In the logical mind, it might seem rational to disguise behaviors that we’re ashamed of. Human beings often avoid ideas that challenge assumptions that they accept as true but are prejudiced in reality… When it comes to social ills, it makes people “determined to put their hands over their eyes so as not to be disturbed from an artificial peace. — Natalie Meade , an editorial staffer at The New Yorker
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51