Pfisrael Vs Hamas (and other reasons to turn off the news)
Atrocity outrage media destroys your mental well-being
The impetus to write this was the article below, which I encourage you to check out. This is coming from a guy who would know, who works in the field (forgive the crude language):
Arousal of Sympathy
Everywhere you go these days, you see imagery trying to stir your heart for the cause of the Palestinians, as they are undergoing apparent atrocity/genocide? at the hands of the State of Israel. Images of desolation and destruction after bombing and other miliatry campagins are common now on the internet.
And especially the images of children suffering is what really arouses the atrocity outrage of people all over the world. Whether it’s children suffering at the hands of Hamas, or children suffering at the hands of the IDF/Israel, both sides are advancing their cause with images of children suffering because of the evil enemy on the other side trying to inflict horror on the world.
Although more intense and terrible, it is very reminiscent of the images I grew up with regularly on television; things like child sponsorship programs (hello world vision) and the like, showing images of starving African children with distended stomachs on tv, trying to garner monthly sponsorships to help the children… trying to prod your “compassion” and “basic decency” and that we ought to “love our neighbors” (in that country way over there).
This sort of visual arousal of “compassion” or “pity” has been going on for a long time, and it fundamentally isn’t new.
“But how dare you compare children in Africa starving to the atrocities against those in Gaza??”
Right? What kind of monster must I be in order to make this comparison?
Or… maybe not actually?
Because maybe the truth is that…
The only real difference here is that of degree.
How can that be?
Well, as it turns out… in most areas in Africa (and in other places) where children are starving (and thus child sponsorship programs are brought in) it’s rarely the case that it’s just because people are “helpless” or that they are incapable of taking care of themselves (although that is sometimes the case).
But rather, the more you look into you, you eventually discover that a BIG REASON why people are suffering is because of corruption on the part of those who are in control - or rather, that those who are in control just have different values and don’t care about the people who are suffering.
Although sometimes the reasons for people suffering in Africa are obvious (for instance, corrupt men like Idi Amin), often the corruption behind the scenes is hidden, and thus it just looks like that all people really need, is help.
But of course, the truth is usually far more complicated.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming that there isn’t a huge amount of suffering going on over in Israel/Gaza, and I’m not claiming that there aren’t horrific things being inflicted on other people (it looks like there is). I’m not saying that things are “fine” anywhere in particular actually, and I have no intention of being a running commentary on events so that you can stay “properly informed”.
But the truth is that there is war and atrocity happening somewhere on planet earth to varying degrees all the time (and indeed has been for quite sometime). There is actually never a time on planet earth where there is not some kind of atrocity going on and some terrible things happening somewhere. And often, the absolute worst things, are those that are hidden best.
But this general state of corruption and conflict and war is to be expected when humans don’t agree on fundamental values. And as long as we disagree on fundamental questions of values (and especially over the complicated question of values as they are expressed in ideas like “war crimes”), expecting global peace is madness.
You see, people disagree.
Growing up (blissfully) ignorant
I was born in 1980, the very tail end of Generation X.
And as it turns out, there was lots of atrocities going on all over the world to various degrees as I was growing up. It is amazing to me that the dissolution of the Soviet Union (a thoroughly murderous long-standing regime) only happened 11 years after I was born, while the Nazi regime managed to get dissolved almost a half a century earlier.
So I grew up in a small peaceful town on the cold plains of Canada, and especially having limited television (three channels!) and no internet or smart phones, I was blissfully unaware of tragedies and atrocities going on throughout the world, and how one of the most murderous regimes in history still yet persisted (in a parallel universe/country) throughout my childhood.
I was extremely lucky to grow up in such circumstances in relative societal isolation… long before “connectivity” took over the world.
Yes, I’ll just come out and actually say it:
I was lucky as a child to be ignorant of world events.
Instead, I got to play in the backyard fighting off dragons (trees) with my sword (croquet stick) and saving the princess (imaginary) with my friends from the evil (but grand) bad guy. What a great gift to grow up before invasive technology.
And yes, it was an extra good thing to have parents who didn’t have a lot of money, because it prodded my creativity even more, and so instead of playing the video game machine that we couldn’t afford (at least at first), I drew out the mario brothers sidescrolling scene on (the old) printer paper with crayons, and dragged my mario bros stick character (lollipop stick) along the printer paper laid across the floor, making “bling-bling” noises myself as I grabbed my imaginary mario coins.
Yes, for whatever atrocities were going on in the world, I am so grateful that I didn’t know a damn thing about it, and I wouldn’t trade that childhood reality of blissful ignorance for the world.
And to be quite frank, I think modern parents are doing their children a huge disservice by letting them be aware of the massive problems throughout the world at too soon an age.
But alas, I digress…
Of course, I would eventually grow up, and being the good conservative pro-America young man that I became (and especially after 9-11), I very much bought into the idea that the US was a global light of freedom around the world, and that international intervention was probably necessary, just to maintain this new, remarkable global order that arose out of the ashes (as things usually do throughout history) of the destruction of 20th century fascism.
But of course, those were the more naive days of my 20s, and I would eventually go on to learn the more complicated hard truth… which is that…
There are no (geopolitical) “good guys”
But this was a lesson that I would eventually learn the hard way… that when it comes to global geo-politics, there really are no good guys. (in the common way that we think of as “good”)
They simply don’t exist… that is, those who are fighting on the side of true “goodness” and “decency” and “justice and love”, etc… blah blah blah, on the federal/international level.
