The never-ending sacrifice and 1984

[ZappaDanMan]

I'm about 100 pages into this book, I have to say, The Cardassians have to be the most oppressive race of all the major powers I've read so far. I thought the Romulans were bad, but damn... It's like someone from Section 31 gave the Cardies, George Orwell's '1984' from the Federation library and said "Do you think you could make this work?" ... "I don't know, but i'll give it the old college try".

The moment of similarities stood out for me, is when Rugal was in class debating an answer on his test (where there will be only one answer), about how Bajor benefited from the occupation. His classmates think it's a test of how to diplomatically engage such a preposterous position (who would be stupid enough to have such a position, after all the real truth is in the textbook), as a horrified teacher looks on. Then going home to find a fearful father waits silently in a chair, alongside man from 'the office of public order' (obsidian order). After questioning his motives in class (as it could be seen as an act of sedition, as seen on the video recording of the class), he placates the officer and then leaves. Then his father tells him to be quite as he checks the chair he was sitting on for more microphone bugs.

You wonder how they could gain any economic prosperity under such a system, sounds an awful lot like North Korea.

Great stuff though, really enjoying the book so far.

 

[JoeP]

Man, I miss Christopher Hitchens.

 

[ZappaDanMan]

Don't we all, its been like 2 years now I think

 

[JoeP]

It'll be 4 in December. That's crazy.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The moment of similarities stood out for me, is when Rugal was in class debating an answer on his test (where there will be only one answer), about how Bajor benefited from the occupation. His classmates think it's a test of how to diplomatically engage such a preposterous position (who would be stupid enough to have such a position, after all the real truth is in the textbook), as a horrified teacher looks on. Then going home to find a fearful father waits silently in a chair, alongside man from 'the office of public order' (obsidian order). After questioning his motives in class (as it could be seen as an act of sedition, as seen on the video recording of the class), he placates the officer and then leaves. Then his father tells him to be quite as he checks the chair he was sitting on for more microphone bugs.

Incredulity that one could even consider disagreeing with an obvious position and its underlying assumptions? Perhaps even gentle laughter that such a divergent perspective could even exist? Pressure both subtle and overtly aggressive aimed at ensuring that you acquiesce to the consensus? Questioning of motives as the goalposts are continually moved to ensure that you are always on the defensive? The implicit reminder that you have no place in which to challenge the social narrative, which will be rewritten on a whim to keep the culture as it exists intact? The constant balance between reasonable tone/comfortable veneer of good intentions and something very nasty? The patient smiles concealing the warning? The reminders, overt or otherwise, that if you want people to like you (and social animal that you are, on some level you do), you will be good? The need to placate and grant concessions and prostrate in order to retain societal status?

Visit a campus or a classroom in a modern university setting.

The only 1984esque parts are the microphones and the fact that the government will have you disappeared - that is, that the societal patterns on display have reached an extreme where the vilified and discarded are not shunned or driven out but brutalized and likely killed. Where the state is not only serving the ideologues' purposes when called upon, it is now full-on running the show.

Where there exists a structured and deliberately maintained societal narrative, where ideology is in place and actively seeking influence, where there exists a defining sphere of thought underlying a social space, the truly independent thinker swiftly finds himself in a very precarious position. He has no real means of power, no direct influence on the social narrative, and if he strays from that narrative to any great extent, he’s in trouble. He spends his life engaged in a balancing act, caught between appeasing the group and speaking his mind. The threat of disapproval and being out of step with the group is a terror to the social animal. It paralyzes, at least among the vast majority who are not lone wolves with very thick emotional skins.

Someone like Rugal might fail to learn the lesson - he might allow his frustration and anger to get the better of him, in which case he failed to heed his fair warnings and can be vilified and dismissed entirely (in this scenario, the extreme scenario with a police state, disappeared), but it's hoped instead that rather than getting riled up and eventually denouncing the system, the lies, or the fact of what the society is doing to him, the very fact that he can’t make his thoughts compatible with the social narrative will begin to break him down. To survive socially, he has to sell out. To keep himself receiving the approval of his fellows -- which is nearly as important as food and water to a human, or a Cardassian, make no mistake -- he has to accept the lie, outwardly at least. Even on the level of simply agreeing not to dispute it openly. When the Big Unquestioned Lie - and truly effective propaganda needs one - that black is white, say, is spoken, the person knows that the force of social disapproval will be upon them if they point out that it’s the very opposite of true or rational.

The person’s own conscience therefore starts doing the work for you in breaking them down. It’s not the case that the difference between white and black is some particularly huge thing in their life, of course. It's not, most of the time and for most people, something they’re unable to hold their tongue on, something that they must protest. Very few are so invested. They’ll not stand passionately to defend it. But every time black or white are considered in open conversation, in any societal environment, one has to swallow their knowledge of the truth, or their distinct perspective on the issue; they have to hide from it. And every time, they’ll feel a little guilt about doing so. Some measure of their self-esteem begins to fail, eaten away by guilt and self-disgust. That’s the true point; it's not about convincing anyone, anymore than the point of torture is to make someone reveal information. The point of torture, of course, is intimidation and psychological restructuring, to break you down and make you pliable and malleable, to distort the narrative of your life and make it impossible to apply to your situation. This sort of social propaganda, this ideological stranglehold, is the same. It's intended to leave you off balance; to destroy your capacity to function as a social agent. It’s to make that little worm of guilt take up home inside of you and start growing. You’re bargaining with the lie, you’re negotiating with evil, and that makes you, in some small way, evil as well. You are complicit. Unless you want to lose all societal status - either by provoking the stick waiting in the rear or, in the more common "government isn't going to disappear you" scenarios, by being seen as the sort of lunatic who freaks out over trivial matters like white and black - you must allow some manner of assimilation to proceed. After all, no-one likes the bore who aggressively goes on and on about something, do they?

