“ One can be deeply influenced by people to whom one is utterly hostile ”
we are here confronted with an irreducible oddity about all human societies: all are strung around figments of the human imagination.
~ Patricia Crone
It is probably safe to say that in strongly hierarchical societies the only people to whom something approaching nationalist sentiments can be attributed in pre-modern times is the ruling elite, and then only at times.
ideas generate action when they are believed regardless of whether they are true or not in our opinion
