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POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS A "SUBLIME ACT OF MORAL VIRTUE
SCOTT ATRAN: "Across human history and cultures, violence against other groups is universally claimed by its perpetrators to be a "sublime matter of moral virtue." Without a claim to virtue, it is difficult to kill large numbers of people innocent of direct harm to others."
KOENIGSBERG: Killing and dying are undertaken in the name of SACRED OBJECTS, mystical, invisible entities. These sacred entities are the foundatioin of human civilizations. The pie in the sky that generates the stream of "history" and writing of "history books" documenting the endless episodes of mass-murder, of which human beings are proud.
Ice cream sundaes, air-conditioners, baseball games, cheer-leaders, chairs to sit on, pens to write with, beds to sleep on etc. These are not enough, these wonderful things.
There has to be "the news," that is, the documentation of mass-murder generated by nation-states and religion.
This is the dialectic of "civilization:" the creation of sources of pleasure and convenience--combined with vicious self-destruction.
RICHARD KOENIGSBERG
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