We normally think of the vicissitudes of life as being part
of the human condition because it is shaped by the standard of living we have
the ability to pay for. In reality, most people live a quiet and normal life,
which is a situation that includes vicissitudes spanning the gamut from scoring
mild successes to suffering moderate pains … as we can see when the available
information is distributed on a Bell Curve.
The readers who are familiar with that curve also know that
it has two extremes, one of which will be filled by the downtrodden of society
who cannot get out of their difficulties no matter what they try. The other
will be filled by those who were born with a silver spoon in the mouth or were
lucky enough to hit the good times, thus have everything done for them just for
the asking.
Despite all that, a thorough investigation of the human
condition will show that personal satisfaction correlates poorly with the
standard of living we may enjoy because other factors enter into the equation.
They too help to determine by how much we accept or reject our status and the
perks that come with it. One of the factors is the sense of achievement that we
feel when we do things in a field that we like, and do them as well as anyone,
or do them better than everyone. We also like to be recognized by our peers for
that achievement.
This brings us to the social and political realms where the
ego can get inflated and become the biggest factor in the equation. The people
who operate in these fields – such as journalism, government or the performing
arts – usually have little to worry about when it comes to the provenance of
their daily bread and the other necessities of life ... it is that they get
paid well. This leaves their ego as the only chip they can put on the table to
gamble with and possibly inflate it further, or risk it all and possibly
puncture the ego that will then crash like a stone.
An example of what happens when the ego is punctured is
shown by the article that came under the title: “ISIS 's
latest slaughter puts the lie to Obama's happy talk,” written by Ralph Peters
and published on January 12, 2016 in the New York Post. It is important to
recall that Peters had been – up to now – one of the most extreme hardliners
from among the pundits that tackled Middle Eastern subjects.
He may not have uttered an expression like “glass them,”
which is what someone recommended doing to Lebanon; he may not have uttered
“make the sand glow” which is what someone promised he would do in Syria; and
he may not have blurted “bomb them into the Stone Age,” which is what someone
fantasized he'll be allowed to do in Iraq – but every time that Ralph Peters
opened his mouth, you could not miss the reality that his responses were
visceral and intense. His ego was so bubbled up, you would think that Paul von
Hindenburg had come to life, and worked on him.
Look at him now as reality has set-in, and he was made to
see that his views had been at variance with what history had in stores for the
subjects he used to tackle with such confidence, but turned out to be so
inaccurate. Here is what comes at the start of his current article: “Islamist
fanatics have proven to be inspired, innovative, resilient and committed to
their purpose. And in at least one sphere, we're losing big.” This is something
he would have considered heresy to utter only a few months ago.
But something has changed him, and so he goes on to say:
“[they] made our world smaller and narrower, crippling travel and destroying
tourism in countries that depend on it for revenue … 'tourist-cleansing' is
becoming one of their most effective techniques of state subversion … it's not
only hurting Muslim populations … Paris attacks made potential visitors think
twice … tourists are the softest of soft targets.”
So the question: Why are the terrorists succeeding so
brilliantly? Ralph Peters answers the question this way: “our Islamist foes
have developed a genius for making war on the cheap … We continue to
underestimate the creativity of our enemies.” He then makes the mistake that
everyone is making these days. To understand what that is, we need a bit of a
background.
When the Nazis started to exterminate the Jews, they had the
“Final Solution” in mind. It meant the complete eradication of everyone calling
himself or herself a Jew. This kind of talk resulted in the use of the term
“existential” when describing an act that aims to vanquish a group of any kind.
The trouble is that the term became popular among the pundits who use it to
describe every dire situation whether or not it involves the mass termination
of life. They say existential threat when existence is not threatened.
And this is what our author has done. Here is what he says:
“Obama's ploy has been to downplay the danger, insisting that we shouldn't
over-react to terrorism – which his underlings dismiss as 'not an existential
threat.'”
And that's the truth because ISIS does not have the
wherewithal to obliterate America .
Not even a military superpower like Russia can do that.