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NoME Part Three: Chapter 7: Session 850, May 2, 1979 2/38 (5%) idealists idealism kill shalt Thou
– The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events
– © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
– Part Three: People Who Are Frightened of Themselves
– Chapter 7: The Good, the Bad, and the Catastrophic. Jonestown, Harrisburg, and When Is an Idealist a Fanatic?
– Session 850, May 2, 1979 9:49 P.M. Wednesday

[... 27 paragraphs ...]

You are a fanatic if you consider (underlined) possible killing for the pursuit of your ideal. For example, your ideal may be — for ideals differ — the production of endless energy for the uses of mankind, and you may believe so fervently in that ideal — this added convenience to life — that you considered the hypothetical possibility of that convenience being achieved at the risk of losing some lives along the way. That is fanaticism.

(10:53.) It means that you are not willing to take the actual steps in physical reality to achieve the ideal, but that you believe that the end justifies the means: “Certainly some lives may be lost along the way, but overall, mankind will benefit.” That is the usual argument. The sacredness of life cannot be sacrificed for life’s convenience, or the quality of life itself will suffer. In the same manner, say, the ideal is to protect human life, and in the pursuit of that ideal you give generations of various animals deadly diseases, and sacrifice their lives.3 Your justification may be that people have souls and animals do not, or that the quality of life is less in the animals, but regardless of those arguments this is fanaticism — and the quality of human life itself suffers as a result, for those who sacrifice any kind of life along the way lose some respect for all life, human life included. The ends do not justify the means (all very emphatically).

[... 8 paragraphs ...]

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