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Shtovak
Current Version
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I once read a very interesting take on that, which is that many, probably most people who commit these kinds of crimes on the basis of conspiratorial beliefs aren\'t true believers in the way that we\'re all true believers in, say, our own feet. They have doubts, because who wouldn\'t about such guff?, but they want to believe, so they\'re trying to persuade themselves that they do with drastic real-world action. It\'s like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: he doesn\'t actually believe that morality is all made up and worthless and he\'s an übermensch who needn\'t pay attention to it, he just wants to. And he persuades himself that if he murders his landlady on the basis of this supposed belief, then he\'ll really believe it! He won\'t have a choice.
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I once read a very interesting take on that, which is that many, probably most people who commit these kinds of crimes on the basis of conspiratorial beliefs aren\\\'t true believers in the way that we\\\'re all true believers in, say, our own feet. They have doubts, because who wouldn\\\'t about such guff?, but they want to believe because it offers some perceived material, social, or psychological benefit, so they\\\'re trying to persuade themselves that they do with drastic real-world action. It\\\'s like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: he doesn\\\'t actually believe that morality is all made up and worthless and he\\\'s an übermensch who needn\\\'t pay attention to it, he just wants to. And he persuades himself that if he murders his landlady on the basis of this supposed belief, then he\\\'ll really believe it! He won\\\'t have a choice.
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Heinrich Himmler, reich leader of the SS, once remarked that he had 80 million Germans to work with, most of them quite willing to tell you how their was an evil Jewish conspiracy that had to be stopped, and then each of those 80 million had his one decent Jew. The others that I haven\'t met are all swine, but he\'s alright! This in the context of cultivating the psychological state necessary to have these people participate in the Holocaust. It can be quite difficult to fool yourself, but alas, we\'ve become very good at it.
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Heinrich Himmler, reich leader of the SS, once remarked that he had 80 million Germans to work with, most of them quite willing to tell you how there was an evil Jewish conspiracy that had to be stopped, and then each of those 80 million had his one decent Jew. The others [that I haven\\\'t met] are all swine, but he\\\'s alright! This in the context of cultivating the psychological state necessary to have these people participate in the Holocaust. It can be quite difficult to fool yourself, but alas, we\\\'ve become very good at it.
