moralising?

there's an episode in 'Blackadder Goes Forth' where Captain Blackadder, Captain Darling and General Melchett are discussing a security leak:

CD: Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies-

GM: filthy hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!

CD: and fortunately, one of our spies-

GM: splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!

CD: -has discovered that the leak is coming from the field hospital.

this is by no means one of the funniest dialogues in the series (or the episode, for that matter). But it makes a very keen observation about people ie. our willingness to suspend moral judgements for people who're 'on our side' while rushing to condemn the perceived failings of those who're not.

we all understand intuitively the unfairness of such double standards, but most if not all of us are guilty of such unreasoned behaviour. There's always some group whom we unthinkingly brand as evil/inferior/immoral, even when in reality we're little different. There seems to exist an urge to differentiate 'us' from 'them', and to deprecate 'them'. In its strongest form, it's called discrimination or racism.

some of the problems that humanity continues to grapple with today are at least partly the legacy of this particular human failing. Take, for example, the conflicts in the Mideast, with some of their roots stretching all the way back to the Holocaust and before, and the current crisis in the Darfur region in the Sudan, which the UN terms 'the greatest humanitarian crisis the world is facing today'.

I'm not breaking much new ground here; we all know that racism is BAD. The more important question is: what about less extreme behaviour, these double standards? Are their effects as pernicious?

there's much less certainty about the answer here. The best I can come up with is that it's most harmful when we allow them to slip into our lives unnoticed. It's one thing to crack jokes, far more deleterious to have a mindset that's guided by these jokes.

and so, my point on this slow sunday is ulimately this: the world would be a better place if we all try to treat everyone equally. Do let everyone have the right to be a filthy weasel.