Origin Of Everything: Politics of Power, Prejudice and Pandemics

By Terry Nettle

This book addresses the politics and our obsession about the origin of everything.

People often think that if you know the origin of something, you can understand it, do something about it, fix it, change it, explain it, manipulate it, use it to suit your purpose, use it to punish somebody, use it to claim credit, and even modify it to fit in with whatever you want to prove. But this is really the highly dangerous politics of origin.

The politics of searching for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is poisoning the relationship between USA and China and setting up a great debate about all kinds of conspiracy theories.

This book explores this and many other origin issues and asks whether all origins are knowable and whether it really matters to know the origin of everything that are related to different ideologies, cultures and civilizations. It examines many hard questions that need to be asked about bad politics and bad policies. It also highlights the terrible dangers of vicious politics and superpower rivalry in the modern world.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry Nettle
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201986049

Book preview

Chapter 1. The Obsession About Origins

People are obsessed with the idea of the origin of everything. They seem to think that if you know the origin of something, you can understand it, do something about it, fix it, change it, explain it, and even manipulate it. People have been known to use origin to suit their own purpose, use it to punish somebody, use it to claim credit, and even modify it to fit in with whatever they want to believe.

So, what is the correct way to deal with the question of origin?

Chapter 2. Dangerous Politics of Origins

It is not that there is anything wrong about trying to find answers to problems and puzzles. This is really quite natural. It is the direct consequence of basic human curiosity and the problem-solving human nature. It is natural to want to look for reasons and causes and origins.

But when the search for origin is instigated by ulterior motives, it is crossing the line. Indeed, the search for origins can be motivated by prejudice and by the need to shift blames. Most dangerous of all, it can be initiated by the desire to incite, to obfuscate, to confuse, to misdirect, to divert, to deflect and to incriminate. This will then be most conveniently based on fake news, rumours, careless associations, malicious interpretations, and unsubstantiated accusations. When that happens, it is no longer genuine inquiry. It is instead the dark realm of ignorance, conspiracy, hatred and violence. It is the worst kind of politicking.

By all means we should look for the origins of everything. But there is a need to be sensible, fair-minded and objective when we go about it. We must not be blinded by fake news, flimsy evidence, malicious rumours and false accusations. It should never become an obsession and a 'weapon of mass destruction'.

Chapter 3. How Does Origin Help Us?

And when some origins are found, we should ask: How confident are we about this origin? Is this the absolute truth or just some theories? What legal recourse we have against the purported perpetrators? What can we do to prevent it from ever happening again? What lives can be saved?

The fact is that not every origin can be determined. Often, there are many contributing factors and many almost simultaneous happenings, and possibly many origins. Furthermore,  knowing the supposed origin does not always help if serious doubts remain