Good response, CB.
I have no problem with people being proud of their heritage. In cases like e_g's, however, where pride of forebears also includes a fair bit of hate for other groups, Jews in this case, it is not pride of forebears that drives the issue [this is a disguise and a convenient falsehood], but a complex of inferiority, fear, hate, exclusion, and aggression towards Those Who Are Not Us. This complex drives the loons to write and believe in such things such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf, etc., all of which weave a complicated and fraudulent web of self-reinforcing pseudo-logic that justifies outrageous opinions and murderous acts.
The scary thing is that this pseudo-logic has a lot of surface appeal to those who for some reason feel somehow aggrieved. It justifies movements, aggression, and all kinds of crazy stuff from the KKK to the Nazis and the I-fascists. The attitude unfortunately has an almost narcotic appeal and, like any narcotic, it is addicting and dangerous.
I think it is more or less the same psychodynamic that, in extreme cases, drives cults. The fact that the US's population is so diverse has provided us with a very effective vaccination against such dangerous silliness, but I fear that as we become more and more culturally atomized, the psychodynamic has more opportunity to infect weak minds.
All my opinion. |
