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Ideology: Not for Sale
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This Month's NEW Topics
Ideology: Not for Sale
Several of you chimed in noting the Iran issue's similarity to the Hamas war, and so I dug up an old Q&A (below) from Frank on that...looks like ditto to the Iran war.
Key points are in boldface. In a nutshell, what most people don't understand is that when you have two vastly different ideologies (in this case Western vs. Fundamentalist) one side enters a ceasefire negotiation thinking that the other side thinks the same as they do. They shake hands and expect a mutual give and take. Not happening! Rather, ideology rules and can't be sold! That's why, as detailed in the below answer to Frank, one culture should never assume that another culture thinks the same. For example, in WW2, the average Joe would think it's crazy for a Japanese pilot to intentionally crash his plane into an allied aircraft carrier. But to the average Japanese, it's perfectly okay and honorable.
So, with Iran, don't expect a peace deal. And it's not a question of who's right and who's wrong. Rather, it's all about ideology.
It's All About Ideology
Q: Israel and Palestine have been at this battle since my boy was in diapers, now he's getting to be an old man. I have a two-part question. First, why doesn't the United Nations step in to cut a long-lasting deal over the land? Second, why aren't the Palestinian people rising up to oust Hamas in favor of a democracy? - Frank, NY
A: Thanks for your inquiry on this, Frank. For starters, I think it's fair to say that the United Nations has proven to be a useless entity. Its purpose was to be a union of countries standing together for the betterment of the whole. But, time and time again, war across the globe has raged on and instead of saving lives, they sit in a room and...talk talk talk. Secondly, Palestinians are more or less subservient to Hamas, and to an extent, Hezbollah. These two 'H' groups are equivalent to cartels or mafia having a stronghold on them. That's the big problem. If the two 'H's' were taken out of the equation, there might be hope for a two-state solution.
But here's where the true heart of the issue lies, a sort of double dilemma: Western minds may misunderstand the real causal factor of the Mid East turmoil: ideology. Western minds may tend to apply judgement in a conflict based on their own value system of right and wrong, good and evil. However, peoples in other regions of the world may have different value systems. What we see as definitively wrong, another society or group may not. Look at the Aztecs. Human sacrifice was a normal routine in society. To Cortes, who conquered them, such practice was outlandish. To the average Aztec however, the ritual was not deemed to be wrong in their value system. Now, the ultimate question is, shouldn't Natural Law, which is based on the commonality of human nature, be universal? Sadly, it's not, and that's why peoples can be outraged at the actions of other peoples, and vice versa. Personally, in the Mid East conflict, I would consider any degree of innocent civilian death to be clearly wrong. In addition to this viewpoint, I would also seek to learn the 'why's' behind why certain bands of people do what they do, to fully grasp the issue. Unfortunately, not too many observers take that second step to ask why. When it comes to reacting to an incident, we're not talking about lone wolves where it would be easy to understand why a single person committed a murderous rampage, possibly because they went nuts or were brought up badly, but rather, there could possibly be thousands if not millions of people whose value system may judge certain actions quite differently than we do. Unfortunately, most people tend to be on auto-pilot when judging moral and ethical issues in cultures outside of their own simply because they are living in a culture that has contributed to their belief system, case in point, Cortes v. the Aztecs, when it may serve their intellect better if they asked the 'why' question when evaluating actions caused by ideological differences.
Can some of the world's ideologies, fueled by religion, be obstructive to peace? The answer might be yes, sadly. Although religion has many benefits, unfortunately it has a negative aspect as well. Because religion is an unproven mystery, anyone can gear their thoughts and actions to justify them with their faith. There is no definitive proven set of rules when it comes to religion, just what we think there should be. That's the big problem. So, as you know throughout history, we've seen people killing others in the name of religion, then sleeping soundly at night with no feeling of wrongdoing. How do you stop this protocol from happening? It may be almost impossible, again, given that religion is an unproven mystery, continuing to be interpreted in as many ways as imaginable. Perhaps only the evolution of time in mental advancement will elevate thinking so as to correlate spirituality with life instead of death, where human reasoning and rationale acknowledge the mystery of religion instead of being usurped by it.
