quote · Legacy record
The truly terrible thing about the war spirit, about the fear and hate hysteria it generates, is that it forces us to think and talk and feel in terms of abstractions—those "communists" this time, those "fascists" last time. But those we are fighting and killing are people—men, women and children—not political, geographic or economic abstractions. They are, in the main, as decent and fearful and confused as we are. And they regard us as abstractions as much as we do them.
The truly terrible thing about the war spirit, about the fear and hate hysteria it generates, is that it forces us to think and talk and feel in terms of abstractions—those "communists" this time, those "fascists" last time. But those we are fighting and killing are people—men, women and children—not political, geographic or economic abstractions. They are, in the main, as decent and fearful and confused as we are. And they regard us as abstractions as much as we do them.
Approximate author period: c. 1951 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Sydney J. Harris
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1951 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Sydney J. Harris: life dates 1917 to 1986. Wikidata Q7659994, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7659994 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 246068; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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