Or if ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise. Or is it ?. At any rate
this is the question - restated for the millionth time by Josh
Marshal at TPM. The answer is easy.
Lack of knowledge and understanding of people other than our selves. A
choice to remain ignorant and unconscious of their culture, beliefs and
society. We assume that everyone else in the world believes and views
life and wants exactly what we want. It is an arrogance of thinking
that the whole world wants to be just like us. How could they not ? We
ask.
So we disregard their beliefs and society and worse yet, denigrate
their religion and society and force our own on them whether they want
it or not. At the same time conveniently forgetting our own past and
it's more horrifying practices. After all we no longer stone people to
death or burn them alive or behead them. We stopped that kind of
behavior long ago. Of course we also cannot understand why our holier
than thou attitude falls on deaf ears when our
soldiers kill civilians for sport or when our drone aircraft hit's
the wrong target or we give un-restrained support for some regime that
engages in torture or appears to be engaging in systematic ethic
cleansing. Or maybe our own racism and corruption where we let
business off the hook for trashing the economy and putting people in
danger or destroying the environment for profit.
If we really want to have some peace and security, maybe we need to
clean up our own house first. And try to understand and respect others
whether we agree with them or not. Trade in our arrogance for some
humility.
5 comments:
C, you got the point.
Dicky C saw the repercussions right away.
THEY WOULD BLAME HIM!!!
As well as they should have blamed that dirty bastard.
Oh but we shall shift the blame.
We shall put it on saddam and my company will still make billions.
dirty bastard.
If we could transfer our 20/20 hindsight to foresight we'd be better universally. But our country isn't particularly good at this. I guess no country is very good at this. I guess humanity isn't very good at this.
Nations start wars assuming victories--with the exception of Grand Fenwick (of course Grand Fenwick won).
But it isn't just war where consequences be damned rules. Dig a well in Pennsylvania to supplement and compete with the products from the mines dug in West Virginia, to fuel the engines created by Watt and added to platforms and put on rails...who'd a thunk that glaciers would be melting and Greenland falling apart? Thorton Wilder's Play, The Skin of our Teeth needs to be moved away from the world of high school performances and anthologies in lit classes, I think. And maybe we add "actions (and inactions) have consequences" and "THINK" to the list of warnings we put on labels, even on the labels of things we think are good for us.
Hummm...or maybe Our Town. Though sometimes I feel Waiting For Godot comes closer to the point.
Arrogant is a good word for what we have become in the eyes of the world. We are, for the most part, pretty proud of what we have here. But it is not for everyone, and for us to think it is, is where the arrogance comes in.
Yes, there are many people who would risk everything to come here illegally, and I don't see much of an exodus of Americans who want to get the heck outta here, so that feeds the notion of how great we are.
But, there are some cultures who like their lives just the way they are. And the more extreme we become in terms of our worship of celebrity,of money and of power, the more we "bully" the rest of the world, the less respect we get from the rest of the world. There are countries out there who wouldn't spit on us if we were on fire, and certainly wouldn't want to BE us. At least not the way we are now.
I don't see much of an exodus of Americans who want to get the heck outta here, so that feeds the notion of how great we are.
Speak for yourself Stilli.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3AAdkfiamU
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