
From Nein. A Manifesto
by Eric Jaronsinki, compiled from his Twitter feed of philosophy based humor: @neinquarterly
Our story
I’ve written several times about the story in which we live — and yet I’m sure it remains a foreign concept to most. The idea is that, whether we realize it or not, we all have a certain worldview (metanarrative, framing story) that defines the culture in which we live. For Americans, this worldview is about personal freedom, individual autonomy, the good life defined in terms of family and consumer goods — having a good job and being able to buy vacations and stuff, patriotism to our nation, the inevitability of economic and scientific progress, etc.
For most people, these ideas are never considered because they are too obvious to question. Thus, when Islamic nations begin to revolt against their rulers, we assume that they revolt to gain civil freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. After all, that’s why we fought the Revolutionary War against England. It doesn’t occur to us that they may be rebelling to gain power to impose their understanding of Islam on their nation. We would never do that. Nor do we consider that it may about vengeance of one tribe for atrocities committed by the tribe in power years, even centuries, in the past. Again, we would never do that — and we assume that everyone is like us. And they’re just not. Continue reading →