Civilisation

We are what our past made us.

Does the intellectual magnificence of the French Revolution and the concept Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,which, in the France of the 1789 - 1790, was so off the scale that it laid an imprint on French mentality ever since. Does the 'insularity' of the English and their ability for 'compromise', define every Englishman.

 

Does the Holocaust define the Israeli, and their arrogance  and brutality towards the Arab, mimic the arrogance and brutality meted out to the inmates of 'the camps'.

Are we all caught up in a 'time warp' looking back over our shoulder for relevance and guidance.

It's dangerous to take too much succour from the past but of course it's equally dangerous to ignore it since so much of our emotional make up was formed then. When the guide lines were clear and we hadn't developed such a hatred for "national identity", wishing  instead for a multicultural, multinational definition to unify the members of the human race.
It seems that the Middle East is proving us wrong. From the start of the 'Arab Spring' and the loosening of the Dictatorial ties, in preference for democracy  there has been the mother of a disagreement between a myriad local factions who have little or no understanding of the term "collective" which is fundamental to anything with the prefix "multi" attached.
We seem to have descended back into that primordial soup where savagery was the rule and civilised modes of thinking hadn't been invented.
I suppose the answer is in the term 'invented'. Perhaps civilisation is just a construct of diplomacy, a ruse to deceive the masses that those in power have our interests at heart when in reality, power is far too strong an instinct to let go of easily.