This struck a cord with me - it's from Scott Adams' (dilbert guy) blog Especially the last paragraph.
Take Care -->
rabius
Yay! Both Sides Won!
According to the New York Times, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, appeared on television to declare that Hezbollah had won "...a strategic and historic victory."
Meanwhile, Israel is claiming they achieved their goal of degrading Hezbollah and putting the U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese army in control of Southern Lebanon.
You have to love a war where both sides win. The only part I didn't understand was why they stopped fighting. It seemed to me that the longer they fought, the more winning both sides would enjoy. I was puzzled until I read in the same article that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel would "do better" the next time around. You have to admire their spunky attitude. I guess it's like the Olympics, where everyone is a winner just for participating, but you still only do it every four years. Otherwise it would be too much of a good thing.
My new e-mail friend Asser-a Muslim in Egypt-was recently explaining to me about pride. From what I gather, Hezbollah's claim of victory isn't just spin, the way it would be if you heard it from some American politician. As I understand it, the fight itself is the important part-because it instills pride-regardless of what physical reality you end up with. And for many, pride is worth more than houses and even lives.
One of the things I learned in business school is that you can always negotiate a deal unless both sides want exactly the same thing. For example, two people can't both individually own 100% of the same building. But if one side wants a building, and the other wants money, you usually have enough to work with.
The American view of the Middle East is that both sides are fighting for the same pieces of land, generally for reasons that sound irrational. If that's true, there's no point in even trying to achieve peace. It's a logical impossibility. And it would explain why, for example, the Palestinians appeared to be giving up on peace plans that looked entirely reasonable to Western eyes.
What if the Muslims in the Middle East, and the Arabs in particular, want dignity and pride while the Israelis and Americans want physical safety? Then we've got something to deal with.
Unfortunately we (in America at least) are poorly equipped to understand that sort of model. Our favorite form of entertainment involves watching people trade pride for money on reality TV shows. You can convince almost any American to humiliate himself in return for cars, money, jewels or real estate. It's fair to say we don't "get" why anyone else would feel different.
If you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize, figure out a way to trade land for pride. I think it could be done, but you'd have to find a non-lethal way to fuel pride that doesn't involve the material world. It sounds impossible but consider that Gandhi turned not-eating and not-fighting into a source of power, and no one saw that coming. His method probably wouldn't work in this case, but it does show that one good idea can change the game..
Take Care -->
rabius
Yay! Both Sides Won!
According to the New York Times, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, appeared on television to declare that Hezbollah had won "...a strategic and historic victory."
Meanwhile, Israel is claiming they achieved their goal of degrading Hezbollah and putting the U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese army in control of Southern Lebanon.
You have to love a war where both sides win. The only part I didn't understand was why they stopped fighting. It seemed to me that the longer they fought, the more winning both sides would enjoy. I was puzzled until I read in the same article that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel would "do better" the next time around. You have to admire their spunky attitude. I guess it's like the Olympics, where everyone is a winner just for participating, but you still only do it every four years. Otherwise it would be too much of a good thing.
My new e-mail friend Asser-a Muslim in Egypt-was recently explaining to me about pride. From what I gather, Hezbollah's claim of victory isn't just spin, the way it would be if you heard it from some American politician. As I understand it, the fight itself is the important part-because it instills pride-regardless of what physical reality you end up with. And for many, pride is worth more than houses and even lives.
One of the things I learned in business school is that you can always negotiate a deal unless both sides want exactly the same thing. For example, two people can't both individually own 100% of the same building. But if one side wants a building, and the other wants money, you usually have enough to work with.
The American view of the Middle East is that both sides are fighting for the same pieces of land, generally for reasons that sound irrational. If that's true, there's no point in even trying to achieve peace. It's a logical impossibility. And it would explain why, for example, the Palestinians appeared to be giving up on peace plans that looked entirely reasonable to Western eyes.
What if the Muslims in the Middle East, and the Arabs in particular, want dignity and pride while the Israelis and Americans want physical safety? Then we've got something to deal with.
Unfortunately we (in America at least) are poorly equipped to understand that sort of model. Our favorite form of entertainment involves watching people trade pride for money on reality TV shows. You can convince almost any American to humiliate himself in return for cars, money, jewels or real estate. It's fair to say we don't "get" why anyone else would feel different.
If you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize, figure out a way to trade land for pride. I think it could be done, but you'd have to find a non-lethal way to fuel pride that doesn't involve the material world. It sounds impossible but consider that Gandhi turned not-eating and not-fighting into a source of power, and no one saw that coming. His method probably wouldn't work in this case, but it does show that one good idea can change the game..
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
but your dog is so little
i wanted the lyrics for a song off of (hed) pe new album but coudnt find it
so wants new out there in the mid west. you know i actually kinda miss it. ohhh and the vikings won 2 games haha