Billy Tauzin: Nationalism

http://bigthink.com

We can't seem to shake our tribal loyalties.

We're still a human race infected by tribalism -- I mean we really are -- and infused with incredible religious differences and confrontations that have plagued us ever since any of us began recording history, I guess, and continue to plague us. I'm deeply concerned about . . . about how those elements of human history still expressed in national sovereignties and . . . and religious wars, and religious confrontations, and as we see it expressed today in this Islamic jihad with the west . . . how those were gonna turn out. I mean if we're not careful, all of the predictions of Nostradamus are gonna become real. We're gonna blow this planet apart at some point if we don't get past that. And that's a difficult thing to get past. I mean we are born of tribes. We're still connected to them. We still believe we're different because we look different than one another. And we let our religious beliefs get in the way of our common sense sometimes in the way we deal with one another. We don't talk to one another. We confront one another across the planet. We don't . . . we don't . . . We're not as tolerant of our difference as we should be. We're not as understanding of our different cultures as we should be. It's a planet rich in differences that should enrich us all instead of divides us. And that would be okay except that more and more countries are now beginning to possess the capabilities of really disrupting our progress on earth, and disrupting the advance of knowledge in human kind. And that's gotta trouble ya.Recorded on: 9/11/07

We're still a human race infected by tribalism -- I mean we really are -- and infused with incredible religious differences and confrontations that have plagued us ever since any of us began recording history, I guess, and continue to plague us. I'm deeply concerned about . . . about how those elements of human history still expressed in national sovereignties and . . . and religious wars, and religious confrontations, and as we see it expressed today in this Islamic jihad with the west . . . how those were gonna turn out. I mean if we're not careful, all of the predictions of Nostradamus are gonna become real. We're gonna blow this planet apart at some point if we don't get past that. And that's a difficult thing to get past. I mean we are born of tribes. We're still connected to them. We still believe we're different because we look different than one another. And we let our religious beliefs get in the way of our common sense sometimes in the way we deal with one another. We don't talk to one another. We confront one another across the planet. We don't . . . we don't . . . We're not as tolerant of our difference as we should be. We're not as understanding of our different cultures as we should be. It's a planet rich in differences that should enrich us all instead of divides us. And that would be okay except that more and more countries are now beginning to possess the capabilities of really disrupting our progress on earth, and disrupting the advance of knowledge in human kind. And that's gotta trouble ya.Recorded on: 9/11/07