Sherry Chandler » Still another view of the “other”
Still another view of the “other”
Here is part of the Susan Bright’s new year’s day post at earthfamilyalpha for which Rosalie sent the link:
I don’t think people start wars because they are stupid. I think they allow them to occur because the heart is blocked. Some political or cultural narrative lets us forget that our children, other mother’s children, our families, other peoples families live and work beneath bombs falling.
An economic narrative suggests that if a family in one place is safe and happy, it is alright to steal the wealth and happiness of other families out of sight — on the other side of the world, on the other side of the river, the other side of the city, village — to secure that one, fortunate, family.
Sartre said there is the “self” and the “other.” Simoine de Beauvior said that women live in the world of the “other.” The instant we bless that division — self/other — we’ve plowed the ground of war because we’ve allowed a dialectic in which other people are less important than we are, forgetting that the “we” and the “other” are one.
This, of course, is part of what propaganda is about — to create an image of the enemy as somehow less than human, unworthy to live, and certainly unworthy to threaten the “good guys.”
It is true, as Ritwik Banerjee says, that the other always exists. But we need to be aware of the dangers of projection and vilifying the other.
The question of evil is not one that I’m qualified to even attempt to try to answer. But the term is dangerous and we need to be careful how we throw it around.
I guess this means that I need to soften my attitude toward certain office holders in this country. That will be hard.
Addendum: The earthfamilyalpha post was a good one for using the ZAP reader, it being white font on a dark background. I just find that combination unreadable.
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