Non-Western Ideas

Enduring Ideas in Political Thought

  • Enduring Ideas = Power

    • Power is either coercive or beneficial.

  • Democratic Ideas = Ancient and Modern

    • Who speaks to power (impact of settler colonialism).

  • Radical Ideas = Disruption

    • Ideas that challenge the status quo.

  • Non-Western Ideas = Absent Thinking

    • Discussion of absent thinking, especially how whiteness plays into racialized political thought.

Daoist Dialectics and Western Threat Perception

  • Daoist Yin-Yang Dialectics

    • Exploration of how Daoist principles can relate to geopolitical narratives like the 'China threat'.

Corporatism

  • Definition: society is a single, integrated body with different sectors (e.g., labor, business, agriculture).

    • Main goal is to resolve class conflicts using a top-down approach, as seen in political movements such as Make America Great Again (MAGA).

The Debate on Cuba's Communist Representation

  • Contextual Analysis

    • Understanding why Cuba was omitted in previous discussions about communism, considering the background of a 62-year trade embargo between the USA and Cuba.

The Historical Context of Racism

  • Historical Figures and Events

    • American slavery duration: 1619 to 1800 (246 years).

    • Segregation span: 1865 to 1954 (89 years).

Classification of Racial Categories

  • Terminology

    • Discussion surrounding 'People of Colour' (PoC), 'Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic' (BAME) versus 'People of the Global Majority'.

    • Language Appropriateness: Reflecting on when it is appropriate to modify language surrounding racial identity.

Non-Western Ideas and Historical Framework

  • Non-Western thought stems through 2/3 of the world, deeply rooted in millennia of history.

  • Western views based on Eurocentrism

    • “West is best” and “civilize the rest”

  • Non-Western ideas are not monolithic; can be progressive or regressive.

  • Hybridity: mixture of old and new ideas

    • Question how ideas move across context

Power, Privilege, and Racism

  • Gayatri Spivak's

    • The impossibility of 'unlearning' privilege; rather, it should be used wisely to express awareness and support for marginalized voices and communities.

The Concept of Universal Politics

  • Ilan Kapoor and Zahi Zalloua propose a universal politics. This approach comes from social conflicts and aims to avoid new colonial influences by recognizing common experiences of exploitation and marginalization.

Critique of Eurocentrism and Orientalism

  • Edward says eurocentrism creates and reproduces stereotypes (orientalism)  about the non-west