BALDY closed his show that night with this: “Is this you, boys and girls? You are a refugee, an orphan, somewhere, anywhere, who knows where. You have been orphaned by tribal warfare, because the people of the other tribe hate your tribe because your tribe is not their tribe. Do you understand that? Everyone who used to sit with you at the family hearth is dead. They were killed by the people of another tribe because the people of the other tribe need to eliminate the people of your tribe so that they can be certain that they are superior to the people of your tribe. Do you understand that? You watched some of the people die. Some died at your home. Some died on the road. Some died in a camp where you learned to understand the limits of international patience with the refugees of tribal warfare. You are alone. Everything you have you can hold in your hands, everything except your memories. Is that you, boys and girls? No? Lucky for you, kids. But be careful, because there is someone out there somewhere, who knows where, who hates you because you belong to the wrong tribe and because we have not grown up enough as a species to stop living in tribes. Do you understand that? Neither do I. Roll the rock in front of the door, my little ones, stay in the cave, and sleep tight.”
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 913, Mark Dorset considers Man’s Inhumanity to Man, Examples Thereof: Tribalism and the “Amity-Enmity Complex”; and Folly from this episode.
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