Monday, April 6, 2009

Psychology of the Quantum Wrongness Field, Part 2 (Glen Allport)

Glen Allport on the wretched idea that the violent and corrupt state, which has murdered more people than have died in war, is necessary and even compassionate:

Some of the worst mass-murderers in history – many of them, in fact – are idols and folk heroes to millions of people, not for what the mass-murderers actually did, but for what those murderers and their supporters said about and wanted to believe about the mass-murderers. In many cases, the people idolizing the mass-murderers are strongly in favor of a more compassionate world, yet they are unable to see the truth about the particular tyrants they admire. This leads millions of otherwise compassionate people to support both tyrants and policies that cause harm, either directly or in the long term.

That is a huge problem for the world; an even more terrible and dangerous problem than it might first appear. In the next few decades, mankind will either resolve this problem (an unlikely but not impossible outcome) or quite possibly put an end to civilization or even to human life.

And yes: the problem really is that serious.

Most people have heard that power corrupts, but nearly everyone refuses to see the extent to which power destroys and kills.

Read the rest

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