Re: The Passion of the Christopher

From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Mon 10 May 2004 - 20:14:43 GMT

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    ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> The point of this
    > bloodfest is to reinforce our sense of ourselves as good and righteous and
    > kind, while the alien other only wishes to torture and kill us in return.
    A
    > classic narcissistic sleight-of-mind. This is a meme that propagates on
    the
    > basis of cultural narcissism, particualy endemic in the US.

    Hi Ted,

    The things about any one other is as old as the human being itself_ it is almost a natural habit/ trait to (re)inforce ties with close related people,
    [ family; friends, neighbours, etc] Distrust/ intolerance towards Others/ strangers is a normal reaction, according Mark Pagel.

    If people wouldn 't have any advantage to hold onto differences in the first place, why should we even try to get rid them !? Why should we trust/ tolerate any Other if that trust works against us !? Pagel says, " Distrusting strangers was/ is the best way to reinforce the cooperation within a/ the smaller group. "

    Animals distrust eachother if territory is concerned, people distrust eachother if the cultural territory is being jeopardized_ to enforce what makes you different from Others, what we may think as being strange or what we distrust is cultural biased. For our modern times I would add a social and political bias too.

    Damasio, " what we call ethical behavior has a very old emotional history. " IMO, distrust, intolerance, etc is connected with our emotional bias. It is our emotional system that backs up not only, like Damasio says, our sarrow and happiness but also our conduct towards strangers and strangeness. It is defending who and what we are....it is all about identity.

    And what the US is concerned, well...that narcissistic extreme can be historical explained, but the danger is that in its will to destroy all terror itself can loose more and maybe everything. It is the core of many Greek classical tragedies...It leads to contortment of what society is all about, in effect the mistrust of " what is not American " leads finally to hopelessness; even the thinking of people who were not patriotic on the one hand or were all for multicultarism on the other gets poised.

    Terrorism is than, paradoxal more dangerous than any can/ will believe...it not only threatens innocent lives, but the whole of society too if, for example the US holds on to its a- moral absoluteness. That means, that in the end, the US citizin will suffer more if things like the Patriot Act are continued than he will suffer of being bombed.

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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