We want you to be one of us

You were adamant last time that we do not, or cannot, change our views of the world unless we experience something ourselves that makes us re-examine our views.

I still am. But now I realize that there are exceptions to that. 

Did you know that you sound just like señor Hipocresía?

Ahhhh, never, ever compare me to him!

How can I not? You laid out the principle rather categorically, and used it to validate your argument. After doing so, you are conceding the existence of instances that do not follow the rule.

Tell me, is there any rule that does not come with exceptions?

Another demonstration that you are like señor Hipocresía.

Honestly, I would not trust a rule that does not have any exception.
 

What about the law of conservation of linear momentum?

All right... it's a physical law, though. Even some physical laws have exceptions. Think about the law of conservation of mass.
 

True, it holds under the condition that speeds are non-relativistic and that no nuclear reactions take place.

Personally, as much as I abhor señor Hipocresía, I hate exceptions.
 

You mean, you are ready to strangle exceptions?

Comrade, I wouldn't. Strangling can get messy, and I don't want to clean up the floor. Anyway, the very existence of an exception invalidates the notion of a rule, particularly because there is no limit to the amount of exceptions that rules may have.
 

What happens with señor Hipocresía and friends is that whenever they do not want to go by the rule, they make the case in question an exception.

That certainly works in this world, where no two cases are truly identical. We can list all the attributes of our case of interest so that no other case would match with it. That way, we can guarantee the singularity of that case.
 

By emphasizing its factors that we did not list in our rule, we can safely claim that it is an exception and that the rule does not apply.

Hmmm... señor Hipocresía may be much cleverer than I thought, because he is practicing all this unconsciously.
 

Let's get back to your exception, bearing in mind that even in physics, there are exact laws and approximate laws. So, what is your exception?

We are more prone to change our minds when we are at an impressionable young age, and for that we do not have to experience what would support our world view.
 

Isn't that because when we are young our minds are empty and ready to be filled with something?

Bravo, comrade! That is why the first experiences, especially when we are children and adolescents, are very important in our lives. It is also quite scary, because we can believe in anything we are told.
 

We lack the experience to judge the value of what we are taught. And that is precisely why we can learn effortlessly the ideas that may appear dramatically alien to the grown-ups.

Another great exception is that we regain that malleability when we encounter someone whom we think we can trust completely as an adult. The curious factor here is that this type of trust seems to come about only through romantic associations.
 

History is replete with wives and mistresses who influenced their husbands and masters...

Robert's current wife, Grace, is reported to be quite different in nature from his first wife, Sally. It has been pointed out that the turning point in Robert's policies came around when Sally passed away. Siti Hartinah, the wife of Suharto, was called Ibu Tien, but apparently 'tien' also stood for 'ten' in Dutch. Ten percent of any foreign aid to Indonesia was rumored to have gone to her.
 

Ferdinand and Imelda are in the similar league, I guess.

It is said that Habib promoted education and female emancipation in order to win Western support during the Cold War, but I have also heard that it was his first wife, Moufida who had great influence in that regard.
 

Going back in time, we would find Madame de Pompadour, etc.

What is funny to me is that they needed romantic attraction in order to establish very strong trust that allows influence at an advanced age, but once it was in place, the power couples became more like business partners.
 

After all, all of the guys that we mentioned here either remarried, had mistresses, or both.

If we move into the realm of philosophy, there is Harriet's influence on John Stuart Mill about women's rights.
 

Honoré de Balzac could write precociously about marriage while he was a bachelor, thanks to his liaison with Ewelina who was married. 

Two treatises on the subject to boot! Anyway, those were my exceptions to the rule. The second one goes to show that you'd better choose well whom you go out with.
 

But if romance is involved, we don't have much control over it, do we?

That is the very illusion that we get from romantic feelings. We feel we cannot do anything about it, but that lasts only as long as we are in love. Many people cannot understand how they could have been in love with a certain person when the affair is over.
 

We also hear about love from years ago that people cannot forget.

I'd come to believe that those are even bigger illusions.
 

You're jaded, comrade...

How we transmit ideas, behavior and attitude is strange, to say the least. We know that child abusers are very often those who were abused as children.
 

We may naively deduce that they would become crusaders against child abuse, but not so. In fact, some brothels are maintained by former-prostitute mothers and prostitute daughters.

The same with in-laws. In many societies where big families are still common, abuse of brides is fairly common. It is almost a tradition. Apparently, people do not think what was so unfair, unjust and cruel should not be repeated. They want to replicate the actions onto others when they are given the opportunity, namely, when they become in-laws themselves.
 

It is a way of seeking revenge, but since the targets are not the same as the perpetuators, we are effectively passing on hatred from generation to generation.

I was horrified when I read a folklore about a clever bride circumventing sexual advances from her father-in-law. 

It means that such abuse by fathers-in-law is, or was, widespread.

It is more hideous because she will never become a father-in-law herself.
 

I thought we were against passing on pernicious practices.

The above cases are easy to observe, as we first become the receiving end. Another case that I come to notice lately is that we expect others to treat us as we treat them.
 

That's also obvious, isn't it?

If we alternate being the receiving end among those concerned, yes. The latest one that I encountered is that bootlickers want their subordinates to act as bootlickers toward them.

They would go along with anything their superiors say, and expect their own subordinates to do the same for them?  

It beats me why we are so good at corrupting others...
 

Do I smell señor Hipocresía here, too?

Let's say it was a general observation about humanity.

The Not-so-secret mechanism of revenge

Comrade... May I ask what you are doing there under the table?