Or let me put it this way:
What we consider to be “good” and “moral” in our normal day-to-day lives, is almost impossible to maintain on the level of politics (especially federal politics), because politics (especially “democracy”) is fundamentally dishonest (and vicious) to begin with. For democracy starts with the premise that the majority should have their way (and that they tend to be right in their judgements).
But this premise is of course quite dubious. In reality, the type of person who is drawn to politics within democracy is usually the type of person least suited for it, but who usually is extremely talented at playing a role that pretends to care about people. And of course, people are easy to fool, because they often WANT to be fooled.
But the truth is that, the higher you get in politics, the more pressure (and eventually extremely high, brutal pressure) is brought to bear on you. And that, no matter how good of intentions you came into the political fray to start with, you will eventually be subject to relentless and (shockingly brutal) pressures from conflicts of interest fighting/vying for control.
And especially after COVID, that should be increasingly obvious.
As Whitney Webb has written about in her book, “One Nation Under Blackmail”, MONEY and BLACKMAIL always buys everyone, and the people who claim to “represent the people” always end up not being that.
Pfisrael
But speaking of COVID, let’s get back to the title of this article, and why I used the word Pfisrael.
Well, despite the fact that I love history and the Bible and I have a great appreciation for Jewish people and their rich, thousands-of-years religion and culture and amazing archetypal stories and images that still make up a huge portion of the western mind and culture (especially as it is the background from which Christianity was born, and that helps illustrate a big part of where we come from as a society)…
(I enjoy the history of the Bible so much, that I have been writing a series on it which you can check out here below)
Yes, despite all this…
I am still drawn back to the fundamental reality of all western “democratic” governments… and as it turns out, “Israel” (in contrast with the ancient biblical “Israel”) is prone to the power dynamics of conflicts of interest from various industries, just like every other nation.
And the video below is a really good summing up of this terrible conflict of interest:
Yes indeed. “…a lab for Pfizer”
No doubt a heart-swelling lab of pride.
And so, although in principle I can appreciate a place (country) for Jewish people to be safe and prosperous in, it’s obvious to see that the “democracy” in Israel is very similar to the corruption throughout the rest of the world.
Indeed, there are no good guys (on higher country-level politics). There are just dominance hierarchies battling it out.
But maybe, for most people, this is a truth that they can’t handle…
In “A Few Good Men”, the general would not have it from inquiring minds about HOW he maintained freedom and prosperity for the US, but that they should just accept that he does it (no doubt at great cost).
And so, for Israel, maybe it’s no different. They are simply doing what they feel they need to do within the value system (and geopolitical system) in which they operate.
Of course, I am on purpose avoiding the complex historical issue of how Israel was founded as a country to begin with (and the complicated process of the last 2,000 years which brought us to this point, which of course connects to the significance of the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and all it’s complex theological and historical developments).
Aside from the fact that whatever is happening in “western” style governments is probably incredibly corrupted, the middle east in general is also an ancient conflict with thousands of years of enmities and archetypes.
Anyone who thinks they can fix this with a political solution, is just incredibly naive. It’s quite disturbing to see people weighing in on this issue in general who don’t have a historical sense of the last many thousands of years.
Hamas
But what of Hamas, then? Are they the good guys? Of course not.
Although I am certainly no expert in this field, they seem to have no qualms about using brutality and barbarism whenever it suits them. And so I’m not asking you to support them either.
And what of Gaza, then? What of the people?
Well, instead of pretending that I understand all the immense complexities of this situation (and their “government”), I would like to you consider a different idea…
…something I call:
Cautious Agnosticism as a starting principle
Something that’s obvious to me now, is that probably NO ONE knows the full extent of all the dynamics that are going on there, and the many complicated levels of corruption that no doubt intertwine throughout the rest of the world (and not to mention the dirty hands of the US).
And in all likelihood, you’re never gonna know.
In terms of the western response (particularly the online response), it’s mainly just… “Won’t someone please think of the children!!??”, which of course helps nothing.
Turn off the histrionics
Cautious agnosticism is a good starting principle (in light of all the factors that we cannot possibly be aware of).
But I would suggest going even further, and start to think more generally about the personal cost of just simply being aware of all these conflicts that are going on in the world. We are in severe danger of being overwhelmed by “compassion fatigue” (if any of us really had “compassion” to begin with, which for some may be questionable), or rather, what Nietzsche referred to as “suffering made contagious” through the disease of pity.
If there’s one thing we’ve lived through during covid, it was that media and government seem to really relish all of us living in a constant state of fear and alarm, being terrified of each other, and yet obsessively worried about “safety”. We’re probably much easier to control that way.
This might keep you “safe” in the short term, but in the long term, you will just have created a world (and a life) that’s not worth living.
For however I might appreciate Jewish or Muslim or American people, I think it’s important for people to realize that, in the modern world, there are no “countries”. There are only corporations.
The issue is not so much that you think one side is “bad”, but that you think (assume) that the your side is “good”.
This is nonsense.
In modern geo-politics (nation-states), there are only bad guys.
Or, as Nietzsche said in his Zarathustra,
“The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, and says: ‘I the State am the people’. It is a lie.”
No matter how real… no matter how terrible… turn off the news. And live where you live. The world needs inspiration, not histrionics.