I didn't know you were heading to this particular "here" in your previous post.
Your post identifies a tangled mess - arguably an emotional mine field that is fundamental to the human experience all the way back to our pre-human origins, as I alluded to privately.
Having read and re-read your postseveral times now, I will offer this:
"If he had seen what he claimed to see, I strongly suspect something would have been done about it."
He saw what he saw. I have no reason to doubt it. I have witnessed child soldiering. You have nothing more than my assertion. Did he invent it out of whole cloth? Am I?
Clearly, nothing was done about what he witnessed. Objective reality informs me nothing has been done about child soldiering.
"..he couldn’t have stopped whatever he thought he saw, and that lack of control is frustrating."
What if he actually saw what he claimed? That he couldn't stop it is traumatic to him. His reaction to it is a psychological response to that trauma. "frustrating" is a long way from the very real horror of the experience as a witness, let alone as a victim.
In this case, "..those people just have no values.." is his psychological generalization of a specific traumatic event. It's a coping mechanism.
The rest of your post creates an inescapable logic loop. It's a tacit dismissal of his claim, his reaction to it, and I would suggest his humanity. There's no path through the loop that does not involve dismissal.
Did he generalize the specific to an entire group of people? Absolutely. Did he actually witness it? More likely than not. That he was wrong to generalize does not negate the truth of the event causing the generalization. He is, after all, human.
Thanks for the post. It has prompted me to revisit the excellent PBS series, "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth" (available in its entirety on YouTube)
I didn't know you were heading to this particular "here" in your previous post.
Your post identifies a tangled mess - arguably an emotional mine field that is fundamental to the human experience all the way back to our pre-human origins, as I alluded to privately.
Having read and re-read your postseveral times now, I will offer this:
"If he had seen what he claimed to see, I strongly suspect something would have been done about it."
He saw what he saw. I have no reason to doubt it. I have witnessed child soldiering. You have nothing more than my assertion. Did he invent it out of whole cloth? Am I?
Clearly, nothing was done about what he witnessed. Objective reality informs me nothing has been done about child soldiering.
"..he couldn’t have stopped whatever he thought he saw, and that lack of control is frustrating."
What if he actually saw what he claimed? That he couldn't stop it is traumatic to him. His reaction to it is a psychological response to that trauma. "frustrating" is a long way from the very real horror of the experience as a witness, let alone as a victim.
In this case, "..those people just have no values.." is his psychological generalization of a specific traumatic event. It's a coping mechanism.
The rest of your post creates an inescapable logic loop. It's a tacit dismissal of his claim, his reaction to it, and I would suggest his humanity. There's no path through the loop that does not involve dismissal.
Did he generalize the specific to an entire group of people? Absolutely. Did he actually witness it? More likely than not. That he was wrong to generalize does not negate the truth of the event causing the generalization. He is, after all, human.
Thanks for the post. It has prompted me to revisit the excellent PBS series, "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth" (available in its entirety on YouTube)