I'm checking whether there is a bomb planted. I've been hearing tick, tock, tick, tock, and I thought I'd better find out where that is coming from.

I think it's your watch. It's rather loud, you know.

Let me see... so it is! I was thinking that a bomb may be following me, possibly with a suicide bomber.

I would not be surprised if the flower pot over there blows itself up together with us. Doesn't it look rather suspicious?
 
I don't know about that particular orchid pot by the window, but I am certain that we do not live in a safer world just because Osama bin Laden is dead. It was a very bad idea to kill him, no doubt about it.

Many are under the impression that it is better that he is dead than alive. Do you remember the crowd outside the White House when the news was released?

I was surprised that it was big. It scared me, too. I did not see a great difference between them and the football hoolig... oops, fans. They were hilarious and aggressively so. Just like in a game of sports, they only saw their side, the other side, and nothing else.

You are one of those people who oppose to cheering one team or one person in any game.

If we are true sports fans, we should appreciate and applaud good play by any performer, not anything by what we arbitrary chose as 'our favorite player/team.'

Most of us are attached to teams and players with whom we share geographical origins. It amazes me how universal that formula is.

What is disturbing is that we allow it even at the international level. Think about the Olympic Games which are considered by many the most significant sports events. It's always a big deal which country wins more medals.

We seldom hear about the marvelous butterfly strokes by a certain swimmer or...

It doesn't mean much if they do not lead to a medal, preferably the gold. And, think about the restrictions imposed on us by the people around us whom to cheer.

If you happen to admire a Russian skater whom a Georgian has lost against...

You will be unconscious the next second if you have been watching television in a café in Tbilisi. That brings us back to our earlier topic of killing whom you consider your enemy.

Your concern was that the crowd in front of the White House was jubilant as if their favorite team had won a sports match.

It is bad enough to be happy because the team from your town, county, region, or country has won. In this case, it is not only bad, but wrong and ultimately self-destructive.

How so?

Capital punishment is illegal in many parts of the world, and if you are against it, you must apply the principle to all persons.

What if the US government had exclusively chosen personnel from Texas for the raid?

I heard that bin Laden was not armed, so you can't justify the action as self-defense.

Can't we say that it's self-defense in the long term?

That is precisely what is not right about this operation. The long-term solution is in eliminating their motivation, namely, the hatred that they have toward the Occident. If bin Laden had been alone in wanting to destroy the West, he would not have succeeded. He could implement his ideas because there were so many people who agreed with him.

Weren't they bought off by the promise that thousands of virgins would be waiting for them in heaven?

If you strongly disagreed with his view of the West as the evil that needed to be eliminated from earth by violent means, you would not take up his call to sacrifice your life even if there were ten-thousand virgins waiting for you.

Perhaps I would ask for their up-to-date photographs before I commit myself, but it will take some time before I go through all profiles if there were ten thousands of them.

Comrade, seriously, it is counterproductive to kill a person who is revered by many, even if that person may cause us harm. Human beings have the natural urge to revenge someone who has inflicted damage on something important to us.

In other words, terrorism could exacerbate rather than attenuate because of the operation.

As I have been emphasizing, our thoughts and motivations are largely shaped by our experiences. What we experience has such power because it evokes emotions in us, and emotions are stronger than rationalizations. It is much easier to motivate a person by emotions than by rational arguments.

It has now become much more difficult to convince them---if it had been possible at all---that blowing up people, planes, trains and so on is not wise; they are more emotionally charged than before.

Not only that, but because the West has killed someone who is important to them, the West cannot tell them not to kill any of its own people. It no longer makes sense.

A friend of mine pointed out that putting bin Laden on a trial would have exposed his fallibility, and thus, much better.
 
Indeed, when we think back to various dictators and the like who had been captured in the past and tried, they looked pretty bad in courtrooms.

I noticed that maintaining a good haircut and wearing clean, well-tailored clothes can make a huge difference... Nobody looks good in a prison outfit and with disheveled hair.

There are many reasons as to why ethnic hatred does not die, but one of them is that the victims happen to be those who are important to the survivors. If someone kills your mother on the simple grounds that she is from Mars, you will want to get back to the killer. It is only a step away in extrapolation what the death of the head of Al-Qaeda means to its members and sympathizers. Plus, we are quite capable of transmitting hatred from generation to generation, and we do so rather willingly.

We couldn't get the guy who killed your mother, so son, you carry on with the obligation. That kind of a thing? 

Right. It was Dubya who said, "He tried to kill my daddy!" and then invaded Iraq, remember?

Why was it called a 'good day for America,' then?

In order to use the event to win political approval of people who think like football hoolig... oops, fans. Every politician wants to manipulate her/his people so that her/his vision is realized. To that end, they want to keep the population like a herd of sheep.

Is that why some countries are reluctant to educate their people?

I strongly suspect that, and it is an extremely costly mistake. Ill-educated people would very often demand short-sighted and symbolic actions.

Like the killing of the head of a world-famous organization, you mean...

Such actions lead to worsening of situations more than eventual resolution, especially when they evoke anger and grief in the other party. I sometimes think that the politicians are worried that there may be no serious problems left to be solved in the world and that is what motivates them.

They want to keep their jobs... They have to be elected, as well as need a cause that gives them an excuse to be a rabble-rouser.

Disgusting as it may be, it would be detrimental to us ordinary citizens if we turn away from politics.

The politicians will run in whatever direction they like, more so than now.

By the way, have you ever thought it unfair that a vote of a farmer in Idaho has more power to influence the world events than that of a nomad in Mongolia?