Every man with a bit of self awareness sees himself as a devil. You step lightly through the world because, imagined or not, the feeling that you are powerful is at your core. This idea that is central to our being shapes us. Makes us monsters but perhaps not monstrous. Capable of horrible consequences as we stomp through the world.
It’s one of the reasons I support equality for women. For purely selfish reasons. I don’t want the actions of the moment to have disastrous consequences. If women are culturally equals then the force of a man’s word can be diminished. I want an equilibrium.
The general idea is for women to be, culturally, as powerful as men. My hope is a lowering of men’s cultural significance as women’s cultural significance rises. To have the other is to see two tyrants fighting for control. Long term it’s a recipe for disaster.
The use of loaded terms is dangerous. Not in that it will let “them” know you are fighting but that it sets up a scenario in which you feel justified in categorizing a group of people as Other.
When a person ceases to be an individual and are seen as a cog in a machine it becomes an act of simple justification to destroy them in pursuit of lofty goals. Do not allow yourself to be lulled to sleep by the usage of such terms.
Any group that labels then demonizes another is carrying out an agenda, generally one that does not care who it grinds underfoot. Revolutions are tricky things. Just remember that the ones that fight and have the ideals are rarely the ones that shape the future if revolution is successful.
It is either a cult of personality that usurps the victory for its own ends, not really a concern here as there is not currently one focal point for which such a thing to form. Or it is those that come after that have only the rhetoric and fervor but few ideals. This is the one to be avoided as it causes the most lasting harm and the scenario most likely if we give in to the desire for quick fixes.
Stable cultural norms are crafted down generations. And now as we enter the last several generations of a long trend the tendency is to rush it forward; doing so will cause more destruction than it prevents. Warning given and done.
Pelgris 