YOU THINK SO, DO YOU?

It's hard, really hard, to admit when we're wrong.

Right now, a lot of Democrats in America are getting worried. Biting their nails. Nibbling at their lower lips. Reaching for those cigarettes on the nightstand.

Why?

Because things over there in the Middle East are getting...interesting. Elections in Iraq. Upcoming democratic elections in Egypt. Lebanon standing up for itself. Israel and Palestine trying to sort stuff out, and actually, kind of, getting somewhere.

All because of Bush.

Aha!

Instantly, upon hearing the word Bush, you went into a defensive mode. I heard it! His name inspires either revolt or rejuvenation, and I'm betting which side of the fence you fall on, and I'm betting that it's not conducive to Dubya's health and prosperity.

That's fine. That's cool. I'm Canadian, after all, and I can afford to be a little, well, detached from it all. You want to hate Bush, draw swastikas on his newspaper-photo forehead, go right ahead. Or if you want to love the man, chill in Crawford, go for a little fishing with him, fine by me.

What interests me is not the man himself but the way that his actions, and subsequently your reactions to his actions, affects the way that you respond.

Let's put it this way. Right now, things are going (relatively) pretty good in the Middle East.

That makes Democrats uneasy.

Why?

Not because they don't want things to go well in the Middle East; they do. But they don't want it to be because of Bush, and if the tide does start to turn because of the President's actions, that will be a bitter pill that many Democrats refuse to swallow.

Works both ways, though. Let's say this temporary thaw in Middle Eastern hellraising is just that -- temporary. Let's say the proverbial fit hits the shan over the next six months, a year, two years, and the Middle East explodes in violence. Republicans will not blame Bush, despite all of his efforts and interventions; Republicans will point their fingers somewhere else.

That's what we, as humans, do.

Because it's hard to admit we're wrong. Because we're raised in a society that demands that we have a belief, a firm belief, a pretty much fixed belief, and that we stick to what we believe, come hell or high water.

Fine. All well and good. But the world is not a fixed place, so why should our beliefs be?

Because letting go of those beliefs is hard, soul-damaging work; labels are easier. Labels are the way we make our way through the world. I am white and he is black and she is Democrat and he is a Republican, and all of these classfications enable the building of blocks in our brain to allocate our judgements accordingly -- this person goes here, that person goes there.

But life doesn't work that way. People change and shift; so do events.

We have to find another approach to the way we view things, something beyond our initial, judgmental impulses.

Edward DeBono (www.edwdebono.com), who I've written about before, tries to do this, to go beyond what society has conditioned us to think is right and wrong, doable and not-doable, plausible and implausible. So much of the way we are brought up concerns itself with defending our own position, come hell and high water, without logically considering why we are so, so, so protective of our beliefs.

Consider the construction of the modern judicial system. There is a prosectuor and defendant;
each is trying to win. If the prosecutor has information that would help the defendant, do you think he/she would unleash it? And vice-versa. It is set up as a game, with a winner or a loser. Whoever can argue the best, persuade the best, wins. Truth is a by-product, an irrelevant afterthought.

I'm not saying this is completely wrong, or that I have a better alternative. (I'm from St.Catharines, alright?) But I'll steal DeBono's metaphor: It's like the wheels on a car. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with having a car with only two wheels; it's just not
enough. There's nothing wrong with our courts systems either, or healthy debates between conflicting parties -- but are they enough? Are these kind of paradigms designed to actually find the truth of a given situation, or are they designed as forums for the relentless defense of our own egos?

My point (and I think I have one; feel free to disagree) is that our own thoughts and views on issues are so tied up with our psyche and our peers, our own feelings and emotions and those of our family, friends and compatriots that it's become increasingly difficult to shift perspectives and swallow our pride and admit that we're going about something the wrong way. It's very, very hard to stop; disengage; step back; and consider. It's very, very difficult to admit that, you know what, I'm not really sure about something. Society tells us that if we don't have an opinion about something now, this very second, then we are apathetic drifters.

So, again, I say 'George W. Bush', and, for 99% of you, your mind is made up: savior or saboteur, saint or slimeball. If you think the man is a twit, you will not be receptive to anything positive I have to say about the man; if you think he's doing a good job, any criticisms coming from me will be tossed-over-the-shoulder right away, plain and simple. (I'm generalizing, but you get the picture.)

The advent of the Internet allows us to broaden our minds and consider points of view alien to our own. The danger is that we will just continue to sample that which reflects back our own beliefs.

I think it's important to at least listen to others who believe stuff that we don't. You ever listen to Rush Limbaugh? (Your mind whirs -- judgement time!) I disagree with most of what he says, 80 per cent of what he says, but you know what? He's actually kind of entertaining. Often funny. Uses satire well. I don't implode after listening to him; he doesn't really change my mind about much. But I learn how people different from me think.

