but looking back at it now and with a much clearer head , i understand their scam on me to have been perpetrated less as a consequence of their warped xenophobic ideologies , but more conceivably as a result of their own opportunistic instincts , for surely , in spite of their purportedly high-minded moral principles , they were just as inclined as any adaptive organismjust as inclined as a spider evento fall in line with those treacherous mechanisms for self-preservation .