08-15-2010, 08:30 PM
/popcorn
The vicious anti-Islamism shown by the "Mosque" protesters is another proof that no matter how "enlightened" we try to pretend our society is, we still at heart are the same human beings who burned witches, are quick to overreact to sensationalist propaganda, and continue to talk before thinking.
One of the formative works of literature I read as a child (6th grade, I think) was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I took special note of the scene where Brutus gives a speech defending his assassination of Caesar. He appeals to the crowd's rationality, stating a thought-out logical treatise on why it was done and why it had to be done for a better Rome.
Antony gets up before the people, delivers a highly emotionally charged oration to convince the people that the assassins should be obliterated, and the crowd goes nuts. They turn into slavering idiots no longer governed by reason or thinking.
Even in 6th grade, I understood this, and understood how people work. Emotion almost always trumps reason and thinking, and hearing the words "OMG a mosque is going to be built at the World Trade Center site" will stir up the mob so effectively that any rational thinking, or even attempt at getting the facts, is immediate squelched for a good segment of the population.
I've always pledged to not be one of the slathering emotionally-driven non-thinkers. I'm not always perfect at it, and no human is. But if only everyone tried to think before acting, what a better world this would be.
The vicious anti-Islamism shown by the "Mosque" protesters is another proof that no matter how "enlightened" we try to pretend our society is, we still at heart are the same human beings who burned witches, are quick to overreact to sensationalist propaganda, and continue to talk before thinking.
One of the formative works of literature I read as a child (6th grade, I think) was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I took special note of the scene where Brutus gives a speech defending his assassination of Caesar. He appeals to the crowd's rationality, stating a thought-out logical treatise on why it was done and why it had to be done for a better Rome.
Antony gets up before the people, delivers a highly emotionally charged oration to convince the people that the assassins should be obliterated, and the crowd goes nuts. They turn into slavering idiots no longer governed by reason or thinking.
Even in 6th grade, I understood this, and understood how people work. Emotion almost always trumps reason and thinking, and hearing the words "OMG a mosque is going to be built at the World Trade Center site" will stir up the mob so effectively that any rational thinking, or even attempt at getting the facts, is immediate squelched for a good segment of the population.
I've always pledged to not be one of the slathering emotionally-driven non-thinkers. I'm not always perfect at it, and no human is. But if only everyone tried to think before acting, what a better world this would be.
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.