The Greatest Western Misconception is That the West is Misconceived
It isn’t uncommon in our modern-day climate to be critical of our own nation and the ideals that served as the engine for it. It, after all, goes with the territory in our postmodern age. But it wasn’t until we, as a people, devoted ourselves to that ethic of skepticism -- the ability to uncouple from some monocratic consciousness -- that we could begin to indict and rectify the sins of unchecked authority. Following the paradigm shifts of the Civil Rights Era, the American people became open to the prospect of questioning the inadequacies of the Establishment and its inability to solve the crimes of racism, refrain from martial jingoism, nor clarify why there continues to be a symbiosis between the two. By the time the population fully reckoned with the Vietnam War, which had uncoincidentally been festering under the surface of the civil rights struggle, the reality finally came to light that colonialism hadn't died. The televised nature of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, in particul