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As you and I have written in the recent past, this so powerfully underscores the here-and-now of that horribly ugly part of us that has been forever and still is. I tend to think Gord is right about the reptilian brain, and it is immensely powerful. Still, if we hope to ever be truly human, we must find ways to overcome its power over us. Raising it to consciousness is a crucial part of that endeavor, and images like this one are so very necessary to show. It is just as disturbing as it ought to be and needs to be. I hope it will find its way to being shown far beyond the confines of PN. Thank you, Pnina, for your courage and determination.

Kelvin and david, thanks for writing your feelings about this, I enjoyed Toledo,but this was like a blow!

 

David You are right that it has to be shown , after the holocaust, and so much evil on the glob, the world did not learn what hate can do and where it can lead humanity.

still reading these comments it's clear we all feel the same and find it equally dispicable. Still, I think some nuance is in order.

 

First of all it's not sure if that date has any bearing on these signs (I rather doubt it). Would it have, Toledo authoroties should be sued.

 

Also, as dispicable as it is it makes a difference if these are made out of malignant racism or out of sheer ignorance. I rather suspect it's the latter. For years now we have a politico-social problem in Europe which politicians seemingly don't know to adress. We have grown soft and therefore vulnerable as a society. That is a growing problem of which these excessive outings are a symptom.

 

Note that,as horrible as this is, it's equally important to find the real root of the problem and adress it accordingly.

It's an age old story, and one that seemingly will exist until we finally succeed in making our planet uninhabitable. We must fight it, but I fear that the reptilian mind that Gordon sites, is the dominant neural power.

No David, I refuse to believe that. Always there but not dominant, not anymore

Oh, I love an optimist. Good for you.

an optimist yes, but not a naive one

Ton I'm an optimist in my nature, but I don't think it was done of ignorance....

 

No way,see Darfur's genoside, and many other places , racism , evil ,suicide bombers, Iran, Al Kaida, Iraq, conflicts, conflicts ... no end, so many innocent people are paying with their life...

 

David, sometimes, I loose my optimism like you...

... the reality is that the fight will never end ... remember Gordon's "reptilian brain" reference. These people will always be with us in one way or another. Our job is to keep them from spreading that hate. We must recognise that these people may be our friends and our neighbors, the lovely boy who delivers groceries, the caring teacher who instructs our children. They aren't all crass troglodytes who deface buildings.

Yes, we were crossing each other. The problem is that the "reptilian brain"

(Gordon's copyright...) is all over the glob.

 

and you are right Dennis, hate is a disease, and you are right again , that it can be people that we like and think we know ,but we don't really know....

... if we could spot this hate easily, and treat it. But it is not possible. I spent an entire day once with a Lebanese Christian who was reasonable, rational, and kind ... until the subject of Israel came up, and then he was a vituperative fanatic spewing venom. It was a different person.

60 years to Israel, and this example is the kind of hate around us. Children suck it with their mother's milk, in schools, and every where. and we are one small spot on the glob....and all the rest? hard to stay optimistic...

I might have been misunderstood here. The point I was trying to make is this,

 

outings like these made out of ignorance (and there is that) often come from a poor social background, a lack of education and so on. This, history has proven, can be resolved eventually.

 

But of course there is a more malignant form of racism and while this will indeed never cease to exist it can at least be contained if we get our politicians to get their act together. If they don't than the two will eventually overlap and the problem will only increase.

 

I think I've made myself abundantly clear in my earlier comments on how I feel about this and although I'm not naive I have more faith in human nature than this discussion may have led us eventually.

 

Staying vigilant, absolutely. Getting paranoid (myself I mean), not a good idea.

"We must recognise that these people may be our friends and our neighbors, the lovely boy who delivers groceries, the caring teacher who instructs our children. They aren't all crass troglodytes who deface buildings." Maybe not today, but all one has to do is look at Germany, the U.S., Darfur, Rawanda, Serbia, etc. to see that formerly good people turn evil with very little effort. I'll fight against it until I die, but I'm not optimistic about the outcome. Perhaps it is nothing more than evolution in action, and we must kill or be killed as a means to survive. Perhaps killing, maiming, and conflict are as inherent in human behavior as the sex drive and hunger. Maybe...

Thanks for writing your thought again, but reality is proving that it is not so easy to elliminate. we ( and you) are not paranoidic, but maybe more realistic.We hope! without hope it is very hard to see what is going on on the glob. I have, with a group of Israeli volunteers treated and still do the Darfur refugees that run to Israel and many others,we are familiar with the atrocitis , genoside, done in Africa, and our situation here in the Middle East, where Iran is saying on every microphon that Israel needs to be elliminated from the glob maps... this photo is a small reminder that the "reptilian brains" are still very much present!

"Perhaps killing, maiming, and conflict are as inherent in human behavior as the sex drive and hunger. Maybe..."

 

It sound so bad! apocalyptic , the prospect of human species....see what is going on with the prices of food in many poor countries in the world.... Frightening.