even successful we discover the lie we
have been told the cheap idolatry of our
civic religion one that grafts the will
to power to the will of God and in this
knowledge we make a painful
self-discovery not only about ourselves
but about the human community the naive
belief in the goodness of the nation and
the individual one that gives us comfort
and moral certitude is obliterated
forever we peer into the human soul and
what we see looking back terrifies us
but out of that pain and alienation
comes knowledge and hopefully a desire
to reclaim life although the darkness we
confront and bare becomes our cross and
all of us who have been to war carry it
there are many who cannot permit the
emotionally reassuring myth of a good
and moral nation a nation ordained by
God to carry out a civilizing mission by
whatever means necessary in the world
to be shattered and these people who by
their support of the war send the young
to die or Pratap perhaps to return home
maimed in spirit and body blame those
who returned from war and speak the
truth about war for the message this
retreat into blind patriotism which is
always at its core about self exaltation
is comforting and morally reassuring but
once you master a people by force you
depend on force for control isolation
always impairs judgment and we as a
nation are very isolated now through
Citadis wrote of how Athens expanding
empire led it to become a tyrant abroad
and then a tyrant at home the tyranny
Athens imposed on others it finally
imposed on itself the lust for war the
desire for profits saw the Athenians
lose sight of the ideals that were their
great gift to us ideals that should be
our legacy to others we live on images
and slogans that perpetuate fantasies
about our own invulnerability our own
might our own goodness and these
illusions blind us we cannot see
ourselves as others see us we had fed
the heart on fantasies William Butler
Yeats wrote the hearts groan brutal from
the fair it is 1967 in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip and we have become Israel
our Empire has expanded and in that we
have become pariahs we are propelled
forward not by logic or compassion or
understanding but by fear we have built
an alliance against terror with Israel
and Russia
to note two nations that do not shrink
from gratuitous and senseless killing in
the Israeli occupied territories in
Chechnya and those who are not with us
and few are with us now we ridicule and
belittle and condemn we have become the
company we keep much of the world
certainly the Muslim world one-fifth of
the world's population
most of whom are not Arab see us through
the prism of Iraq Palestine and Chechnya
and this prism is one that is igniting
the dispossessed and deteriorating by
the hour our security and safety the
attacks on the World Trade Center
illustrate that those who oppose us
rather than coming from another moral
universe have been schooled well in
modern warfare the dramatic explosions
the fireballs the victims plummeting to
their deaths the collapse of the towers
in Manhattan were straight out of
Hollywood where else but from the
industrialized world did the suicide
bombers learn that huge explosions and
death above a city skyline are a
peculiar and effective form of
communication they have mastered the
language we taught them they understand
that the use of indiscriminate violence
against innocents is a way to make a
statement we leave the same calling
cards we delivered such incendiary
messages in Vietnam Serbia Afghanistan
and now Iraq it was Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara who in the summer of
1965 defined the bombing raids that
would kill hundreds of thousands of
civilians north of Saigon as a means of
communication to the communist regime in
Hanoi war is the pornography of violence
it has a dark Beauty filled with a
monstrous and
the grotesque the Bible calls it the
lust of the eye and warns believers
against it war gives us a distorted
sense of self it gives us meaning it
creates a feeling of comradeship that
obliterates our alienation and makes us
feel for perhaps the first time in our
lives that we belong war allows us to
rise above our small stations in life we
find nobility in the cause even bliss
and once in a conflict the shallowness
of much of our lives becomes apparent
the fruitless search to find fulfillment
in the acquisition of things and wealth
and power is laid bare the trivia that
dominates our airwaves is exposed as
empty chatter war allows us to engage in
lusts and passions we keep hidden in the
deepest most private interiors of our
fantasy life it allows us to destroy not
only things but human beings and in that
moment of wholesale destruction we wield
the power of the divine the power to
revoke another person's charter to live
on this earth the frenzy of this
destruction and when unit discipline
breaks down or there was no unit
discipline to begin with frenzy is the
right word seized armed bands crazed by
the poisonous elixir our power to bring
about the obliteration of others
delivers all things including human
beings become objects objects to either
gratify or destroy or both and almost no
one is immune the contagion of the crowd
sees to that force
Simo of all rights is as pitiless to the
man who possesses it or thinks he does
as it is to its victims second it
crushes the first it intoxicates drawn
into the world of war it becomes hard to
escape
it perverts and destroys you it pushes
you closer and closer to your own
annihilation spiritual emotional and
