Reply #18: I think the audience is intended to identify with the victim, and

[metapunditedgy]

the Samaritan, a foreigner, is neighbor to the victim. You might say that it's somewhat evasive (foreigners should treat ME well, rather than the other way around). Or you might say that it's deliberately switching things around to be a more powerful story. If I help someone, then I could be motivated by all sorts of things, but if someone helps me when I'm in need, then I will naturally feel gratitude toward them.

So anyway, I think it's (among other things) a story about learning to do *unrequited* good to others across ethnic boundaries. And I was struck by how strongly such statements contrast with the attitude expressed by Cheney to throw people in Gitmo because they're the kind of people that might be terrorists. And then I got interested in the idea of how ethnocentrism shows up in modern Christianity....