Cognitive Resonance

There are people who will say that democracy is neither an intelligent nor a fair system, and that those who have the money are also the best rulers. But I say, first, that what is meant by the demos, or people, is the whole State, whereas an oligarchy is only a section of the State; and I say next that though the rich are the best people for looking after money, the best counsellors are the intelligent, and that it is the many who are best at listening to the different arguments and judging between them. And all alike, whether taken all together or as separate classes, have equal rights in a democracy. An oligarchy, on the other hand, certainly gives the many their share of dangers, but when it comes to the good things of life not only claims the largest share, but goes off with the whole lot. And this is what the rich men and the young men among you are aiming at; but in a great city these things are beyond your reach. What fools you are! In fact the stupidest of all the Hellenes I know, if you do not realize that your aims are evil, and the biggest criminals if you do realize this and still have the face to proceed with them.

--Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, VI.39-40

If now isn't the time to refuse the naturalization of capitalism and the ideological insistence on its benevolent and civilizing character, then there never will be a time.

--Mark Driscoll, Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, the Dead, and the Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895-1945 (5)

One of the problems with the term ["Westernization"] is that it skirts the heart of the issue: the globalizing reaches of capitalism, a set of processes dominated (though never entirely controlled) by multinational corporations [sic], many of which are not based in the United States. Upon closer inspection, the problem is not merely cultural, as Westernization suggests, but political and economic. Many go so far as to speak of "cultural imperialism." The idea of cultural imperialism is that U.S. domination of globalizing processes leads native peoples to abandon their traditional cultural practices to consume Hollywood movies and McDonald's fries. In this understanding, globalization engulfs the local. It is important, however, to remember that globalization does not only happen to people; it happens by people. Global capital requires national governments to pave its way--through state repression of labor organizing activities, for example, as was the case in Taiwan. Taiwan's export-substitution strategy of economic national development made the "Made in Taiwan" label ubiquitous in North America. Global capitalism did not simply arrive on Taiwan's shores and engulf the island; Taiwan actively courted and absorbed global capitalism into its fold. Its clamoring for admission to the World Trade Organization is a case in point. Nor did multinational capitalists simply swallow Taiwan once on shore. Corporations were forced to localize their practices in order to wrest labor away from Taiwanese family farms and enterprises. Taiwan having transformed itself from a poor agrarian country to a wealthy industrialized one, the next wave of multinational corporations sought the island out not for its labor but for its consumers. Corporations like McDonald's and Coca-Cola had to localize, tailoring their business practices, goods, services, and marketing strategies for the Taiwan market.

--Bonnie Adrian, Framing the Bride: Globalizing Beauty and Romance in Taiwan's Bridal Industry, 11 (citations omitted; emphases original)

In his essay "Politics and Man in the Contemporary World," Maruyama [Masao] drew on the experience of Martin Niemöller, a German pastor and eventual prisoner of the Nazi regime. Niemöller crystallized his experience--the transformation of equanimity into opposition as Nazi attacks came closer and closer to the church--into two stark injunctions. First, Principis obsta: "Resist the beginning"; second, Finem respice: "Consider the end." Niemöller's own awakening had come too late to prevent the evil that so seared his conscience. Ultimately, then, as Simone Weil thought, we may fail. Her example, however, and Niemöller's and Nanbara's, and Hasegawa's, shows us that we are bound, whatever the result, to continue our attempts to think through our condition. The alternative--to cease thinking altogether--permits no other choice.

--Andrew E. Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Man in Crisis (xx)