finally physical it destroys the
continuity of life tearing apart all
systems economic social environmental
and political that make life possible
that sustained us as human beings I
covered the war in El Salvador from 1983
to 1988 by the end I had a nervous
twitch in my face I was evacuated three
times by the u.s. embassy because of
tips that the death squads plan to kill
me and yet each time I came back I
accepted with a grim fatalism that I
would be killed in El Salvador I could
not articulate why I accepted my own
destruction and cannot now there came to
be a part of me maybe it is a part of
all of us which decided I would rather
die like this then go back to the dough
routine during the war in El Salvador I
worked with a photographer who had a
slew of close calls and then called it
quits he moved to Miami for one of the
news weeklies but life in Florida was
flat dull uninteresting he could not
adjust and soon came back from the
moment he stepped off the plane it was
clear he had returned to die and just as
there are some soldiers or war
correspondents who seemed to us immortal
and whose loss comes as a sobering
reminder that death has no favorites
there are also those in war who are
locked in a grim embrace with death from
which they cannot escape he was
frightening to behold a walking corpse
he was shot through the back in a
firefight and died in less than a minute
Sigmund Freud divided the forces in
human nature between the arrows instinct
the impulse within us that propels us to
become close to others to preserve and
and the Thanatos or death instinct the
impulse that works towards the
annihilation of all living things
including ourselves for Freud these
forces were in eternal conflict he was
pessimistic about ever eradicating war
all human history he argued in
civilization and its discontents is a
tug of war between these two instincts
taste enough of war and you come to
believe the Stoics were right we will in
the end all consume ourselves in a vast
conflagration there is a constant search
and war to find new perversities new
forms of death when the initial flush
phase a rearguard and finally futile
effort to ward off the boredom of
routine death and this is why we would
drive into towns in Bosnia and find
bodies crucified on the sides of barns
are decapitated and mutilated this is
why those slain in combat are treated as
trophies belonging to the killers turned
into grotesque pieces of performance art
I know soldiers that to this day carry
in their wallets the identity cards of
men they know they killed they take them
everywhere they show them to you with
the imploring look of a lost child they
will never understand in war we deform
ourselves our essence we give up
individual conscience maybe even
consciousness for the contagion of the
crowd the rush of patriotism the belief
that we must stand together as a nation
in moments of extremity to make a moral
choice to defy wars enticement to
challenge the idol and the Civic
religion can be self-destructive but war
is necrophilia and this necrophilia is
central to soldiering just as it is
central
to the makeup of suicide bombers and
terrorists it is hidden under platitudes
about duty and comradeship it waits
especially in moments when we seem to
have little to live for and no hope or
in moments when the intoxication of war
is at its pitch to be unleashed and when
we spend long enough in war it comes to
us as a kind of release a fatal and
seductive embrace that can consummate
the long flirtation with our own
destruction many of those I worked with
as war correspondents during the past
two decades could not escape they could
not break free from this dance with
death they wandered from conflict to
conflict seeking always one more hit by
then I was back in Gaza and found myself
pinned down in another ambush a young
Palestinian 15 feet away from me was
shot through the chest and killed I had
been lured back but now felt none of the
old rush just fear it was time to break
free to let go to accept that none of
this would or could or should return I
knew it was over and I was lucky to get
out alive Kurt short brilliant
courageous and driven could not let go
he died in an ambush in Sierra Leone
along with another friend Miguel Gil
Moreno his entrapment his embrace of
fana Toph's of the death instinct was
never mentioned in the sterile and
antiseptic memorial service staged for
him in Washington
everyone tiptoed around it but for those
of us who knew him we understood he had
been consumed I had worked with Kurt for
10 years starting northern Iraq literate
funny seems the brave are often funny he
and I passed books
back and forth in our struggle to make
sense of the madness around us his loss
is a hole that will never be filled his
ashes were placed in the lion cemetery
and sorry Havel for the victims of the
war I flew to Sarajevo and met the
British filmmaker Dan Reid it was an
overcast November day we stood over the
grave Dan lit a candle I recited a poem
the Roman lyric poet Catullus
had written to honor his dead brother by
strangers coasts and waters many days at
sea I come here for the rites of your
unworldly bringing for you the dead
these last gifts of the living and my
words vain sounds for the man of dust
alas my brother you have been taken from
me you have been taken from me and by
cold chants turned to shadow and my pain
here are the foods of the old ceremony
appointed long ago for the starlings
under the earth take them your brother's
tears have made them wet and taken to
