trying to explain what i mean further: Stories that portray an idealistic image of ourselves against a negative portrayal of others are intoxicating. Nationalis

trying to explain what i mean further: Stories that portray an idealistic image of ourselves against a negative portrayal of others are intoxicating. Nationalism is a state of dwelling within those intoxicating stories, and what makes nationalism so frightening is that in that state, people will do terrible things to others, I believe, in part, to sustain the immersion in the story. This same thing happens in protest movements too, being part of a movement, especially if the cause is noble and good, the sense of yourself in a grand narrative is exhilarating. Even if you believe the protests are good, intelligent and brave - as I do - it's unrealistic to think there would not be people in the protests who view the conflicts in racist terms. When I said people are lazy, what I should have said is that we are limited, we can only comprehend reality through simple models, and it can be very hard to remember that the models we use to navigate reality are only models. So many of the squabbles on this an other forums seem to begin with people who have models of reality, perfectly suitable for navigating their own lives, and assuming with no evidence that their model is also adequate for describing other peoples lives, shouting their models at each other without a lot of listening. There's well deserved disapproval here of the 'whataboutism' approach to debating, but a some whataboutism is necessary. You need to be able to see the ways in which Tiananmen square and the Nagasaki bombing are similar events in order to get past a cartoon view you, your group and the other.