When you see an incident or a conflict, keep asking the question: Why do people do what they do? Overlooking the 'why' question is a terrible and ignorant mental dilemma, compounding the terribly tragic deaths occurring in war. So essentially what we are witnessing in the Mid East is a longstanding land-rights dispute by three groups of people, Israelis, Palestinians, and the hardliner H's, each having opposing value systems to varying degrees. That is a recipe for disaster anywhere it occurs. Having been to the region a few times, seeing its people and talking with them, I sincerely believe Israelis and Palestinians want to coexist peacefully. I grieve for both Israelis and Palestinians who are the real victims of these two extremist H-groups. Unfortunately, just looking at the history of this age-old conflict, only the evolution of time will tell if the commonality of cultural value systems outweighs the differences so as to share life in peace.
Common Sense
60 Minutes had an interesting segment on tonight. BTW, they now have about a dozen anchors greeting you when the show opens, as opposed to the fab four they used to have. Seems like overkill.
Anyway, they interviewed three Catholic Cardinals about the apparent strong condemnation that Pope Leo is giving Trump over immigration and the Iran war. Unlike past Popes, the story focused on this new bravado. Great news of course, we need more back and forth discourse between church and state!
What really bothers me however, finding myself talking back to the TV screen, was that all of these spiritual people, as thoughtful and encouraging as they are of course, fail to give solutions to problems. Instead, they just echo the mantra...peace, peace, peace.
I'm sorry but if anyone in the public eye wants to disagree with secular authority actions like ICE, Gaza, Iran, immigration, they should feel free, but they must state a solution to the problem. Sadly, they don't.
Oddly enough, I don't hear religious leaders offering condemnation of the Crusades. As we know, the Crusades captured the Holy Land by warring against the Muslims, which included the often quiet fact of butchering Muslim women and children as well.
As I mentioned before, we can learn a lot from King Arthur and the walled city of Camelot. Walled of course, not because his administration was prejudicial bigots, but because they accepted the reality that bad people are out there and they didn't want them invading the good city. Why then not a walled America?
In reality, rather than disagree with a leader's think-tank and offer no solution, it may be wiser to objectively evaluate a situation and understand the choices a leader is faced with. Sometimes one must choose the lesser of the two evils. With Iran, do we want such a regime to continue killing its own people and threatening others with a nuke? Or, should we ask them to surrender, and if refused, annihilate the regime which will probably mean civilian deaths like in Hiroshima?
Mindless responses to serious actions is really immature. As much as peace via prayer is the ultimate goal we all should strive for, perhaps as a last resort we can take a quote from the great noble holy King Arthur: "There's a peace that's only to be found on the other side of war."
Living in a Bubble
Steve from Cheektowaga, NY responds:
These Islamic extremist clowns should cash in their chips while they have some. Why not shake hands and make a deal and live happily ever after?
A: Thanks Steve. I say this about our judicial system too, the severity of the laws that are made are proportional to the crimes committed, but these laws are made as if normal, rational people committed them, which is incorrect. Half of the people that commit horrendous crimes aren't normal and rational, so their punishment is therefore disproportional.
In the same vein, here we are expecting to negotiate with the Iranian regime. Again, disproportional! Such an act of talks and deals would be proportional if both parties were rational and civilized. They obviously are not, given their barbaric actions for the past 46 years.
We made this mistake in Gaza with Hamas as well. You don't make deals and have expectations where there are disproportional ideologies. It's apples and oranges.
Both Gaza and Iran should have been over within a matter of days. It's all a matter of approaching something with rationale and reality, not expectation thinking your opponent thinks the same as you.
I used to think the spectrum graph of all human rationale and reasoning was only slightly different across all peoples. I was mistaken. I now realize, if you drew a wave graph, the differences are dramatic, with tidal wave highs and lows distinguishing culture from culture. Would you believe there are still cultures who believe in cannibalism?
When will we learn we're not all living in a bubble?
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