Eternity my hail and my farewell it was
there among 4000 war dead that Curt
belonged he died because he could not
free himself from war he was trying to
replicate what he had found in Sarajevo
but he could not war could never be new
again Kurt had been in East Timor and
Chechnya Sierra Leone I was sure meant
nothing to him
Kurt and Miguel could not let go they
would be the first to admit it spend
long enough at war and you cannot fit in
anywhere else it finally kills you it is
not a new store
it starts out like love but it is death
war is the beautiful young nymph
in the fairytale that when kissed
exhales the vapors of the underworld the
ancient Greeks had a word for such a
fate at Pier OSIS it means to be
consumed by a ball of fire and they used
it to describe heroes thank you
[Applause]
you
PART 2
[Music]
you
Hamza Yusuf story is both of the east
and the west of both Islam and America
born in southern Washington State used
to become a Muslim in 1977 he then
embarked upon a search for knowledge
that took him to the United Arab
Emirates to Saudi Arabia to North and
West Africa where he pursued studies in
the various disciplines of Islam and he
has translated a lot of modern English
into modern English several classical
Arabic texts since September 11th he had
advised the President of the United
States he had addressed the House of
Lords in the Welsh Assembly in the
United Kingdom he has counseled the
Secretary General of the Arab League and
several Arab foreign ministers and
before I asked him to come up here I
would like to read a short quote from
him this is taken from a speech that he
gave at the 2004 annual convention of
the Islamic Society of North America
which is sort of the largest Muslim
gathering in United States and this was
right after the massacre in Beslan
Russia where about 334 people were
killed at the school including half of
them er about children and he told
people this gathering Muslims dead
Muslims should condemn this with no
uncertain terms and then he said this we
do not count numbers we do not say they
killed 30,000 or they killed 3000 we do
not count numbers every soul is sacred
and this has to be established on the
earth once again the teaching of Abraham
the Abrahamic faiths share the sanctity
of life and the Muslims must assert
their Abrahamic truth we have to
reassert to the Abrahamic people that we
are the last extension of the Abrahamic
truth that there is a God and that he
communicates with his creation and he
calls them to his unity and he calls
them to the highest morality known to
humankind
because the naysayers who attack
religion are attacking the best of
humanity and it is only the absence of
religion in religious people that leads
to these types of atrocities in the name
of religion it is not religion itself it
is the misuse the abuse the assault on
religion in the name of religion that
leads to a hatred in the hearts of other
people and that is why our prophet
warned us beware of extremism and
religion because it is extremism and
religion that destroyed the people
before you ladies and gentlemen please
welcome Hamza Yusuf
[Applause]
it's midnight I don't know him in the
name of God the most merciful the most
compassionate most allotted I say to
Mohammed wanted slightly was sent him to
SEMA what I heard I went up word idea
darling now first of all given that
we're in Berkeley
I don't want anybody to hold it against
me that I advised the president I also
would say that he did not take my advice
I I just came from six weeks of touring
I was in the UK I went to Denmark and
and then to cut out where I was involved
in what they called a high-level United
Nations meeting there and the United
Nations was actually founded according
to its foundational documents as an
attempt to actually end war after World
War one there was an attempt to found
the League of Nations which did not
succeed was Wilson's dream and he
actually had a stroke during the
Versailles Treaty but it really never
formulated or came to anything but the
United Nations was founded apparently to
end war what's interesting is that the
five permanent members of the Security
Council of the United Nations
beginning with the United States are the
biggest sellers of armaments on the
planet and I it's a little like putting
Jesse and Frank James on the board at
the bank you know it's it's a very odd
thing if you think about it you know
that these people are the people that
are supposed to give us security and yet
they're flooding the world with
armaments and I really believe that the
great moral task ahead of us is to bring
down the armaments trade I think it's
probably it is the great moral issue of
the 21st century in the same way that
abolition was the moral issue of the
19th century and in many ways civil
rights was the issue of the 20th century
I absolutely believe that ending the
arms trade the global arms trade is the
moral issue of our generation whenever
you see these wars and Chris Hedges and
we we have to honor him for his his
courage to do what he did but whenever
you see these wars you should really
know that the arms that they're using
were not produced in those countries
Sierra Leone does not have armaments
factories Sierra Leone has diamonds and
diamonds buy weapons because that's how
the weapons were purchased in Sierra
Leone the seventh largest purchaser of
arms on this planet is Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia does not produce it's a
country of 19 million people it does not
