Posted by jonvon on September 21, 2001 at 23:31:12:
http://davenet.userland.com/2001/09/14/palestinians
i've got a bit of a fear that lurks around in the back of my mind sometimes. i think about technology, i think about the things that we are unleashing in physics labs and genetics laboratories, most of which i don't know anything about. i think about kinetic energy, and how some guys with knives got ahold of some airplane fuel and then released that airplane fuel in such a way as to release the energy in those big buildings so that they collapsed. i don't know if they had any idea that that was what they were going to achieve. it seems inconceivable that a structural engineer would help them plan that sort of thing. of course, there are many things about all of this that seem inconceivable.
but anyway, back to the fear that lurks around in the back of my mind which is probably fairly obvious by now. it seems that there exist in the world people who are willing to kill other people, who are cold enough and dead enough to plan something like the wtc/pentagon disaster with cleverness. they are willing to root out the means necessary to unleash some catastrophic devastation. maybe someday some kinds of genetic technology will become commonplace that could be turned into something very awful. it seems to me that at some point peaceful coexistance, some form of intelligent pacifism, has got to exist in the world. it seems the only sane approach in the face of these kinds of things. i suppose that is what many of us believe that democrasy is. i truly truly hope it is this intelligent pacifism, and if so i hope that the whole world can know it, can live in it, can walk into each morning and breathe the air through a quiet window and be glad to be alive.
you know it seems like bombs we could understand. missiles, bullets, ok. i mean, these are means of destruction which we regularly manufacture. we've used them for some time, and we've had them used on us as well. big ships that come along and shoot missiles, submarines that launch torpedos or whatever. but a commercial airplane full of people and jet fuel landing inside a building? releasing kinetic energy with fire?
what is next? i have this sinking feeling that there are some things that are very out of control in our world. i have the feeling that men with evil hearts are able to do very bad things, simply because they are willing to, and because they are clever enough, and because, because they are *willing* to. i can't get my head around that.
i understand that many people want revenge. i had a car stolen one time from me. i remember lying on my little bedroll at night and feeling an anger burning inside my chest, burning like i could almost physically feel it. i can only imagine what the survivors in ny and dc are feeling. i won't begin to even consider that i could ever understand it. i want for all of them to feel that justice has been done. i believe that they deserve to feel this way. i just hope we don't end up damning the whole world along with our quest for justice.
in my most idealistic moments i wish we could all just kneel down and pray together, wring out our hearts together, heal one another, find quietness together. i wish we could work together to feed everyone. i wish instead of sending military ships to afganistan that we could send relief workers and engineers to build highways and hospitals and farms. i wish we could repay evil with good deeds, with a kindness that would somehow humble every proud heart.
ah well.