Session 6 :The mysterious case of perceptions.

Every day life stems from definitions and classifications. Man would not find much traction with getting an understanding of reality without either of these two activities. 

It is a part of our instinctive nature to do so. It eases our understanding of an otherwise complex world, which is nothing but a myriad of convoluted relationships.

To me, Heywood tries hard to reconcile the various opposing definitions and classifications of governments and regimes. There is an evident attempt to mellow the text down by including information from a variety of sources and time periods.

However, one thing he misses out on, in my opinion, is to cater for the this idea of varying perceptions. Sure, there is the odd mention of claiming some terms to be of the western origin. And, he does compensate for his usage of western terminology by adding in bits, which warn the reader of the text being west-centric in nature. But, these attempts fall short to account for the gravity of this issue.

The seeds of discord start when we view something from our own 'value system'. A concept forwarded by the eminent, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan. That, in my opinion, is the very beginning of conflict itself; to be blinded by our own experiences and then juxtaposing them onto a vastly disparate scenario.

For instance, the supposed 'Orientals' do not think of themselves as exotic and mysterious, like the West would have the world believe. Similarly, is it really logical to agree to the classifications of certain political entities on the basis of a discourse put forth by certain states? 

What is this issue to begin with?
It is case of misplaced perceptions. Calling a state a 'third world country', or an 'authoritarian' state is problematic to begin with. Yes, there is a need to define and classify. But it needs to be realised that these terms have subtle connotations that go along with them. 

Lest we forget the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when mankind stood on the brink of the first nuclear war due to a case of misplaced perceptions.

It was Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, who underestimated President Kennedy’s resolve under duress.Thinking that the American leadership would stand by and avoid confrontation, Khrushchev ordered the construction of nuclear missile sites in Cuba. This decision directly resulted from Khrushchev’s false analysis of Kennedy’s personality. 

Can this incident be linked back to the notion of a supposed 'communist' bloc vs 'democracy'? Perhaps. It certainly has its ties with the idea of false perceptions.

There is no doubt that differences exist between people, states and cultures. But, most of the times, similarities also do. 

It is hard to see a solution to this dilemma; should we abandon the practice of defining and classifying or let our thinking be governed by a pre-exisiting system of thought? Neither seem practical to me. 

Just the realisation that we, as humans, are inflicted to view the world from our eyes, and that differences do exist and need to be catered for, has to be enough for the time being. 

There is no doing without defining and classifying, but we need to vary of the baggage that different terms come with.