Tuesday, October 26, 2021

The Culture of Tribal Conflict

A boy rides his bike past destroyed cars and houses in a neighborhood recently liberated by Iraqi security forces on the western side of Mosul, Iraq, Sunday, March 19, 2017.

Culture is a fine expression of humanity's

love affair with language and literature

our fascination with the science of nature

our longing for music to soften our days

and painting and sculpture to reflect the

natural and the human, the soaring ambition

of architecture complementing our urge to

manipulate the world to our advantage. It  is

the ultimate expression of civilization as

sophisticated populations exalt existence in

and of itself a fine enterprise from birth to

oblivion. And then it behooves us to muse

why it is that cultivation of these symbols of

a higher order of existence differs so widely

from here to there. There is where an enduring

tribalism triumphs the finer instincts jostling

for supremacy, tribe and clan taking precedence

stalling human progress in the primitively

ascendant conflicts that topple order and security

where ancient rites of conflict and preoccupation

with conquest metes out death even as death 

stalks victor and vanquished, in famine and

pestilence, reaping what they ceaselessly sow.




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