hate; pandemic threats

[Ken Kinman]

Les,
    No need to yield so quickly to a bad analogy.  Nazis as a clade with
characteristic synapomorphies (autapomorphies?) doesn't make much sense to
me.  After all, hate is learned, not inherited.
     Perhaps it would be more instructive to view Nazism as a case of
"horizontal transfer" of aggressive and hateful ideas.  Adding fear and
force into the mix, Hitler transformed these ideas into an aggressive and
hateful war.  Even today such viral-like vectors of hate continue to infect
susceptible individuals.  It's so reticulate that it is very difficult to
predict where it will strike next, especially in the United States (Oklahoma
City, Littleton...).  Thank goodness we learned some lessons from the
horrors of World War II, and we are now better able to contain outbreaks of
hate.
    Quite frankly, I'm far more worried about environmental and biological
threats, which are more insidious.  And perhaps we are too slow at
relearning one of the lessons the First World War should have taught us
(namely, the pandemic influenza of 1918).  Not as visible as Neo-Nazis, but
perhaps real viruses are potentially far more threatening in today's crowded
world.
                      -------Ken Kinman
********************************************************
>From: Les Kaufman <lesk at BIO.BU.EDU>
>Reply-To: Les Kaufman <lesk at BIO.BU.EDU>
>To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>Subject: Re: what birds and people share
>Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 20:12:46 -0500
>
>Okay, I yield the horrifying thing about Nazis is that they are in fact the
>sister group to us all.
>
>Les Kaufman
>Boston University Marine Program
>lesk at bio.bu.edu

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