All is projection

“…the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable—too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous—by attributing them to another.” (Peter Gay, Definition of projection)

Everything that I see around me in this crazy country is projection. We differ from Islamic cultures culturally, but also in our ability to kill from great distances. Because we can drop bombs from aircraft and fire missiles at people, and now even use unmanned drones to accomplish these purposes, our killing, while indiscriminate, is also safe. For us.

The indignity that people express at the events of 9/11 is projection. We do the equivalent of 9/11 twice before breakfast, again after lunch, and then go home to our kids and have sex with our wives, girlfriends and mistresses, and then go out and do it again the following day because, you know, they are evil.

There is no difference between us and them. We are intolerant of their religion, they of ours. They kill us indiscriminately, we them. We’re just better at that game. We have among our ordinary Joe’s a few scholars, humanitarians, scientists, theologians, and sociopaths. So do they.

Our leaders (most of whose names we would not recognize) became leaders because they understand human nature better than the rest of us. They know that we all suffer from greed, lust, avarice, pride and anger, and so play to those vices as they play their global games for control of land and resources. We are taught to dress it up as patriotism, just vengeance, courage and honor. It is none of those things. It is indiscriminate killing. We are indiscriminate killers.

But those Muslims, why, they are even worse than us! So we are justified killing a million of them as the price for 2,819 of us. That 355:1 ratio speaks of another vice: Vanity.