VIEWPOINTS AND VIEWS

Excerpted from JP Cole

Each individual who studies world affairs is bound to have his own viewpoint and views. The viewpoint is partially determined by the locality (in space) and the period (in time) in which he lives. His views are influenced by his environment, by the particular language he speaks, by the customs and traditions of his country and compatriots as well as by what he hears and reads. It is probable, however, that his own particular world outlook may not differ greatly from that of his contemporaries in the same part of the world. The British, for example, tend to have a collective Anglocentric or Britannocentric outlook towards the world. Our outlook is bound to differ from that of the Mexicans or Peruvians or Australians. After living in another part of the world for some time, a person may of course begin to acquire a world outlook similar to that of the people among whom he is living.

Not surprisingly, there is a tendency for people to feel that what they are accustomed to in their own district or country is normal and that everywhere else in the world there are only varying degrees of abnormality. But there is no justification for thinking that conditions in Britain (or anywhere else, of course) are any more normal than those in other parts of the world. Indeed, we should bear in mind that such a highly industrialized and urbanized trading community as Britain is something very unusual both now and in the past.

The tendency for people to consider that what they are accustomed to is normal can easily be accompanied by another, more dangerous, tendency. This for people to think that they, their compatriots, and their way of life are superior to others. They may base their claim to superiority on their superior military strength, on the numbers of cars or telephones they have per hundred inhabitants, on the light colour of their skin, or on the fact that they belong to a certain religious faith or have a particular type of political organizations.

The idea that one's own group is not merely different from all others, but also better, is widespread. It is reflected in the rivalry between individual communities and between tribes in simple societies, between towns and regions in civilized countries and between nations and even continents on a world scale.