Civilization and Its Enemies The Next Stage of History [Paperback]

Lee Harrisentered Emory University at age fourteen and graduated summa cum laude. After years spent pursuing diverse interests, including a stint at divinity school, several years writing mystery novels, and a career as a glazier, he began writing philosophical articles that captured the imagination of readers all over the world. The author of three of the most controversial and widely shared pieces in the history ofPolicy Review,Harris has emerged as one of the most talked-about writers of recent times. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.Chapter One:The Riddle of the Enemy

Know your enemy is an admirable maxim of prudence, but one that is difficult to observe in practice. Nor is the reason hard to fathom: if you are my enemy, it is unlikely that I will go very much out of my way to learn to see things from your point of view. And if this ignorance exists even where the conflict is between groups that share a common culture, how much more will it exist when there is a profound cultural and psychological chasm between the antagonists?

Yet, paradoxically, this failure to understand the enemy can arise not only from a lack of sympathy with his position but also from a kind of misplaced sympathy: when confronted by a culturally exotic enemy, our first instinct is to understand his conduct in terms that are familiar to us, terms that make sense to us in light of our own fund of experience. We assume that if our enemy is doing x, it must be for reasons that are comprehensible in terms of our universe.

Just how unfortunate -- and indeed fatal -- this approach can be was demonstrated during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. When Montezuma learned of Cortés's arrival, he was at a loss to know what to make of the event. Who were these white-skinned alien beings? What had they come for? What were their intentions?

These were clearly not questions that Montezuma was in a position to answer. Nothing inhisworld could pl3V