produce armaments it is follows India a
country of over a billion people Saudi
Arabia has 19 million people and yet it
is the seventh largest purchaser of arms
why it doesn't use them when they were
threatened with invasion they asked the
Americans to come
so the reason is because it's a way of
recycling petrol dollars back into our
economy that's all it is
it's raytheon's welfare its General
Electric all of the we bring good things
to death really I mean these are and
we're all complicit you know we have
lights you know GE when you put that in
there we're all we're supporting it and
and that's you know that's the challenge
that we have and I don't envy the young
people because the world that we're
offering them do you the world that
we're handing over to our children for
God's sake do you know I mean I just
feel like we should be doing something
for these children I look at my children
I've got a seven-year-old that's
constantly asking me questions and he
recently asked me if you had to choose
would you rather have a hot death or a
cold death and I don't know if he was
referring to you know nuclear holocaust
as opposed to the global warming that's
actually making our weather in the Bay
Area a little colder but I when I look
at my child with his bright eyes and his
total trust in me and then I have to
realize that he needs to come of age he
needs to leave the Garden of Eden and
and and and abandon that innocence and
come to a realization of the type of
world that has been handed to him much
of it is defined by war we don't like to
think about the conflicts globally but
we are almost directly involved in all
of the major conflicts around the globe
somehow this country our country the
United States of America we are a
country of
like all great nations immense paradox
immense paradox and that's probably at
the root of war because war is
paradoxical on the one hand nobody wants
to go to war or so we say on the other
hand it's something that our culture
rebels in the great generation Tom
Brokaw telling us about the great
generation the great generation bombed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear
weapons the great generation is guilty
of war crimes against huge civilian
populations in Germany Hamburg Dresden
we don't like to think about that
because collectively all of the Germans
were guilty
we demonized them not we but the people
before us I was once in a grocery store
and and it was a Time magazine cover
somebody was buying it ahead of me and
it had a big mushroom and it said why
did we drop the bomb that was the time
headline and and the lady bringing it up
said why did we drop the bomb and I just
said listen I didn't have anything to do
with it all right
nothing I wasn't even born yet and I
don't like that implication you know of
Time magazine the the Perron says ticket
typical Omaha de l'homme cosa but those
people are gone and they have what they
earned your previous generations and
this is part of the major problem that
we have on this planet is collective
guilt is this projection of guilt on to
a collective group of people what
Erikson calls pseudo speciation it's a
great word I like words like that pseudo
speciation Erik Erikson the psychologist
said that pseudo speciation is our
propensity to to basically otherwise
people to deem them as less than human
it's what Hitler did with the Jews in
Germany they were less than human under
mensch I think is is the word the
Germans considered themselves uber
mensch
you know like Superman Nietzsche's
Superman so everybody else was Minch and
then you had the less than human
I was once in Spain we were going up a
street in in Granada and very unusual
person was asking for money on the
street and I really I mean sometimes you
see people and you you really marvel at
just their form and where they came from
the womb they came out of it's it's
fascinating but I I was struck by this
person and the person I was with his
Spanish mane he said I were chosen from
on osaki you know he said there's a lot
of info on Manos that was the first time
I'd ever heard that word you know less
than human which the person wasn't but
it was that is pseudo speciation it's to
deem somebody as less than human and we
can't go to war without doing that you
cannot go to war without doing that to
other people
it's called Guantanamo zhing your enemy
right
Guantanamo zhing your enemy they have no
rights they're not human they're
terrorists and terrorists are evil and
we're good and therefore by eliminating
evil we're doing something that is good
this is the justification if you're not
with us you're with the terrorists which
was an attempt at paraphrasing Christ
who made a spiritual statement he's not
with me is against me which is a
spiritual statement but unfortunately
and this is a problem I know that God
once did speak through a bush but we
have we
we have a president who's who's
misunderstanding that that was a burning
bush that that wasn't that wasn't a
burnt bush that was a burning bush you
know and that's a problem with this
country is that we're not setting our
sights high enough really we're not
aiming high enough as a people and when
you don't aim high enough you either
shoot yourself in the foot or you shoot
your friend that's that's a big problem
that we've got in this country you know
it's time that we really started setting
our sights a little higher because the
the foundational principles of this
civilization are very high ones and and
although unfortunately there were
atrocities and there's terrible things
