“The Conqueror, whose core issue is safety splits us into Conqueror and Enemy/Victim, tells us, "Don't trust!" and generates fear, paranoia, distortions of reality, and the need to annihilate enemies.”

—  Starhawk

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)
Context: The Conqueror, whose core issue is safety splits us into Conqueror and Enemy/Victim, tells us, "Don't trust!" and generates fear, paranoia, distortions of reality, and the need to annihilate enemies. The Conqueror seduces us by making us feel special, sometimes grandiose and self-righteous, sometimes especially weak and victimized.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Conqueror, whose core issue is safety splits us into Conqueror and Enemy/Victim, tells us, "Don't trust!" and gener…" by Starhawk?
Starhawk photo
Starhawk59
American author, activist and Neopagan 1951

Related quotes

Chanakya photo

“The king who is situated anywhere immediately on the circumference of the conqueror's territory is termed the enemy.
The king who is likewise situated close to the enemy, but separated from the conqueror only by the enemy, is termed the friend”

Chanakya book Arthashastra

of the conqueror
Book VI, "The Source of Sovereign States"
Arthashastra

Pu Zhiqiang photo

“They claim Xinjiang belongs to China. So they shouldn't treat it like a colony. Don't be a predator and a conqueror. You treat them as your enemy.”

Pu Zhiqiang (1965) A Chinese lawyer and activist known for being a prominent member of the Weiquan movement.

On the Chinese government's policies towards Uighurs, the mainly Muslim minority living in Xinjiang in China's far west http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-31018617 (7 May 2014)

Isaac Asimov photo

“It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 22 “Death on Neotrantor”

Arundhati Roy photo

“There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“Fear is a powerful enemy, but a useful friend.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

Ch 6
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun

Sergei Biriuzov photo

“The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy.”

Sergei Biriuzov (1904–1964) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "Fallen Soviet Generals: Soviet General Officers Killed in Battle" - Page 198 - by Aleksander A. Maslov, David M. Glantz - 1998

G. K. Chesterton photo

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (16 July 1910)

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“Like the Christians and Muslims in the Turkish Empire, the Hindus and Muslims of India have met as enemies on many fields, and the result of the struggle has often brought them into the relation of conquerors and conquered.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

Camille Paglia photo

“The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Bernard Lown photo

“The imagined enemy is eventually banished from the human family and reduced to an inanimate object whose annihilation loses all moral dimension.”

Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…

A Prescription for Hope (1985)
Context: Throughout human history, when confronted with what was deemed a deadly enemy, the fixed human response has been to gather more rocks, muskets, cannons, and now nuclear bombs. While nuclear weapons have no military utility — indeed they are not weapons but instruments of genocide-this essential truth is obscured by the notion of an "evil enemy". The "myth of the other", the stereotyping and demonizing of human beings beyond recognition, is still pervasive and now exacts inordinate economic, psychologic, and moral costs. The British physicist P. M. S. Blackett anticipated this state of paranoia: "Once a nation bases its security on an absolute weapon, such as the atom bomb, it becomes psychologically necessary to believe in an absolute enemy". The imagined enemy is eventually banished from the human family and reduced to an inanimate object whose annihilation loses all moral dimension.

Related topics