Reply #32: But in no cases are the stories in our heads the same as reality itself. [View All]

[seemslikeadream]

Here's a story making the rounds right now: four American contractors delivering food were ambushed, murdered, burned and dismembered by evil terrorists. Another story is those ambushed were $1000-a-day ex-American Green Beret and SEAL mercenaries training some Iraqis to oppress others. Which story is true?

Both, probably. No one is all good or bad. Probably the murdered were doing both: delivering food and training other mercenaries.

Not only are there stories, there are stories behind the stories. And there are stories behind those stories. In fact, as Alexei Panshin has written, it's stories all the way down

Here's what I mean: some Americans want to completely level two or three Iraqi cities because of the murder of those four Americans. Yet, these same Americans ignore the fact the US government has twice attacked Iraq when the country never attacked America, murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more through a blockade (called "sanctions"), lied about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction," and then conquered the country. Why is there such outrage over those four murders, as brutal as they may be, and little concern over the genocide the American government has perpetrated upon Iraq?

Because behind those stories lies another story. This one is called the Tribe and the Outsider.

Every tribe throughout history has called itself "the People" or "the Humans." Anyone outside the tribe was non-People and non-Human. And each one of those tribes has always thought God was on its side.

Modern nations, which are just tribes writ large, are no different from those primitive tribes. Anyone outside the tribe is an Outsider. Not quite human, and certainly not as human as those inside the Tribe. That's why some Americans are outraged over the murder of four Americans, and pay no attention to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. They're just not quite human.

It also why there was dancing in the streets in Arab countries when those planes were flown into the WTC and the Pentagon. The people in those buildings were outside their tribe.

Most of the time the Outcast is also the Scapegoat. Get rid of the scapegoat, who is the cause of evil, and goodness shall reign. Saddam Hussein was made into a scapegoat. Many cheered when he was dragged out of his hidey-hole, mistakenly thinking it would make a difference. It didn't.


http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace179.html