Dear Friends,
It seems to me, just as those who consider themselves to be the only sane person on the planet, are insane, those that consider themselves to be the only enlightened people on the planet, are truly unenlightened. These two groups of people have many attributes in common. They both have the hubris to believe they presume to know better than everybody else, they feel they must take matters into their own hands, often resorting to violence and both deny the human right of self determination. The threat both groups represent is that they feel they have a moral imperative to do what they believe they must do. In the case of the insane, they sometimes go into theaters and shoot up the place, in the case of the unenlightened, they overthrow governments and install tyrannies. The one threatens only a few while the other threaten all of mankind.
Throughout history we have faced those who presumed they had a duty to protect us from ourselves. They have taken many forms, the dreaded inquisitor of the Dark Ages, the despot, the revolutionary and the eugenicist are but a few. They have all done their part to keep churn in the affairs of Mankind. The common thread is the hubris to believe they know better than everyone else. The rest of us, who have not been enlightened, must be controlled for our own good… else we might think wrongly, worship wrongly, have wrong government, warm the planet, or breed wrongly. They deny self determination, are materialists, and know better than all the rest of humanity… because they believe they do.
Another common thread is that the insane and the presumptuous are amoral. They don’t feel compelled by human mores and traditions. They are psychopaths and sociopaths. Why should they allow others to do as they please when the hubristic and the insane know better? If you or I say something they disagree with, they appoint themselves to shut down our free speech, if you or I want to do something they don’t like, they outlaw that action, if you or I have property they want, they are greedy enough to take that property by force.
The violence the insane and the self righteous visit on humanity takes many forms. It can be as mundane as censoring the opinions of others to chopping off the head of an infidel with a scimitar. Those who believe themselves to be enlightened are the quickest to resort to violence… especially when they claim to be nonviolent. As history has shown, those that seek revolution disdain violence by others and so call themselves nonviolent, but are happy to use violence to further their own agenda. Only people who eschew violence themselves can reasonably be called nonviolent. Those that willingly and happily use violence themselves, but decry it in others, are dangerously delusional hypocrites.
One way to instantly tell the insane and presumptuous from the average person, is that their proscriptions are always for the rest of mankind… never themselves. They seek to shut down the free speech of others, but freak out if their free speech is impeded, they seize control of the language to forward their goals, they call for shared sacrifice, while they live in luxury, their own life is precious, but the lives of others are valueless, the list is endless but is tied together with a common bow, they don’t lead by example, they lead by the nose. They do unto others that which they would never want done unto themselves.
Neither of these groups in human society can be eliminated. They are as human as the need to eat and sleep. Moreover we do ourselves a disservice by trying to eliminate the hubristic and the insane. To do so makes us just as guilty of self appointed grandeur as them. As I have pointed out in past blogs… the ends does NOT justify the means, the means TAINTS the ends.
The answer to the question of, “how to keep society from succumbing to the self appointed gods and lunatics,” is to recognize them when we see them, then deny them the power they seek over us and our fellows. When we ignore their censoring the thoughts and words of others, we participate in their shutting off debate, when we agree with the rantings of sociopaths, we empower them, and most of all, when we react out of fear, we are giving legitimacy to violence as a means to control society. To stop the next Pol Pot or Adam Lanza, we must understand that they don’t act alone, they have help. Pol Pot had the help of brainwashed children and Adam Lanza had the help of everyone who turned a blind eye to his insanity. We must grow ourselves, recognizing them, standing against violence and we must refuse to be taken in by a charismatic sociopath, but most of all, we must lead by example. Else we become the sponsors of our own oppression.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