It's a brave new world, yes, linked as never before, but filled with the same old two hundred countries. There was just an article the other day about how a lot of people are getting pissed off at the Indians on the other end of the line who man the phones for various different call-centres, the ones who are 'stealing' all the jobs from the Americans. The customers would get ticked off, then tell off, the Indians, insulting their ethnicity and ability.

We gotta get beyond all this. I don't know how we actually go about doing that, but I think it starts by investigating why we feel the way that we do, and acknowledging that thoughts change, that we change, and that we are, in the end, sometimes, like it or not, fallible.

Unless, of course, you try to tell me that Oliver Stone is a hack.

'Cause then you'd just be wrong.

DOOMED TO BE DARTH: LUKE SKYWALKER, CAMBODIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS, AND HOW TO REDEEM YOUR PARENTS' MISTAKES

The thing that most people overlook about the two Star Wars trilogies is that they are, at their core, the story of fathers and sons, and although we once thought of these stories as being concerned solely with the evolution of Luke Skywalker, we can now see that that isn't the case at all -- these movies are about Darth Vader, about a gifted young boy who ended up choosing the wrong path in life, only to be later redeemed by his son.

Nobody really likes these new movies, the third of which, Revenge of the Sith, will premiere this May, but I do; they convincingly portray the disintegration of a democracy into a dictatorship in a way that young people can understand and, given that they take place before the films we knew and loved as kids, they also have the added advantage of establishing all kinds of neat little foreshadowings, twists, and thematic layers that give new meaning to what we've seen before. They are able to, in essence, 'mirror' what happens in the second trilogy, creating a wonderful cyclical effect.

Basically, Anakin 'Darth Vader' Skywalker's story parallels his son's own odyssey through life -- a gifted, respected Jedi Warrior who is trying to do the right thing. Only Vader, obviously makes the wrong choice; Luke, faced with similar temptations, does the right thing. Simple. Powerful.

It's a very interesting, bold message, I think. Lucas is saying: Here's a guy who did everything wrong, but his son, faced with similar choices, not only does the right thing, but in the process redeems his dad, too (as Vader, at the end of Return of the Jedi, once again becomes a 'good guy').

You can argue all you want about the aesthetic choices of this new trilogy -- its excitement factor, it's 'coolness' -- that's your call. But I don't think you can deny that Lucas has deepened his maturity and focus; he's talking about interesting ideas that aren't really talked about much in contemporary pop culture, the most subtle of which is: how do we enter into the world that our parents made, and then somehow avoid making the same mistakes they did?

Take Cambodia. The Cambodian university students I taught were, in general, the children of the elite, which, in this country, means that their parents were government workers. Big shots. Not all of the students were rich kids; quite a few had scholarships, and there were many who somehow managed to scrape the tuition money together by hook or by crook. Still, a great majority of university students in Phnom Penh have parents in one Ministry or another, which means, bottom line, that those parents are on the take. Greasing the palms. Passing the buck, literally and figuratively.

Sad, but true. The weird thing is, in a country like Cambodia, where corruption is the norm, can it even be called corruption anymore? You do what you have to do to get ahead, build alliances, forge relationships. If that's what it takes to grease the wheel and climb the ladder, well, then that's what it takes. You call it corruption; they call it survival.

Problem is, where do all of these university graduates go? They are well-connected, most of these kids; if they want, I'm sure they can get somewhat of an 'in' into the system. And yet it is that very system that I fear, this system that will turn these naive, good-natured (albeit a little bit lazy) students into monetary, bureaucratic survivalists. If there was a Survivor: Cambodia, it would have to consist of a bunch of big-bellied bureaucrats scheming to see who gets to pay off which higher-up first.

But then, once these freshly-minted graduates are allowed into the dance, into the game, what next? How does the process being? How do you get the money, and how does the money exchange hands? Who gets what?

Because the Khmer Rouge killed all of the intellectuals and educated people twenty-five years ago, the people running Cambodia now are not the brightest bulbs in the socket. That may sound harsh, but it's true; Cambodia's educational system wasn't exactly stellar thirty years ago anyways, and the people running the show are woefully uneducated. And here you have their (relatively) better educated children, young and eager and wanting to become a part of the legitimate international community, but unsure of how to go about it.

Will they just inherit their parents' corrupt ways? Is there any other way, besides corruption, to move the country forward, given that those in power sure as hell won't relinquish power? Will the children of Cambodia become their own, authentically Asian version of Luke Skywalker, avoiding temptation by doing the good and noble act, thereby redeeming their great country and their parents in the process? Or is the country doomed to be Darth Vader all over again?