Being different

Malcolm Gladwell discussed the Branch Davidians, the followers of David Korsh, residents of Mt. Carmel, Texas, in an article in the New Yorker (Sacred and Profane, New Yorker March 31 p.22 ff). The Branch Davidians were attacked by a vast force, tanks, heavy arms, gas cannisters, and in the end 73 people, including women and children, were killed. The Branch Davidians believed that the end of the world, as prophesied in the Bible, and in particular,the Book of Revelations, and especially in the difficult passages concerning the Seven Seals. Such faith and such devotion to study, long periods at a time, was quite beyond the comprehension of the FBI agents who came to arrest David Koresh and clear the compound. When negotiating with the members of the Branch Davidians the FBI agents were talking about one thing and the faithful were talking about something quite different. There was no common ground, no possible way of understanding each other. 

Malcolm Gladwell draws parallels between the Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century and the followers of Koresh. The Mormons were also vilified, hounded and perceived as different, and they themselves saw themselves as different from the rest of Americans. And the story of Jews is glaringly similar. No matter how tolerant a society sees itself, tolerance goes only so far. If you make an attempt to assimilate, be like the majority, you may be allowed to join a golf club, but if you persist in being different, forget about golf, you are on the outside looking in.