Let My Love Come Running In

As I have been reading through The Assassins' Gate, I have re-learned an old truth that is probably so fundamental to the world that it is often easy to forget. That truth is that ideas matter. It is often easy to dismiss those who place ideas in a lofty place as irrelevant intellectuals who do not understand the true workings of the world, but this view seems to be terribly narrow and misses so much of how the evolution of human thought has done so much to shape the world that we live in today.
In the book, Packer has spent almost the first one hundred pages simply looking at the growth of the various schools of thought that shaped the debate regarding the current war in Iraq, with special focus on the neoconservative movement. As Patrick and I talked about on Monday night, there is no hope in understanding someone unless you are also able to look at their philosophical and moral grounding and the principles that form their beliefs.

Perhaps there is another great lesson that I have learned once again in the early stages of reading The Assassins' Gate. The way that a situation or conflict is handled differs greatly based on the amount of abstraction that occurs. In a large-scale that is fraught with complexity, it is often very difficult to see individuals as more than mere specks on a massive canvas, but the moment that you realize that each one of those "blips" has a family and life story just like you, it becomes much more difficult to dismiss the claims and desires of that "blip".

This is the tension that exists in many different arenas throughout our life. Where do the desires and rights of individuals come into conflict with the values and desires of the collective? I do not have the answers at this moment, but the important piece of the journey towards answers and yet again more questions is to remember that ideas are important in our world and their effects can never be underestimated.