing, etc.), then it's not such a problem. But all too often, "what you have" goes beyond the infrastructure of your privilege to more particular aspects of your cultural background, your personal value system--hell, even your ideals of beauty.

Kanye West has a line, "as long as I'm in polo's, smilin', they think they got me/ but they'd try an' crack me if they ever see a black me." Kanye, as obscenely wealthy and successful as he is, is still expected to dress in the style of the white idea of success and money (to be fair, he does it extremely well). This is a rather superficial example, but in it is that nugget of the white wealthy man's supremacism that used to go on safari to Africa and roll its eyes or laugh at the "primitive natives" and their idea of stylistic wealth signifiers.

Second, "I know how I got what I have."

I think I covered a lot of this in my last post, so I'll try to be succinct here: no, you don't. Even if you think you do, you don't. There is no way to disassemble the entire fabric of society to unearth all the ways in which any individual has benefitted from the foundations of social welfare. People who have had more obvious assistance are usually more inclined to recognize the necessity of its existence, though they may also have issues with the failures of its bureaucracy, which is fair. People who have never even been close to relying on it tend to demonize it with "moocher" rhetoric, not recognizing that without it, the desperation of the poor might actually ratchet up to the point of violence.

But beyond government assistance, the ideal of the "self-made man" is a myth. That "man" had a particular childhood that shaped him in a particular way to be able to tackle particular problems that he was able to profit from because of the particular needs of society at that particular time. There are innumerable avenues by which preferential treatment, individual or governmental assistance, and sheer luck intersect with this extremely simple scenario. Filling in the particulars only adds more.

So no, you don't know how you got what you have, and to presume such on an international scale is to say that you are somehow smarter, more evolutionarily advanced, and more capable, than other nations and cultures. Again with the supremacy, already! (See, that right there is me benefitting from the Jewish-comedic tradition. Oy, vey!)

Third, and most telling in terms of foreign policy, "I am therefore equipped to teach you how to get what I have."

This is where the great hypocrisies of supremacism rear their ugly heads. This is the world in which George W. Bush can invade a sovereign nation with military force and call it "liberation." I am not condoning Saddam Hussein's regime, but merely trying to say that true "liberation" is brought about from within. If democracy is the rule of the people, is it insane to think that maybe the people should have a say in its inception?

And then we have the Arab Spring, where things did evolve from within. But when Egypt elected a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a lot of white male Republicans started saying, "hey, that's no way to be a democracy!" Right. How dare the Egyptian people vote for the wealthiest, most politically organized candidate, appealing to the religious majority with strong, dogmatic rhetoric?! For shame! Are we afraid that they're too primitive, or too modern in their execution of democracy?

Not to mention our history of banana republics, puppet governments, and our government agencies training operatives to strategically destabilize various regimes, which, for all the propaganda of "spreading democracy," is really just our government imposing their interests on others, and selling it as the interests of the people. We seem to forget, in terms of foreign policy, that the beginning of our own republic was an organic revolt against a monarch who, from afar, with no understanding of the everyday circumstances of colonial life, thought he knew what was best for us.

It is beyond unsurprising to me that, in politics, people who boast the loudest about the virtues of freedom don't really like it all that much. It's not surprising. It's boring. I'm bored by the transparent hypocrisy of it all. But it still fucking persists. So here. Here's a quick test:

Do you love freedom?

A. Yes
B. No
C. I guess, but that's a stupid question.

If you answered A or B, you probably don't love freedom, and as such, you do not get to tell other people how to achieve it.