Comments on: Bonnie and Sara stop a tank http://johntinker.com/2007/06/11/bonnie-and-sara-stop-a-tank/ observations and opinions Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:10:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: John http://johntinker.com/2007/06/11/bonnie-and-sara-stop-a-tank/comment-page-1/#comment-5 John Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:01:49 +0000 http://johntinker.com/2007/06/11/bonnie-and-sara-stop-a-tank/#comment-5 Yes. I think that "conflict" is a central term, and that people will populate the slots surrounding it with whichever entities culture and personality derive for to populate those slots. Mainly, I see a structure, pre-existent, though the contents do vary among us. When the dominant culture was pushing East/West conflict, or Capitalist/Communist, I was perceiving a Civilian/Military conflict. Now the central conflict is, if not Islam/Judeo-Christian, then it is something (in the dominant and dominating culture) like Terrorist/GoodPerson. Which of those is the most bigoted may be debated. They are so shallow, that they can't last long. The tank driver was - me guessing - thinking in some kind of GoodPerson/BadPerson paradigm. That's pretty basic, and pretty old. So much so, that there is little current context. For keeping abreast of current events, I think Civilian/Military is a durable analysis. When it stops being so, so much the better. Yes. I think that “conflict” is a central term, and that people will populate the slots surrounding it with whichever entities culture and personality derive for to populate those slots. Mainly, I see a structure, pre-existent, though the contents do vary among us.

When the dominant culture was pushing East/West conflict, or Capitalist/Communist, I was perceiving a Civilian/Military conflict. Now the central conflict is, if not Islam/Judeo-Christian, then it is something (in the dominant and dominating culture) like Terrorist/GoodPerson. Which of those is the most bigoted may be debated. They are so shallow, that they can’t last long.

The tank driver was - me guessing - thinking in some kind of GoodPerson/BadPerson paradigm. That’s pretty basic, and pretty old. So much so, that there is little current context.

For keeping abreast of current events, I think Civilian/Military is a durable analysis. When it stops being so, so much the better.

]]> By: copyexchange http://johntinker.com/2007/06/11/bonnie-and-sara-stop-a-tank/comment-page-1/#comment-1 copyexchange Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:13:57 +0000 http://johntinker.com/2007/06/11/bonnie-and-sara-stop-a-tank/#comment-1 "First reason would be that some relative youth had figured out the basic conflict of existence, and determined that the proper place to confront it was driving that tank." "[T]he basic conflict of existence" could be something like yin and yang, or matter and dark matter, or life and death, or many such things, depending on what a person "figured out" for themselves (usage is intentional). More likely a person driving a tank would be viewing a conflict between Judaic-Christian and Islamic faiths, or between Western and Arab races, or perhaps just good and evil in a JRR Tolkien sense, or other such dangerous thinking, all of which needs to somehow be dispelled if we are to have a better world. “First reason would be that some relative youth had figured out the basic conflict of existence, and determined that the proper place to confront it was driving that tank.”

“[T]he basic conflict of existence” could be something like yin and yang, or matter and dark matter, or life and death, or many such things, depending on what a person “figured out” for themselves (usage is intentional). More likely a person driving a tank would be viewing a conflict between Judaic-Christian and Islamic faiths, or between Western and Arab races, or perhaps just good and evil in a JRR Tolkien sense, or other such dangerous thinking, all of which needs to somehow be dispelled if we are to have a better world.

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