[extropy-chat] Poverty of Dignity

[Jeff Davis]

--- Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> It also isn't impossible to imagine that the
> relevant memes spread aren't ones
> of supernatural belief but of group identification
> and grievance.

Thomas Friedman is a prominent contributor to the
false narrative--the tribal mythology-- which is
required to maintain the American populace as
cooperative and compliant.  The arabs/muslims are
demonized --barbaric murderous savages-- and their
hostility explained as envy: we're rich and their not;
and religous extremism: muslims view the west as
corrupt, decadent, and morally depraved, precisely
because the west is not muslim, which muslims see as
the only true religion, to which all must submit or
die(ie, they hate our freedoms).

Not at all oddly, the Americans (seem to?) buy into
this nonsense because it is human to accept the tribal
mythology.  However, as always there is a truth which,
if you go looking for it, is not too hard to find.

For one thing, if, for example, you want to know why
Osama commissioned the 9/11 attack (assuming that he
commissioned the attack, and I assume that he did),
rather than asking Thomas Friedman or George Bush, why
not ask Osama?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html

Or if for some reason listening to Osama is just too
traumatic, then perhaps the voice of someone closer to
home (no, not Chomsky, not this time, though you can
never go wrong with Chomsky), then try Ward Churchill.
 I recently got round to his little piece

"Some People Push Back"
On the Justice of Roosting Chickens 

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html

and discovered what all the fuss was about.  Rarely
has the American tribal mythology been more rudely
dissed by the truth.  

It's not rocket science, but it IS hypergolic. 
 
Best, Jeff Davis

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its
ideas or values or religion but rather by its
superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners
often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." 
                - Samuel P. Huntington



		
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