I couldn't help thinking how well Cain had prospered after killing his brother: he founded the first city--and, although we don't like to talk about it all that much, we are all his children.
Philip Gourevitch
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In "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families," Philip Gourevitch reflects on the story of Cain and Abel to highlight the complexity of human morality and the legacy of violence. He suggests that despite the tragic consequences of Cain's actions, he thrived afterwards by establishing the first city. This observation prompts contemplation about how society often overlooks the darker aspects of its origins.

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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
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Philip Gourevitch
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Other quotes in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

The spectre of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual - always an annoyance to totality - ceases to exist.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
The spectre of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual - always an annoyance to totality - ceases to exist.
The genocide had been tolerated by the so-called international community, but I was told that the UN regarded the corpse-eating dogs as a health problem.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
The genocide had been tolerated by the so-called international community, but I was told that the UN regarded the corpse-eating dogs as a health problem.
The pygmy in Gikongoro said that humanity is part of nature and that we must go against nature to get along and have peace. But mass violence, too, must be organized; it does not occur aimlessly. Even mobs and riots have a design, and great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind that new order may be criminal and objectively very stupid, it must also be compellingly simple and at the same time absolute. The ideology of genocide is all of those things, and in Rwanda it went by the bald name of Hutu Power.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
The pygmy in Gikongoro said that humanity is part of nature and that we must go against nature to get along and have peace. But mass violence, too, must be organized; it does not occur aimlessly. Even mobs and riots have a design, and great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind that new order may be criminal and objectively very stupid, it must also be compellingly simple and at the same time absolute. The ideology of genocide is all of those things, and in Rwanda it went by the bald name of Hutu Power.
I often found it helpful to think of central Africa in the mid-1990s as comparable to late medieval Europe - plagued by serial wars of tribe and religion, corrupt despots, predatory elites and a superstitious peasantry, festering with disease, stagnating in poverty, laden with promise.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
I often found it helpful to think of central Africa in the mid-1990s as comparable to late medieval Europe - plagued by serial wars of tribe and religion, corrupt despots, predatory elites and a superstitious peasantry, festering with disease, stagnating in poverty, laden with promise.
Because of all this mixing, ethnographers and historians have lately come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot properly be called distinct ethnic groups. Still
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Because of all this mixing, ethnographers and historians have lately come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot properly be called distinct ethnic groups. Still
Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that people be invested in the leaders' scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end, it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of the chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing ans indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that people be invested in the leaders' scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end, it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of the chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing ans indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history.
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Other quotes in human origins

I couldn't help thinking how well Cain had prospered after killing his brother: he founded the first city--and, although we don't like to talk about it all that much, we are all his children.
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
I couldn't help thinking how well Cain had prospered after killing his brother: he founded the first city--and, although we don't like to talk about it all that much, we are all his children.
More »

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