>>The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the
Clash of Civilizations
Rabbi Sacks has apparently produced an eloquent
tome here, but I think the difficulty, as usual is
in praxis. If the problems of conflict were
totally accessible to ideas and values and those
who depend upon them, mankind would be doing well,
wouldn't it?
Intellectuals often tend to view ideas as more
real than people, whereas the fighters on all
sides of conflict see their reality as the
fighters to their left and right.
I mean, if the more thoughtful and reflective 20
percent of humanity had its say, there would have
been no Hundred Years' War, no Great War...hardly
any war one can think of. (Consider the brilliant,
highly-educated, ex-communicated, multilingual
Frederick II who negotiated a peace treaty in the
Crusades that gave him Jerusalem, only to be
thwarted by his Western rivals, and ultimately to
lose the truce and Jerusalem.)
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