If fear really is the mother of violence, then what is the mother of fear? After a little deliberation I concluded that fear comes from ignorance and crisis or peril.

Ignorance, of course, comes from apathy, and crisis comes from foolishness and indiscretion. But foolishness and indiscretion don't always result in crisis. Sometimes you just get plain misfortune. And when you combine misfortune with pity you get charity.

So...that would make violence the second cousin of charity once removed and the grand-nephew of misfortune.

Is that right?

I'm not sure that you can assume this is always true.

Most of the world's population is ignorant simply because it does not have access to the means of obtaining information and learning.

Richard English

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Originally posted by LadyBeth:

So...that would make violence the second cousin of charity once removed and the grand-nephew of misfortune.

Is that right?

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Probably. And sadly these days also a close friend of patriotism.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

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Originally posted by LadyBeth:
If fear really is the mother of violence, then what is the mother of fear? After a little deliberation I concluded that fear comes from ignorance and crisis or peril.

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Maybe. But then again maybe not.

Another theory, somewhat cynical on the surface, is that Life is the mother of Fear. The father would be Arms. (Stick with me here. I'm going to try to get this to make sense.)

There are certain biological laws within the English language that are similar to those humans live with everyday. When two words mate, half of each parent's chromosomes (letters) are passed on to the offspring. Therefore liFE and ARms are the mother and father of Fear. (Actually Army could be the father; Life was notoriously promiscuous back in the day!)

I got this information from Fear's brother Liar so you may need to take it with a grain of salt roughly the size of Gibralter.

[This message was edited by C J Strolin on Thu Jan 9th, 2003 at 9:10.]