If this makes me sound as though I am skeptical of patriotism (except where it avoids the jingoistic), that’s because I am. There are, it can be said, ‘just wars,’ and occasions when the use of violence to defend one’s self or others might be warranted, but to say that the world has lost all sense of proportion with regard to such a perspective is an understatement. Very likely there has never been a time when we abided by it. The story of the murder of Abel, at the hands of his brother, Cain, apart from what it might mean theologically, and for the individual soul, speaks to our collective inability to know peace, and to our willingness to make war for the ugliest of motives.