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So sleepy...
May. 2nd, 2011 09:34 pmI sat dozing over a book for so long that my neck and shoulders are stiff and sore.
An awful lot of people are missing the point about Osama bin Laden in my opinion. He wasn't "wicked" or "evil." He was insane. They aren't the same thing at all. He surely thought he was doing the right thing in the name of an extreme religious view, which is really no different from what many other people continue to do every day for the same reasons. Many of them are even nominally Christian, or Jewish, or some other faith. Anyone who insists on interpreting values in hard black and white lines can commit the same kind of errors. This is neither responsible nor sane behavior.
The reason such people can attract large followings of unquestioning and obedient individuals is a separate issue. It has to do with a failure to teach reason and history, rational thought, and perceptive evaluation. The US culture is as guilty of this as any other, and we see all the symptoms easily enough if we look for them.
An awful lot of people are missing the point about Osama bin Laden in my opinion. He wasn't "wicked" or "evil." He was insane. They aren't the same thing at all. He surely thought he was doing the right thing in the name of an extreme religious view, which is really no different from what many other people continue to do every day for the same reasons. Many of them are even nominally Christian, or Jewish, or some other faith. Anyone who insists on interpreting values in hard black and white lines can commit the same kind of errors. This is neither responsible nor sane behavior.
The reason such people can attract large followings of unquestioning and obedient individuals is a separate issue. It has to do with a failure to teach reason and history, rational thought, and perceptive evaluation. The US culture is as guilty of this as any other, and we see all the symptoms easily enough if we look for them.
