Why we kill and why THEY kill

Here's what Glenn Greenwald has to say about the way we characterize the motives of Americans who kill others versus others who kill Americans:

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivated U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales to allegedly kill 16 Afghans, including 9 children: he was drunk, he was experiencing financial stress, he was passed over for a promotion, he had a traumatic brain injury, he had marital problems, he suffered from the stresses of four tours of duty, he “saw his buddy’s leg blown off the day before the massacre,” etc. Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivates Muslims to kill Americans: they are primitive, fanatically religious, hateful Terrorists.
Although Greenwald doesn't analyze it in such terms, this is the classic ingroup-outgroup effect. For ingroup members, we make excuses. For members of outgroups, we pour on the venom. Most Americans are repulsed by the idea that we would actually try to understand the "terrorists'" actions by trying the see the world through their eyes. What is that viewpoint? Greenwald offers some ideas:
[T]hey’re responding to American violence in their country; they are traumatized and angry at the continuous deaths of Muslim children and innocent adults; they’ve calculated that striking at Americans is the only way to deter further American aggression in their part of the world.

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Make sure your children experience failure

Tom Hoerr is the is head of school at the New City School in St. Louis (a school both of my daughters have attended). In an article titled, "Got Grit?" at the website of Educational Leadership, Tom reminds us that it is critically important for children to experience failure:

As important as scholastic preparation is (and it is important), it is only part of what students need to succeed in life. Howard Gardner's personal intelligences, Daniel Goleman's emotional intelligence, and Carol Dweck's mindsets all reflect the fact that our attitudes are even more important than our skills . . . As educators, part of our job is to ensure that every child finds success, and an important part of finding success is knowing how to respond to failure. As soccer star Mia Hamm said, "Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it." People who have not learned to respond well to frustration and failure are likely to choose paths without much risk or challenge and thus destine themselves to a life of predictability, safety, and mediocrity.
I've also been impress with the writings of Gardner, Goleman and Dweck, and I've commented on each of them at this site.

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Susan Cain discusses the challenges and advantages of being an introvert

Susan Cain is an introvert in a world dominated by extroverts who insist that introverts should act like extroverts. She recently wrote a book titled, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I took special interest in Cain's talk because I am an off-the-charts introvert. The world constantly dominated by extroverts is a great loss, Cain asserts, because introverts, who avoid great amounts of stimulation, often "feel their most alive, their most switched on and their most capable when they are in quieter, more low key, environments. Unfortunately, our most important institutions (schools and work places) "are designed for extroverts, and extroverts' need for lots of stimulation." Society has a prejudice that creativity comes from gregarious gatherings. Schools and workplaces typically assemble students and workers into groups and ask them to work "together," even in activities such as writing. Kids that seek to work alone are seen as outliers and problems. Most teachers think of extroverts as superior students even though research shows that "introverts get better grades and are more knowledgeable." Introverts are often passed over for leadership positions, even though they tend to be careful and avoid unnecessary risks. Research shows that introverted leaders tend to let proactive workers run with their ideas, whereas extroverted leaders tend to interfere with the process (min 6:45). At min 8:00, Cain suggests that "ambiverts" probably have the best of both worlds.

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Distorted memories make rational people act crazy

The way we remember the past determines how we understand the present and how we will act in the future. Consider this example: How do you remember 9/11? Many people remember 9/11 something like this: A group of people who are representative of ALL Muslims, who were part of a worldwide conspiratorial network of Muslims, hated that Americans have freedoms, so they began an endless violent onslaught against America in order to completely destroy America. For people who remember 9/11 like this, all of the following are “logical”: A) immensely wasteful Manichean American war-mongering worldwide, B) giving law enforcement the green light to deprive citizens of fundamental liberties, C) intense groupishness, leading to unabashed bigotry aimed at Muslims and other non-Christians and D) Doing everything possible (even at the expense of ignoring America’s decaying infrastructure) to attempt to protect Americans from violent Muslims, who could be lurking around every corner. [More . . . ]

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