War And Evil
“Mommy he hit me. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. He was taunting me.”
“I didn’t hit him. He stole my car. He was being mean and trying to make me leave.” So we talk as children who are supposed to be playing peaceably.
Adults do the same thing. “I know what she is thinking.” “I know what you want to do and say.” “I know that he thinks I am stupid. That look he gives me tells me he doesn’t really like me.”
Countries do the same thing. If you stand on the Israeli side of the border, it is clear that they are the good guys and the Lebanese, especially Hezbollah, are the bad guys. Just ask anyone and they will tell you how terrible these people are.
Stand on the Lebanese side of the border and it is clear how awful the Israelis are. War is never just and never fair so I assume ht there was evil done on both sides.
In all these instances there has been injustice, but the process of identifying one’s enemy as carrying all the evil in the situation is basically done by projection. There has to be a hook for our projection to stick, but basically we pile all the rest of the evil in the situation by projection. Our enemy must have some evil in them for us to see it in them, but we’re also seeing all the evil we could possibly imagine coming from the other person, which is probably not the case. There were unspeakable acts on both sides, and of course a history going back thousands of years, but when people from both sides were interviewed, they talked about their opponents as if they were the incarnation of evil. And if someone is the incarnation of evil, they can be blamed for any problem, they can’t be reasoned with and they must be destroyed. As long as people or countries depend on projection to get their best information, there will be no end of wars.