Today geeks know what is a
trojan horse, but they don’t know what a trojan
horse has been thirty centuries ago. They don’t care about Homer and the ancient stories he told. The trojan horse is probably a legend with some links with the real facts related to a war between the city of Troy and the greeks. The horse of Troy is an exemple of the many citations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey that are common in our day by day speech.
Beware of greeks bearing gifts is a consequence of the actual horse episode and is another expression very common to us. The
siren’s fatal song and the robe of Penelope are other common citations to everyday situations in which we remember a story of three thousand years ago. It’s amazing that in so long period of time and in a world completely changed, the same ideas remain alive. When greeks imagined the horse gift to be insinuated into the trojan fortress they are used the same trick crackers use to get inside someone’s bank account to steel money.
Ethics may consider greeks smart, for in war all tricks are admissible, but crackers are for sure public enemies and criminals. This is the same dilemma of killing as a civilian or as a military in a war. If you kill someone in a fight you may get a death penalty, nonetheless if you kill hundreds in a war, you are a hero. Of course this is not crazy and this is not a proof that
moral does not exist. The trojan horse is told as a heroic deed because we know it from the greek point of view, given by Homer, if we hear the other side of the story it would be a tale of treachery. Moreover, the strategy of pretending to be friendly to take advantage is a common behavior in nature and is not a privilege of human proceedings. Between several species, deceiving is a normal way to prey a victim and inside our very bodies we may find several species of bacteria that are friendly to a certain point. If our immune system weakens, they attack our organs and can kill us.
So, it is obvious that the fair play is something we find only in very special human activities, like sports and other controlled contests. And even in this special and supervised situations cheating is rife. In war, despite Geneve Convention, there are no limits when it comes to destroy the enemy. In observing nature and understanding the genetics involved in living creatures is reasonable to state that dealing with relatives or with our own people demands the respect to moral principles that we may forget when making war to a foreign country or when defending our family from a criminal attack. In short, acting this way is to be egotistic, for the good of our relatives and our compatriots is our own, in some circumstances. People don’t act this way in a conscious manner but instincts take control in these issues. To the consciousness are left only the discourse to justify the action taken. In some episodes of human history we see monstrosities committed by a nation one considered built over moral grounds. Germany is purging its sins with bravery, although its repent is not going to erase from the history pages what happened during world war II. When in concentration camps, millions were killed, people of Germany were leading a normal life, and many were aware of the massacre. Surprised by the carnage we may ask how such a horrible plan could be put in action by a civilized society with remarkable renown in philosophy, science and arts. First of all, common people in advanced societies are not so cult as one may expect. The majority are well trained for certain activities and are able to read and write, but are not capable of making deep analysis about the political trends. Above all, if people are enjoying a better life and have motives to be proud of their nation achievements, the rest is not so important. If jews, political adversaries and other abnormal people are persecuted and stripped of their wealth for benefit of the majority, there’s nothing to complain about. Those kind of different breed of people are perceived not as human as the majority and killing them is a little bit more than kill cattle to feed the population. The steps to make
jews and other not aryans to appear infrahuman take sometime and one of the main arguments is that they are evil people and prone to be parasites.
As scapegoat, jews were perfect, they were wealthy, so envied and hated, and being wealthy they have properties to be confiscated. And the
nazi did it with the usual german efficiency, even the gold teeth were taken from the jewish mouths in benefit of the reich and its chosen people. This kind of atrocity, that occurred in Europe not so long ago, is not a past drama, for in many places this kind of tragedy is still happening, as we may see in Sudan now, and sometime
ago in Kosovo. Europe may have learned that peace is desirable above national glories and that humankind is the same everywhere.
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