What struck me, in reading the reports from Sri Lanka, was the mild disgrace of belonging to our imperfectly evolved species in the first place. People who had just seen their neighbors swept away would tell the reporters that they knew a judgment had been coming, because the Christians had used alcohol and meat at Christmas or because ... well, yet again you can fill in the blanks for yourself. It was interesting, though, to notice that the Buddhists were often the worst. Contentedly patting an image of the chubby lord on her fencepost, a woman told the New York Times that those who were not similarly protected had been erased, while her house was still standing. There were enough such comments, almost identically phrased, to make it seem certain that the Buddhist authorities had been promulgating this consoling and insane and nasty view. That would not surprise me.
Christopher HitchensTags: buddhism vegetarianism christianity religion atheism christmas evolution alcohol earthquakes human-race natural-disasters 2004-earthquake-and-tsunami christian-vegetarianism christianity-and-alcohol sri-lanka the-new-york-times tsunami
Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning.
Noam ChomskyTags: hypocrisy reasoning other israel 2009 lebanon 2006 western-world the-new-york-times 2006-lebanon-war thomas-friedman
Tags: politics magazines gossip euphemism the-new-york-times genitalia gossip-magazines supermarkets
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