“Human nature makes us want to feel good about ourselves and to believe the best about others. In the case of terrorism, it’s easier and more comforting to believe that someone wants to do bad things to you because you’ve done bad things to them, rather than because of the good which you stand for. Because it follows that if you stop, they’ll stop.
Which is much more palatable than the alternative, which is that this won’t end unless we kill the terrorists and defeat their ideology, or they kill us and destroy our way of life.
In an imperfect and dangerous world, the left likes to pretend that we can always do exactly what we’d like to do in a perfect one.”
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Yes. Except that it isn’t “human” nature. Of course, we treat our friends, allies and those who share values with us to this “benefit of the doubt,” and “do unto others as you would have them to unto you.” But it’s Liberal Left American and perhaps certain European nature to project this way of thought on everyone, including those who see it as laughable. It’s a way of thought that endows belief in the control of other people’s behavior by our own behavior. Very “empowering,” but purely fantastical.
Richard Landes has written at length on the topic and similar thought behaviors. This one, “Cognitive Egocentricism” — is “the projection of one’s own mentality or “way of seeing the world” onto others… [even on those whose own belief system is rather] “rule or be ruled…”
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/cognitive-egocentrism/
