Talking past one another

In an excellent online treatise by the venerable monk Ajahn Sujato he writes:

I am reminded of a memorable sequence in the documentary ‘The Fog of War’. Robert McNamara, the US Secretary for Defence during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, reminisces about a social dinner he organized in the early 90s with his opposite number during the Vietnam War (whose name I forget). As the dinner went on, the discussion became more and more heated. McNamara was trying to convey the point that the Americans were only interested in stopping the progress of communism. The Vietnamese gentleman insisted that the Americans wanted to colonize Vietnam. McNamara denied this point-blank, alleging that Vietnam was the next domino allowing Chinese communism to take over Asia. The Vietnamese representative thought this was ridiculous: they had been colonized for over 1000 years by the Chinese, and Chinese domination was the last thing they wanted. As the conversation went on, it became more and more clear that the two sides were fighting two quite different wars. The Americans were fighting a global ideological war, the Vietnamese were fighting a local war for national independence. The real problem was neither communism nor colonialism, but the inability to listen to each other.

I felt that this story spoke volumes about the ego and self-centeredness of the mind. I cannot really add anything more so I will just leave it at that.

Namo Shakyamuni Buddha


4 Comments on “Talking past one another”

  1. Stephen says:

    “The Fog of War” was an excelllent documentary in so many ways. If you haven’t seen it I strongly reccomend it, there are so many lessons to be learned from it, and it is the tale of a man, and man.

  2. Doug says:

    Yeah I am pretty curios to see that documentary now after seeing the excerpt. Especially since I studied about Vietnam extensively in college.

  3. Stephen says:

    I found his refections on the second world war to be equally interesting. I believe at one point he states something along the lines of “If we hadn’t won the war we would have all been hung for war-crimes”. It was a chilling moment for me.

  4. Doug says:

    Ooh, that is interesting. Maybe true, maybe not. Kind of chilling for me too.


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