Stupid, stupid paradigms

Holy shit.

I try to ignore the Middle East. I really do. I wrote an essay on it back in 1998, when I was in 10th grade. The essay was well liked by my English teacher and won me a nomination to Who's Who in American High Schools, which I never followed up on.

In any case, after the whole Israeli Palestinian thing turned into a clusterfuck circa 2001, I decided to simply lose hope and stop caring. I never had a dog in this fight. But really the point of my 10th grade essay still stands, as far as can be told by myself.

We need to get rid of the nouns "Israeli" "Palestinian" "Hebollah" "Jew" etc. etc. etc.

The problem with this whole fucking discussion is the nouns. I'm sick of it. Sick, sick, sick. With these nouns, there will never be peace in the Middle East. These nouns feed into a bad paradigm. The bad paradigm is the idea that there are these groups of people, see let's call them Jews and Arabs. The Jews and the Arabs are fighting, or the Jews and the Arabs are making peace, or the Jews and the Arabs are hurting each other.

We here on the Left have a different way of looking at things. Our paradigm isn't the fucking Jews and the fucking Arabs. Or Indians or Pakistanis. Or Westerners and Muslims. Where exactly does this get us? Do we favor the Jews or do we favor the Arabs? Indians or Pakistanis? Westerners or Muslims? Who is right? Who do we side with? Do you see where this gets us nowhere?

Its like running on a treadmill. Now ask yourself. What's your objective? What have we here on DailyKos been looking at, been asking for... in fact what does any reasonable minded person ask for? A roof over their head? A job to go to work to? Food to feed their family, and education for their kids? A chance to live your life without a rocket or a bomb or a missile going to your home? And how does asking the question Jews vs. Arabs, Westerners vs. Muslims, help in this quest? How? If you're a Jew, do you kill at the Arabs? If an Arab, kill all the Jews? If a Westerner kill all the Muslim? If a Muslim, kill all the Westerners?

Is that how?

These stupid, stupid nouns. And the stupid, stupid questions they make us ask. And the stupid, stupid sides which they presume to make us choose from. Choosing any of these sides doesn't help me get food, shelter, a job, an education, and safety.

There are only two sides, people. Peace-lovers and peace-haters. The peace-lovers look at some conflict and think, "Why, there is a disagreement, and each argument has some legitimate points. The only solution is a plan that meets each of the two arguments halfway. Let me implement this, and let nothing stop me from doing so." The peace-haters look at some conflict and chase their own tail. "He hit me, so I hit him." Then another peace-hater thinks the same. And so they go around and around and around. Some call this the cycle of violence. I call it the dance of the peace-haters.

I do support conflict, and perhaps even physical violence, though it is ugly; it is sometimes necessary. But if so, in this conflict, it must be between two sides: the peace-lovers against the peace-haters.

This is called having a different paradigm. You will have to remap your mind, rewire your brain. Use these nouns in everyday conversation to replace "Israeli" and "Hezbollah" and "Lebanese" and "Iraqi."

It's like learning a new language.

In order to do so you will have to ask yourself, who are the peace-lovers? Who are the peace-haters? (By the way, if your answer is simply to replace one of the useless nouns to peace-lovers or peace-haters then you've clusterfucked yourself). What does it mean when the peace-lovers are in conflict--politically, or otherwise-- with the peace-haters? How does this conflict play out?

After 8 years, that is still all I have to say about this Middle East absurdity. A glimmer of hope did come to me yesterday, when I was reminded of the fact that the Enlightenment was preceded by over 100 years of religious warfare. But until then I will try to think with these new nouns in my head.