#appeasing the collective to survive and living the lie as a form of self-preservation

[inthegardenpraying]

But no; that’s not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. | Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. | Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble—and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. | Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. | That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. | That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations. | Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. | How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? | Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago. | Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (pp. 173-174)

#the truth #ideology leaves no room for reason #justifying evil deeds #appeasing the collective to survive and living the lie as a form of self-preservation #tyranny feeds on lies #justification is to convince ones own conscience that what he is doing is right when it is wrong #hitler did this when he justified anti-semitism in Mein Kampf #tyranny's fall when the truth comes out and the collective experience the domino effect #the truth will set you free #equal opportunity is better for society #judgement is permanent condemnation where second chances come from redemption #a person who fully believes that their way is the way or no way is an ideologue and have made up their minds #abandon ideology #jordan peterson #rule 7 #12 rules for life: an antidote to chaos