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comment by am_Unition

    What does his being Jewish have to do with it? It sounds a little self-righteous to imply that only religious people have the heart to help those in need.

I think the correct answer to your question is centered around a certain historical event that impacted the Jews.





Devac  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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lil  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

    Being a religious figure can make one just as blind to good coming from non-religious people as to evil committed by the members of their own group.
Absolutely right. It takes a very long time to let go of the stories we tell ourselves. That particular author has been fighting for Palestinean rights along with many other people.

As I said to the dog of jade, people will take what they want from a text and interpret it as they need to. You quoted this suggesting that the author was saying that religious people are more compassionate:

    it seems to be human nature to do the opposite.

I don't see any arrogance in that observation. I agree that it is often in the nature of people to fear people who are different from them and target them for exclusion.

There is a lot of evidence too that compassion is part of human nature. And so we are programmed for both love and fear.

My sense is that the author examined his own need to act and saw the origins of his outrage in how he lives daily in the world. Others, based on their own experience and action or lack of action, can explain themselves any way they want to. The Pakistani newspaper solicited this article from this author as an attempt to build greater compassion between diverse groups. Given the comments from the Karachi readers, it seems to have succeeded.

Thank you again for your challenging comments.

jadedog  ·  2600 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    As I said to the dog of jade

Oh. Is this personal?

I was just giving my opinion about an article. I apologize if you felt insulted.

lil  ·  2600 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not at all. I appreciate your opinions.

Devac  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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bioemerl  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Unless this guy is 80 years old, or an expert on the events that lead to the holocaust, all he is doing is screaming "hey, I have an emotional connection that biases me towards a certain viewpoint, please stop taking my views seriously!"

am_Unition  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't think you're terribly wrong, but maybe we need to pay more attention when someone says "I feel a certain way, and I'd like to talk to you about it." Sometimes, we just can't help how we feel, and it's therapeutic to know that someone else listened to what you have to say.

After all the emotions are on the table, then we can start constructively attacking logical fallacies and plan a best course of action. In an ideal world.

bioemerl  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I take issue with the implication here, not that someone has an emotional connection and wants to talk about it, but with the idea that the person being Jewish matters in any shape or way on their ability to judge the situation. I am certain the "as a Jewish person" is taken as a pro for their argument, rather than as a con, and as a sign that someone needs to be comforted and brought back to "reality" from their emotions driving their thoughts.

lil  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The Jewishness of the author, and his openhearted acceptance, seemed very meaningful to the Pakistanis (the intended audience) who commented. I was amazed at their comments.

jadedog  ·  2602 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What historical event is that?

Are you saying that the author is analogizing the actions of the US with this historical event?

lil  ·  2601 days ago  ·  link  ·  

jadedog  ·  2600 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That image doesn't load for me. Could you describe the image?

lil  ·  2600 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thank you for asking me to describe the image.

    Are you saying that the author is analogizing the actions of the US with this historical event?

The historical event is the holocaust. There have been other hate-based genocides. The US Holocaust Museum website says,

    Genocide is often preceded and accompanied by widespread hate speech. The leaders who planned mass killings in the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Srebrenica disseminated ideologies of hatred to spur their followers to act, to cow bystanders into passivity, and to justify their crimes.

The image I posted is called the pyramid of hate and it suggests that a society starts with bias and prejudicial attitudes which can develop into discrimination and perhaps genocide. Here's another version:

http://archive.adl.org/edu_images/p_hate_pyramid.gif

user-inactivated  ·  2600 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My Crusades prof alluded to some theory drawing a line between previous slaughter in Germany and the Holocaust. Will have to get home to edit this comment with its name.