Deconstructing Context 2

Fragmentation:

In one sense, Postmodernism encourages fragmentation. As Nietzsche once said, "History is nothing but The Will to Power." The hermeneutics of suspicion finds power structures everywhere that impede the political progress of minorities. Hollywood is still dominated by the Jews and the Whites (although Italians also have a influence). Academia is still dominated by the Jews and the Whites (although Afro-Americans are pretty powerful too). This dominance in certain industries or disciplines is actually pretty common. The Beer industry has been largely dominated by the Germans in America. The Nail Salon industry seems to be dominated by the Vietnamese. The black haircare stores are largely dominated by South Koreans. Each minority entered an industry that they could do better than others on. Eventually, the minorities climbed the economic ladder and entered other industries. There are now many doctors, lawyers, businessmen who are South Koreans and also academics too, but they do not exert much of a political influence.

Postmodernists find power structures that impede minorities who are not dominant in an industry to find power, their own power, in other words, empowerment. So we have Afro-American studies that place Africa at the center of afro and black americans. Korean-Americans whose Korean heritage is at the center of their identity. We can just as well have American-Koreans but that is a little too confusing. It might imply that Americans who want to be Koreans are included in this group.

So Afro-Americans want to bring in more academics who agree with their ideology into academia or any other industry and dominate the industry as other minorities or people have. Other minorities and races have been pushing them down, oppressing them, and when they are finally liberated, they will be as successful as the other minorities. This is the hermeneutics of suspicion, I believe.

It was Martin Luther King Jr. who essentially said that all this liberation and "express yourself" movement may not be such a good thing. As people become liberated, not only does their good side come out, but also their evil side. Empowerment is one thing, but oppressing others whom you once suspected of oppressing you at one point because of human greed, evil, and laziness is not such a good thing.

Curiously enough, I don't think South Koreans will try to bring in other South Koreans in their hermeneutics of suspicion. South Koreans are too suspicious of other South Koreans. In any case, it is better to bring in someone who agrees with you ideologically than racially.

The hermeneutics of suspicion will undoubtedly result in fragmentation of American culture but American culture is already fragmented. Multiculturalism was already in American before the non-European immigrants came (The Dutch, The English, The Spanish, The French, etc.). The idea of the Greek "polis" (city-state) encouraged the competition between city-states. LA competes with NY. NY competes with Boston. The states of the United States are very much like the city-states of ancient Greece and in some cases, there is an incredible amount of animosity from one state to another. Competition between cities or states have not gotten so bad that people think of another state as the "Other." People don't like LA, they move to NY or Boston, etc. Individualism is alive and well in the United States, and it is not as extreme as it was in ancient Athens except maybe with the extremely wealthy. I don't see why they would need to have any allegiance to the United States as they have been pampered silly by the Ayn Rand-loving Fed.