A question for you, but first imagine…

Imagine that you are a middle-class, well-educated person from a strong family background living in an economically and civically stable environment. Because you are so blessed and knowledgeable, you are keenly aware that your lot is considerably better than the majority of the rest of the world. In fact, some who are not as well off as you are your kin, living in the homelands of your ancestors. Naturally, you perceive your prosperity is, in large measure, a product of the sophisticated culture within which you live. However, you wonder why your kin do not also prosper.

As you ponder this, you begin to notice that "the younger generation" is losing touch with the values that you’re certain are crucial to maintaining the stability you currently enjoy and love. You perceive that the forces demoralizing them and tempting them with ignoble aspirations also have a hand in adversely impacting the fortunes of the countries wherein your impoverished kin reside. These forces are administered, of course, by a body of people who seem bent on making the entire world follow their rules, rules which appear to accomplish nothing but the oppression of the many for the benefit of the few. So you realize that preserving your way of life and rescuing your old-world kin both demand the same action: to oppose the spreading tyrannical force.

Your first approach is via political channels, but it turns out that this tyranny is very influential and many others fear to join you in resisting it. What’s more, the tyranny goes out of its way to form alliances with your enemies, sending the clear message that it is not going to be friendly to you. As you try to figure out what your next move will be, the tyranny grows and grows, adding allies either by friendship or coercion, and the desperation that plagues your kin in other lands appears to be your doom as well.

Finally, you resolve to do what so many in history have done before you when faced with similar circumstances. You will rally as many people as you can around the values that you fervently believe will preserve the legacy of your people. You’ll send envoys to the nations of your kin in order to stir them to throw off the yokes of their oppressors. You will restore the respect, authority, and sovereignty of your people wherever they reside on Earth. You will not succumb to the self-serving usurpers whose only desire is your utter subjugation.

Because the tyrannical force often resorts to military tactics in order to secure its aims, you, too, must command a militia and be prepared to engage in battle. Because the enemy is better equipped, more wealthy, and greater in number, you must employ guerilla tactics and sabotage in order to make headway. Sometimes others who do not understand your cause criticize your victories, but you know you must stay the course and dig in for a long campaign.

Then you determine that the fight might not be over until your culture, in fact, takes over the world.

But at that same moment you begin to reflect upon where you are and what has brought you there. You see that your own aspirations are now, like those of your enemy, imperial. One voice inside your mind tries to convince you that imperialism is acceptable in your case, since your culture is so clearly superior to all others, but you know that this is irrational thinking. Reasoning it out, you begin to wonder. If you are becoming just like your enemy, perhaps once your enemy was just like you? Perhaps, then, there is common ground upon which to reason?

Except everyone knows the enemy is not a creature of reason.

So now the question: Have you imagined that you live in 18th century America… or 21st century Iran?

Funny how similar they are.

Isn’t it?