Religion
In reply to the discussion: How religion can drive someone to slaughter his fellow citizens – and believe they deserve it [View all]Igel
(35,356 posts)Years ago I stopped telling people they really didn't know what they believe. I did that for a while--not the "false consciousness" ideological BS where I think X is good for them, they think Y, and I dehumanize and disenfranchise them by saying I know what's really (supposed to be) in their brains.
At the same time I concluded that real, virulent evil doesn't come along and say, I want to do bad things. Real evil comes along and says, "I want to do only good things," and then enumerates bad things. Convinced it's good, convinced it wants good, narcissistically self-promoting, it convinces people it wants to do good things and so the things it wants are good. Evil is banal for the most part, it's venal--it wasnt to destroy this,kill that, hurt this other things; sow a bit of distrust, backbite. But real evil says, "You're all justified in doing this thing, this good thing, because you've been hurt and wronged. It's justice, it's mercy, it's a good thing to do this."
As soon as something that wants to do bad things while calling them good is accepted as good by people, you're in for a world of hurt.
FMG has people doing what they think is good. GULags were good. Re-education centers are good. Psychologically scarring children can be "good." Sowing hatred and contempt between groups is "good," there's a cause saying it's good (even if you can't quite work out the connection, you're told it's good so it must be).
What I like about this is the bit where the Salafists, the jihadist movement, is stated to have its own tradition. We act like there is only one Islam, and one tradition. The same nasty practices showed up in Spain, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, separated by centuries. It's because there is a tradition, written, of these things, with old fatawa that are no more or less valid now than any other at any other time.