David Brooks: There He Goes Again! « Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

David Brooks: There He Goes Again!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2004 at 12:43 PM and is filed under Mideast Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “David Brooks: There He Goes Again!”

webmacher says:

September 8, 2004 at 2:14 PM

What you said.

And yet… the line about killing “in a state of spiritual loftiness” struck a chord with me, because it reminded me of the books of two far better authors than Brooks: Karen Armstrong’s “The Battle For God” and Mark Juergensmeyer’s “Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence”. It’s been a while since I read them, so my recollections are a bit fuzzy, but I remember some discussion about how some people see the world as at war, in a battle between good and evil, and how, when you see things that way, it makes things very black-and-white and can justify all kinds of actions.

And frankly, it reminds me of some champions of this “war on terrorism.” Perhaps there IS some kind of righteous joy in killing (or making decisions that cause people to be killed) when you KNOW you’re right.

And sadly, it’s a contagious disease, and it does seem to crowd out rational thought and productive actions. (Again, see our own “war on terrorism.”)

Finally, on a musical note, have you heard Richard Thompson’s “Outside of the Inside”? It captures this mindset really well, I think.

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Richard Silverstein says:

September 8, 2004 at 2:28 PM

You’ll note in my post I wrote that I don’t advocate attempts at rational dialogue with monsters like bin Laden or those who murdered children in Beslan. But there are always representatives within societies like Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, etc. who advocate some of the views of the terrorists (nationalism, religious fervor, etc.) but who reject senseless murder & truly want a solution to their particular conflict. Countries like the U.S., Russia & Israel are only too ready to ignore these indigenous, representative voices & say there’s no possible hope for negotiation or compromise. This constitutes the bankruptcy & failure of leadership I talked about.

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webmacher says:

September 8, 2004 at 3:20 PM

I totally got that point — you made it very well, and I agree. (I thought it was interesting that even our government was urging Putin to talk to the Chechens yesterday. Let’s hope someday cooler heads prevail!)

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