The Confucians paid a great deal attention to ritual, highlighting the ones that expressed the sorts of affective attitudes one wants to cultivate, engaging in them with keen awareness of their value for shaping and reshaping the self, and insisting on the need to be emotionally present to their significance for one's relationship to others. If we Americans want to rebuild our capacities for a shared life, we would do well to pay attention to all this.

And, well, that's my story," I said. "I'm sorry that it's so, you know. Retarded.

The demonization of Islam and immigrants shows that perception of difference remains one of our biggest problems, and maybe always will be for a species that began in small groups competing with other groups for resources. These apparently competing forces for sameness and difference sometimes even seem to be mutually reinforcing. The homogenizing force of globalization tends to make many people feel they are on the losing side, economically and culturally, and it is they who are most easily turned against those "others" who are demonized by demagogues.

War is about remaking the world to suit the whims of some powerful group over the whims of some other powerful group. The dead are just the sparks that fly from the metal as they grind it down.

Children die every day because millions of us tell ourselves that caring is just as good as doing.

The English language needs a word for that feeling you get when you badly need help, but there is no one you can call because you're not popular enough to have friends, not rich enough to have employees, and not powerful enough to have lackeys. It is a very distinct cocktail of impotence, loneliness and a sudden stark assessment of your non-worth to society? Enturdment?

She sat one of the fluffy cats in my lap and stuffed the other down my shirt. She turned and left. 'There,' said the large man. 'The kittens will make your sad go away.