Everybody else.

Editor,

It seems to me that extremists of all sorts, as Dr. Khan says with respect to Western youth joining ISIS, feel disillusioned and thwarted in their aspiration to accomplish something important by the shallow measure of what is considered success in the cultural milieu in which they find themselves. Individuals who don't think about much beyond being affluent and entertained are undoubtedly mystified by someone else's desire to make the world a better place.

I personally am mystified by how anyone believes killing people improves the world, but soldiering is regarded in the USA as one of life's highest callings, so I guess people on the other side feel the same way.

Numbers come out routinely about how a handful of people own as much wealth as tens of millions of others, and of course this hoarding results in misery for many and the cornering of political power that might otherwise be used to solve big environmental and social problems. So it isn't hard to understand why someone might feel alienated. Actually, I find it hard to understand how complacent many people are as long as their own financial bases are covered.

The killing is what I don't understand. On any side. Ours or theirs. Humanity is capable of so much more, and this has been proven, epitomized for me by the polio vaccine, for which Jonas Salk didn't seek a patent. I guess there are people who give themselves to greed and others who give themselves to violence. And there is everybody else.

Re: "This Is What Happens When Modernity Fails All of Us" (12/6/2015)