We Have Met The Enemy

The Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelts is full of amazing details large and small, pleasant and unpleasant.

Last evening they showed two despicable images. The first was a photo of a lynch mob posing in front of the body of the man that they had just hanged. The mob members looked directly into the camera with a determined look of righteous, angry self assurance. 

Footage of Nazi gatherings captured a similar mood of contempt and self assured hatred. The crowds cheered Hitler's rants. (Cheered is a polite word. It sounded more like the howls of coyotes.)

This is a side of human nature that exists. To gloss over that fact would be folly. Mankind must remain forever vigilant against the mob mentality, the communal blood lust that allows itself quickly to become blind to reason and all of the better principles of civilization, the vile, animalistic compulsion to attack and criticize and harm for no logical reason. 

Indeed, we really have met the enemy, we have met the bogeyman, and that enemy lives within our own complex and self centered human natures.