Reading "Sacred Barriers to Conflict Resolution" helped me understand that Americans are going to the extreme to spread our sacred values into a global epidemic, but most especially in the middle east. We value honor, justice, power, and authority to be more sacred over economy. Because of this, America has created barriers against countries that have beliefs not like ours. This does not make resolving political conflicts very easy; it can be seen as a lion vs. an elephant challenging eachother over the right of an area of land.
American politics have become extremely prejudiced, and this is because of the sacred values of the government and government corporations. This has caused conflicts ranging in intensity, from simple debates all the way to serious war. Terrorists from the middle-east have committed suicide in order to take down a large number of Americans or an influential government building because of these conflicts. Leaders in the middle-east have tried to wipe out segments of our government numerous times. This is because of their sacred values of family and religion (which believes in violence against other religions). Americans, in turn, have turned to violence and war to settle disagreements with the middle-east because of their sacred values to bring opponents and offenders to justice.
The middle-east is a major source of valuable resources, mainly oil, which we are willing to see as a reason to keep peace, somewhat, with the "opponent." Likewise, Americans are in posession of an extremely powerful government and many weapons and arms resources. Both sides need eachother because of these economic trade-offs, and with a reason to keep at least a little bit of peace, sacred values for both sides are able to be protected.
Using Anthropology in military fields is a wonderful concession that is helping to resolve the conflicts that barriers made by sacred values continuously create. This helps each side understand each other just that much more, so we can find more solutions for political conflict rather that retaliation and war. We can see underlying conflicts that, with their own solutions found, can solve for bigger and more negative conflicts.
Of course the Americans have gone to the extreme to try and protect or spread our sacred values, it's just typical of us to do so. Barriers have went up on both sides because I'm sure the Middle East really doesn't want us in their country any longer. We've put up our barriers as well because it's like you said, we don't want to really think about people who don't share our beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if politicains have become that prejudiced, it's typical of them to look out for their own interests instead of representing the American public properly.