{"id":4195,"date":"2012-09-17T00:11:56","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T04:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=4195"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:17","slug":"we-are-all-klingons-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2012\/09\/we-are-all-klingons-now\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are All Klingons Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Worf<\/a> was a character on the 1990’s television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”\u00a0 Lt. Commander Worf was the chief security officer on the USS Enterprise, his role crafted to explore and exploit conflicts between the Federation (obstensibly the good guys) and the warrior-centric Klingon Empire, Worf’s home world.<\/p>\n

Klingon culture was based on honor and combat.\u00a0 In the series, mortal combat was often fought in defense of one’s (Klingon) honor.\u00a0 Battles to the death ensued.\u00a0 Unlike other Federation officers, Worf killed a fair number of civilians during the series; however, because Worf was a member of the Federation (obstensibly the good guys), each of his killings was explained away as a defense of his Klingon honor or his right of revenge.<\/p>\n

There are many ways to hurt people.\u00a0 We should distinguish the pathways to hurt from the weapons that are employed.\u00a0 One can aim to hurt physically, mentally, or both paths at the same time.\u00a0 Physical weapons include hands, guns, chemicals, drugs and sleep deprivation.\u00a0 Mental weapons include verbal abuse, blackmail and fear of torture.\u00a0 Economic and political weapons such as oppression and disenfranchisement deliver damage along both pathways.\u00a0 Weapons are designed to hurt.\u00a0 That’s why people use them.<\/p>\n

That said, there is a decided difference between physical and mental weapons.\u00a0 A physical weapon has much the same effect on any of its victims.\u00a0 A knife in my gut causes the same damage as one in yours — our prospects for survival depend less on our anatomies than on the speed and effectiveness of our respective medical teams.\u00a0 Mental weapons, however, have varied effects on individuals — the most effective of these weapons exploit a specific vulnerability of the target individual or group.<\/p>\n

An insult is one type of mental weapon.\u00a0 Like other mental weapons, a particular insult can hurt one person and have absolutely no effect on another.\u00a0 One of the strange things about\u00a0 human groups is that they announce to their adversaries, in advance, what they consider to be insulting.\u00a0 This is tantamount to exposing one’s vulnerabilities so as to invite attack, so as to provide justification for one’s own retaliation and restoration of honor.\u00a0 The line in the sand is drawn, its only purpose: to serve as the uncrossable line.<\/p>\n

Humans often use insults as proxies for physical weapons in wars that are fought in words, as words are cheap and physical weapons are not.\u00a0 This is not to say that words are used more effectively than guns or missiles.\u00a0 Words also miss their target; words also explode and create collateral damage; words escalate as often as they intimidate.<\/p>\n

Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans were killed last week — supposedly because of an insult; more probably because terrorists were ready to exploit a chaotic situation.\u00a0 The uncrossable line in the sand had already been drawn and it was inevitable that someone would cross it.<\/p>\n

Animals do not kill other animals for honor or revenge — only humans do.\u00a0 Only the human animal recognizes insult and responds to it with self-justified physical, often deadly, force against the offender.<\/p>\n

You must admit: we are all Klingons now.\u00a0 The notion of honor poisons all of our cultures. Maintaining honor requires that one respond to insults to one’s honor; but the logical answer is to dispense with honor and thus the need to defend it.\u00a0 That we are subject to insult shows nothing except how fragile we are.<\/p>\n

The wise show restraint.\u00a0 The civil do not kill.\u00a0 The strong are not insulted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worf was a character on the 1990’s television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”\u00a0 Lt. Commander Worf was the chief security officer on the USS Enterprise, his role crafted to explore and exploit conflicts between the Federation (obstensibly the good … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28377,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/28377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}