Hitler's children: Germans deface U.S. flag but don't object if Saddam invades Turkey

[xfer]

hmm...i might actually agree with you, preppy, if we knock the semantics around a little. i also don't believe in real outright stupidity...I think most people just don't care to learn. i don't know if "fear" is the root for most american people...i would say it is "lack of will", which is sometimes caused by fear, and often caused by leaders conspiring to KEEP people will-less.

 

[minxnim]

i really wholeheartedly think it's fear. i have thought about this for a long long time, especially since i wonder, why am i not in a trailer park like all my relatives/old friends? why do i not have 6 kids and AIDS like the rest of them?
well, it's because my dad sort of made me not afraid of shit. i am guessing people not in/raised in that situation really dont see the underlying total and paralyzing hopelessness involved.
i mean, fear is the basis of so much. of why people become religious (fear of the unexplained, fear of the future, fear of their own capabilities to be evil etc etc)

 

[xfer]

but i am fearful, so why am i not stuck in suburban Connecticut working at a stupid company managing three peons and thinking i'm hot shit? that would have been the easiest, least challenging route.

could your lack of fear have come about because of a really strengthed will? i think the two are somehow related.

(i'm not trying to tell you what you're thinking or anything, btw)

perhaps just as i am trying to boil things down to willpower, it is possible to boil things down to fear. let me explicate...hmm...for instance, i don't like dogs because of fear, but i'm not afraid of them. i'm afraid of a dog biting me and me having to sock it and hurt it, which would make me feel horrendous. so I don't like dogs and stay away from them because they are capable of putting me in a situation that would make me feel terrible. even though i know cats can hurt me, i like them because i can just pull them off me gently and not hurt them.

it would be untrue to say i'm "afraid of dogs", but fear DOES come into play in determining my response to them. is that what you're saying...that fear determines our responses even indirectly, two or three or four degrees of separation away?

 

[minxnim]

well, i think that would be like saying something that is dry is just dry, or that it is a lack of wetness or water. same diff right? different angle. i think we're saying essentially the same thing.
however, what i mean is, and i think the term fear is very broad but people use it only one way... it can be just an anxiety you know. people are just born afraid. it's an instinct you know, one of the most basic. like, fear of the dark, is born in people. (jung proved that)