Great piece (thanks), our obsession with good and evil, us vs them et al basically boils down to cognitive fluency (of-course most don't have the humility to accept this fact) :
"According to one school of thought, this tendency to exaggerate the strength of our adversaries serves a specific psychological function. It is less scary to place all our fears on a single, strong enemy than to accept the fact our well-being is largely based on factors beyond our control. An enemy, after all, can be defined, analyzed and perhaps even defeated."
I always believed this was true. Only thing that can bring this country together is a common enemy but there is a scarcity of them - Soviet union is no more, communist China is now a pseudo capitalist, terrorists have no geography. May be we need few little green men to visit this planet to unify us.
"According to one school of thought, this tendency to exaggerate the strength of our adversaries serves a specific psychological function. It is less scary to place all our fears on a single, strong enemy than to accept the fact our well-being is largely based on factors beyond our control. An enemy, after all, can be defined, analyzed and perhaps even defeated."
I always believed this was true. Only thing that can bring this country together is a common enemy but there is a scarcity of them - Soviet union is no more, communist China is now a pseudo capitalist, terrorists have no geography. May be we need few little green men to visit this planet to unify us.
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