I’ve been upbraided a few times recently, by Occasional Readers, friends that live in different countries and don’t like what I’ve said about them, or their views, or their countries. .
Can I have a view about them? Am I allowed to? Is it valid I do so?
One is on Israel. One is on China. One is on Australia.
On Israel, I’m upbraided because I objected to an Israeli friend, living near Tel Aviv, who tells me that “we think like ...” and I object to the word “we”. How can you be so sure that you, the OR, living in Israel, represent the “we”?
After all, there’s the old jewish joke about the jew shipwrecked on an island for so many years, finally picked up by a passing ship. His saviours notice a couple of crude shacks he’s built, looking rather like synagogues, and they ask him what’s what. “Well”, he says, “that’s the synagogue I go to”, pointing to one, and, pointing, to the other, “that’s the one I wouldn’t be seen dead in”.
And the oldest one in the book: put five jews in a room and you have 20 opinions.
In Jerusalem with my critic, years ago, he points out to me the various religious jews praying and their different hats, and that’s the first time I notice that those funny cake-box like hats, with the various bits of fluff on them, are all different and my friend says, yes, they’re all of different sects, different strands of fundamentalist Judaism.
And I’m now supposed to accept that he, my friend, knows what “we” -- the Israeli people -- think about what’s going on post 10/7? That he’s privy to their unified thoughts?
No, of course that’s nonsense. It was then, and it’s even more now, as we see the indecision of the IDF. Which reflects the indecision of the Israeli government.
What’s more the world is more connected than ever. I can see live footage just as much as my Israeli friend. He talks with his neighbours. Very well. But I also talked with some of his neighbours, in Israel, when I was there and the thoughts of some of them about what Israel needed to do to dampen Muslim hatred of them, struck me as naive in the extreme and recipe for self-annihilation.
So, no, I don’t for one minute accept that because “I sit here in Hong Kong”, I can’t have a view about this or that country.
The one on China, I’ve written about before. The fellow was himself living in China, but more ignorant of what is going on in the world than we here in Hong Kong, yet so ignorant of the world that he didn’t know he was ignorant. IOW, so much in the bubble he didn’t know he was in a bubble. At least I know I’m in a bubble and try to break out of it from time to time. Which is, like, every day. By reading around topics from left to right. And reading on sources that are simply not allowed in China. I wrote about this guy a while back. And of another from Europe, who also though himself well educated, but was not, because all he imbibed was the narrative of the mainstream media.
And on Australia, it’s all about what went on with the recent Voice referendum. I can have a view form here. Because all the arguments were played out on the media, social and mainstream and I’m just as capable of following those as those in Australia.
So, no, I don’t buy the idea that you can only know about a place by living in that place. We can all have our views, and we can all have our biases. The biggest trick is to understand that you have biases. Your “priors”. And to try to overcome them. That’s always difficult, because even when you know you need to look more to the Left or to the Right, to “balance” your views, it’s really hard to look at the opposite side, because it seems so... well, ... so wrong. But you must. You must grit your teeth an wade in to the opposite side and listen and try to understand.
Only a few people can do this, on the internet. One of the best is Coleman Hughes. And I’d add Joe Rogan. And Adam Carolla. A few others, but not many. Try at least to look at them. That’s a start.