that occurred at the hands of the early
people in this country but again we did
not inherit their evils but we have
benefited from their good and it's very
dangerous to demonize people because of
some of their actions and not
recognizing all of their actions because
all of us are an admixture of good and
evil and in the melodramatic world of
cartoons where good is good and evil is
evil all that was the cartoon as I grew
up now they're quite different Superman
lives in a parallel universe and there's
a negative Superman so there's there's a
whole lot of the thing children are
getting but when I was growing up and
that was the time you know little before
me
George was growing up as well and so
that you know we were given cartoons
where things were clear things were
black and white good people wore white
hats and bad people wore black hats
which is problematic for the Iranian
mullahs right I mean they really fit the
bill don't they you know I was actually
just with Ayatollah Hitomi in in a pop
up he was at the UN he's a he has a PhD
from Germany in German philosophy right
here I mean you know people assume he's
kind of a you know some kind of medieval
throwback I mean the man is is really
far more sophisticated than a lot of
rulers that we've had in the West so
this pseudo speciation is what happens
in the melodramatic universe now what's
interesting is we have a biological
problem because if you look at children
at about seven months a child after an
intense bonding with the mother actually
begins to recognize strangers and often
will be frightened of them they'll
sometimes actually look and cry and it
happens to good people it's not always
you know don't assume they're seeing
something that that you're not although
they might be don't assume they're not
but this is what they do they begin to
recognize something that is foreign or
alien the family is the first in-group
that we have the family is our in-group
what's outside of the family is an
out-group when you go to school you also
have in-groups and out-groups our
society thrives on this idea as I was
driving here I was passing by these Phi
Beta Kappa and you know these sororities
and fraternities around Berkeley which
is a classic in-group out-group
phenomenon when you when you join a
fraternity there's a hazing you have to
get you know really drunk I mean they
kill them sometimes these four people
but really in hazing people die in that
initiation that rite of passage but you
bond you know like George was in in the
Skull and Bones Club and they have very
intense bonding they actually you
apparently have to go and dig up a dead
person and spend a night in a coffin
with a dead person I don't know if those
things are true but people write about
them
that and it's very odd but it's not I
don't think it should shock you
you know if you've just seen you know
the type of things that people are
capable of doing I mean Chris talked
about necrophilia you know it's I mean
lions don't do that you know
monkeys don't do that humans do that
right really it's we're capable of just
immense depravity but these in-groups
and out-groups this is the essence of
war now if you look at what what what is
the foundation of war where does it come
from there's people that again say no
people are men don't like war women
don't like war there's actually whole
social theories that refute conflict
theory that war is thrust upon people I
don't believe that we have a society
that relishes war Patton said anybody
that says Americans don't like a war is
a liar Americans love a good war I mean
that's General Patton now he liked war
obviously I mean it was a passion with
him really very intelligent man I
actually read his his notes from World
War two it's called
our war and on the very first entry he
just arrived at North Africa and he said
just finished the Quran he ended the
entry by saying just finished reading
the Quran a good book very interesting
so I thought that was I mean you know
nowadays just wonder about the generals
nowadays but he was going to a Muslim
country he wanted to work out what they
were about so you read a foundational
book if you want to understand America I
don't know what you would read you know
I don't I think you'd probably have to
see a Quentin Tarantino film
right - real or go to you know big-time
wrestling right go to one I wonder where
all those people come from in those big
giant auditoriums are they walking
around out here are they in the grocery
stores with us you know you just have to
want I mean if you if if you want to
inculcate peace it's a very odd thing by
teaching young children you know having
these two wrestling used to be a noble
thing you know two people got to and
they wrestled then they shook hands
afterwards they don't do that anymore
you know they hit each other over the
head with boards and and smash their
heads up again it's supposed to be fake
but kids can't determine and we had one
for 13 year old boy jumped on this five
year old kid and killed him shattered
his spleen and he got it from big-time
wrestling you know that's why they have
these big don't do this at home and the
only reason I know about big-time
wrestling it's very popular in Saudi
Arabia they actually really like
big-time wrestling and they're convinced
it's real I was once in a in a I was in
a you know uh gajja plays and and
coffeehouse and they were watching and I
said that's not real and they said no
it's real look
I gave up you know how do you argue with
him there's look he threw him down he
