From: kharin (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 09:41:47 MDT
" It just occured to me that someone may compile a list for the death toll of atheism, equality, democracy and several other ideals. Still, I believe that all these are just excuses."
I did review a list of atrocities in the twentieth century a while back. It was arranged by numbers of victims and by state and/or ideology. The death toll was quite evenly spread, from which the author drew the conclusion that the will to violence was effectively universal and existed irrespective of ideology. That said, all of the worst states remained characterised by some form of utopian idealism (whether religious or something like communism) whose claims to improving the human lot were typically so great that mere humans could not be permitted to stand in its way. The point of this is that 'atheism, equality, democracy' do seem to me to remain difficult to slot into the category; they arguably point to the collapse of utopian absolutes, not their construction.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26173>
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