Sophisticated, Nuanced Europeans Won't Play Pansyball Soccer With J-E-W-S

Eh. Par for the course.

I'm a big fan of The Spanish Prisoner, and I never tire of finding situations to which this quote seems to apply:

“I think you’ll find if what you’ve done is as valuable as you say it is -- if they are indebted to you morally, but not legally -- my experience is they will give you nothing. [Pause] And they will begin to act cruelly toward you.�

-- “Why?�

“To suppress their guilt.�

-- Jimmy Dell to Joe Ross, "The Spanish Prisoner"

A weird thing. Many European nations either killed or allowed to be killed 6 million Jews, and yet they act cruelly towards them to this day. What else can explain it but the refusual to honor a moral obligation by making the obligee the villain, thus discharging the debt via a bit of moral jui-jitsu?

Related: More sophisticated Europeans beat the hell out of cops at a stupid soccer game.

Funny how when Europeans are comparing themselves to their barbaric American brothers, they always have in mind the elite-school media class and not the hoi polloi.

posted by Ace at 06:22 PM

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