fell down it's real so but promoting
that type of a culture because I really
believe Abu Horeb is a direct result I
call these guys Quentin Tarantino's
children they're kids that grew up on
violence on pornography garbage in
garbage out and I really was hoping for
one eye it was a bit of optimism on my
part but I was actually hoping that
perhaps our country would just for a
brief moment be able to recognize our
shadow just to see an aspect of our
culture of who we are
because we are a beret that is part of
us and to deny that to to say it has
nothing to do with the United States of
America is to deny our shadow and Jung
believed that the more you denied the
shadow the greater it grew the greater
it grew unless you were able he felt it
was like a seesaw that you're you're you
know the the beautiful aspect of the
human soul had to be in balance with the
shadow and and and if it wasn't if you
denied it you elevated it and what we do
in war is we project our shadow onto
others this is what we do all the
despicable qualities that we hate about
ourselves we project them on the other
do you see the Arabs you know hate women
they're misogynistic look at some of the
statistics in our own country
pornography is the number one media
industry in the United States of America
what does that tell us about our culture
and how we view women because I mean the
the Arabs that I know
they love women really and I don't say
that you can interpret that as you like
but there's those type of Arabs as well
but every Arab learns from the time
there are little children and gender to
talkto akadama Toma hot paradise is at
the feet of the mother that's what the
Prophet Muhammad taught his community
sallallahu said of paradises that at the
feet of the mother I know
Arabs it would never greet their mother
without kissing her hand and kissing her
forehead would do anything for their
mothers really so we can project all of
that darkness onto the other and it
enables us to demonize them to treat
them despicably to carpet-bomb them to
brutalize them and things that Chris
talked about in his talk that he's seen
I mean I saw some of it in the refugee
camps in the shower during the Afghani
war against the Russians just the faces
of the people and that's that's what
happens when you demonize the other it's
just very easy to degrade cover them in
feces violate them with sticks I mean
this is this is what people can do and
what's interesting to me about war and
religion because it's a paradox religion
of all the religions Islam is most
associated with militancy it's seen as a
militant religion and there's certainly
a militant aspect about Islam Muslims
are people certain eats and said when he
was at the when he was in the gulag in
Siberia and he wrote this it's a very
beautiful passage in one of his books he
said of all the people in the gulag the
one people that refuse to be subjugated
by the Russian guards were the chase
they would not submit to the humiliation
they always stood up and they would
fight and he said in the unusual thing
about this is it they actually gain the
respect of the Russian guards and the
Russian guards had a type of fear of
them chase nians
there the name for their capital Grozny
is fierce Tolstoy wrote a book about a
chase knee and Mujahid called Haji Murad
about the nobility of the chasing and
warrior chase nians are very free and
independent people and one of the things
that islam teaches is never to be a
slave of anybody but God never bow down
to anybody honor people respect people
but never allow a person to abuse you
that's at the essence of the Islamic
teaching because you have been in noble
by God according to the put on all of
the children of Adam and Eve have been
in noble by God we have a human dignity
that is essential to our nature our
character and in honoring that dignity
we must honor others and in honoring
that dignity we do not allow ourselves
to be dishonored and the Prophet
Muhammad said a believer does not
humiliate him or herself so that's
something very essential and that's why
the Palestinians are resistant people
it's difficult for them and even if they
lash out in in heinous ways if you don't
understand what is the essence of that
then you're missing the point you're
missing the point because while I
condemn the use of indiscriminate
violence I'm completely opposed to it
and I believe that blowing up buses in
Tel Aviv is indiscriminate violence I
don't I don't agree with it I've always
been against it I've read arguments for
it by certain scholar
from the middle-east I've never been
convinced by them but it happens and the
question that I think we're confronted
with Dostoevsky said it's very easy to
hate those who do evil but it's very
difficult to understand them and even
and this is one of the great things
about the poet's and why we need the
poet's out in September 1939 he was
sitting in a dive in New York City when
he heard about the invasion of Poland
and he said that scholarship could
explain what was unleashed he said ask
what happened at Linz what unleashed
that imago a psychopathic God I in the
public know what all schoolchildren
learn those whom evil is done do evil in
return
and that's a lesson that we need to
learn we need to learn that what we are
seeing is a projection of ourselves it's
a projection of ourselves and they also
they me we all need to see this on all
sides because as long as we pseudo
speciation the other as less than human
the kaffir right the disbeliever the
infidel just