Love and Ego Identification

W

hy is it that the average American would be so resistant to discovering the truth about the September attacks?

What would it cost him emotionally if he discovered that those who claim to represent “his government” had done unspeakably evil things, which had brought about unspeakably evil retaliations?

If the average American reads about a Mafia hit-man who gets

“whacked” in return, or some gang banger found shot dead in a gutter, does he immediately rush to the defence of the Mafia, or the gang?

Of course not.

If a mugger gets shot, the average American most likely shrugs and says, “Well, don’t mug people!” If a hit-man gets whacked, we often feel a grim, unpleasant but generally-inevitable sense of justice.

Ah, the average American might say, but in the case of the September attacks, the people who were killed were

not

the people responsible for the decisions of the leaders.

This is very true, of course – but it is equally true for the Iraqis, who starved and died under an embargo that supposedly resulted directly from the decisions of

their

leader – Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, the Iraqis who died had no chance whatsoever to change their leader or to affect their political system in any way, shape or form. The people who died in the

World Trade Center were educated, affluent, well-spoken and old enough to vote. This does not mean that they brought about their own deaths, of course, but it

does

mean that if the standard is brought forward that people should not be killed for the actions of their leaders, then we must have more sympathy for the helpless Iraqis, who lived in a dictatorship, than the adults of New York, who lived in a democracy.

Furthermore, it was the Iraqi

children

who suffered and died the most under the UK/US blockade. Should we primarily blame

children

for the actions of a dictator? Would it have been

worse

for the Muslim hijackers to target Disneyland?

Finally, what is the average Muslim

to make of the simple and brutal reality that, even after the “reasons” given for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 turned out to be totally fraudulent, the sitting President was returned to office with a clear majority of the popular vote? What could it mean that,

after

committing a genocide against Muslims, Bush won the Presidency

more decisively

in 2004 than he did in 2000?

Are those who vote responsible for the decisions of their leaders?

The “Stockholm Syndrome”

The only way to truly unravel this unholy knot is to understand that the average American feels a very strong ego identification with

“his” leader, “his” government, and the political ruling class as a whole.

Why is that?

Well, of course it is partly due to the endless propaganda that every citizen of every country is endlessly subjected to, particularly in government schools.

However, there is a far more central reason that we rush to the defence of our leaders, which has great ramifications for our own personal relationships

as well.

Sympathy and Integrity

What would it mean to have sympathy for the victims of our own governments?

What would it mean to dispassionately survey the political and military landscape of the past generation or so, and realize the degree to which our own governments have committed unspeakable crimes and genocides throughout the world?

What would it mean?

The reason that we avoid knowing evil

is not because we wish to avoid that knowledge, but rather because we wish to avoid another knowledge which is far more dangerous to us.

Imagine a prisoner who wakes up to a silent and empty prison, with the door of his cell very slightly ajar.

He calls out, but no guards come.

He rattles the bars of his cage, but no other prisoners respond, and no other sound can be heard.

Everyone has left. He is alone in an empty prison.

If we imagine that we are this prisoner, can we picture how terrifying it would be for us to

actually try to open the door of our cell

?

If the door

opens

, we at least have the chance to escape.

If the door is locked, however – ah, then we will suffer the agonies of thirst and starvation for days, and die a terrible death, alone in our locked cell.

With the stakes so high, how would we

feel

about actually trying to

open

the door of our cell?

The reason that we would avoid trying to open the door of our cage is not because we were afraid of the door being locked, but rather that we were afraid of dying of thirst and starvation, over days, agonizingly slowly.

By avoiding the door, we are avoiding the knowledge of our death.

And – the more certain that we are that the door is locked – and thus that we will die - the more terrified we are of trying to open it.

In the same way, we flock to defend our leaders, because if we objectively survey their actions and realize the violence and evil that they have committed, we are led to some terrifying and terrible conclusions about the world that we

actually

live in.