"What's that guy's problem? Weirdo who has some irrational obsession with black and white and keeps going on about them".

Maybe that will lead to conversion in the end. Sometimes, of course, torture does bring one information, though it’s a notoriously unreliable method. Likewise, sometimes that sense of complicity leads down the slope to full participation in the narrative, but again that’s not the point of it. The point is to leave you impotent. They don’t need to control you when you’re slowly destroying yourself through guilt and frustration.

The only difference between Rugal and someone like you or I is that in the latter case the state doesn't care enough to involve itself, to apply its monopoly on force in blanket and directly invested defence of the groupthink.

 

[Idran]

The moment of similarities stood out for me, is when Rugal was in class debating an answer on his test (where there will be only one answer), about how Bajor benefited from the occupation. His classmates think it's a test of how to diplomatically engage such a preposterous position (who would be stupid enough to have such a position, after all the real truth is in the textbook), as a horrified teacher looks on. Then going home to find a fearful father waits silently in a chair, alongside man from 'the office of public order' (obsidian order). After questioning his motives in class (as it could be seen as an act of sedition, as seen on the video recording of the class), he placates the officer and then leaves. Then his father tells him to be quite as he checks the chair he was sitting on for more microphone bugs.

Incredulity that one could even consider disagreeing with an obvious position and its underlying assumptions? Perhaps even gentle laughter that such a divergent perspective could even exist? Pressure both subtle and overtly aggressive aimed at ensuring that you acquiesce to the consensus? Questioning of motives as the goalposts are continually moved to ensure that you are always on the defensive? The implicit reminder that you have no place in which to challenge the social narrative, which will be rewritten on a whim to keep the culture as it exists intact? The constant balance between reasonable tone/comfortable veneer of good intentions and something very nasty? The patient smiles concealing the warning? The reminders, overt or otherwise, that if you want people to like you (and social animal that you are, on some level you do), you will be good? The need to placate and grant concessions and prostrate in order to retain societal status?

Visit a campus or a classroom in a modern university setting.

Either you had an awful and non-representative time in college, or I had a great and non-representative time in college.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The moment of similarities stood out for me, is when Rugal was in class debating an answer on his test (where there will be only one answer), about how Bajor benefited from the occupation. His classmates think it's a test of how to diplomatically engage such a preposterous position (who would be stupid enough to have such a position, after all the real truth is in the textbook), as a horrified teacher looks on. Then going home to find a fearful father waits silently in a chair, alongside man from 'the office of public order' (obsidian order). After questioning his motives in class (as it could be seen as an act of sedition, as seen on the video recording of the class), he placates the officer and then leaves. Then his father tells him to be quite as he checks the chair he was sitting on for more microphone bugs.

Incredulity that one could even consider disagreeing with an obvious position and its underlying assumptions? Perhaps even gentle laughter that such a divergent perspective could even exist? Pressure both subtle and overtly aggressive aimed at ensuring that you acquiesce to the consensus? Questioning of motives as the goalposts are continually moved to ensure that you are always on the defensive? The implicit reminder that you have no place in which to challenge the social narrative, which will be rewritten on a whim to keep the culture as it exists intact? The constant balance between reasonable tone/comfortable veneer of good intentions and something very nasty? The patient smiles concealing the warning? The reminders, overt or otherwise, that if you want people to like you (and social animal that you are, on some level you do), you will be good? The need to placate and grant concessions and prostrate in order to retain societal status?

Visit a campus or a classroom in a modern university setting.

Either you had an awful and non-representative time in college, or I had a great and non-representative time in college.

Okay, blown out of proportion a little, admittedly. But a very real problem all the same. It depends where you go, of course, what you study and where. Some will attract more of it than others. Accounts might also be exaggerated. But universities - again, certain specific institutions in particular - are where you create the next generation of people who directly influence law, public media, education, politics, etc.. Firmly entrenching an ideology in the universities, and so within the minds of the blocs who have actual influence in later life, is an essential move in establishing an effectual power base. This is pretty basic, and like most such social manoeuvring it doesn't require conscious planning so much as being an instinctual organic outgrowth of millions of years of evolution as a social species. More to the point, there's really nothing that Rugal experienced that you couldn't face - apart from the fact that the state is not the driving force behind it, and so the state's monopoly on force can't be brought to bear on you. Which many would say makes all the difference, I'm sure.

To address your half-jocular comment there, my own university experience wasn't anything particularly negative, not unpleasant at all actually, though it still resulted in my "bowing to the company, and turning my back on them". More a clear sense of insularity arrayed against newcomers then any actual aggression. You're invited to sit at their table with genuine welcome, but it's unquestionably their table. There are other forums of life where the experience has been stronger, speaking personally. There are circles and there are accepted approaches and there are received truths that people have a lot riding on, in terms of security both psychological and political.

To address directly the OP's point: It depends on how the scene resonates with a reader, I assume. Some will see the choking apparatus of the Cardassian state, and some will see the social situation as plays out in more general terms.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

1984's pretty much always been an influence on the portrayal of the Cardassians, ever since Gul Madred lit up four lights behind him and told Picard there were five back in Chain of Command.

 

[Stevil2001]

The moment of similarities stood out for me, is when Rugal was in class debating an answer on his test (where there will be only one answer), about how Bajor benefited from the occupation. His classmates think it's a test of how to diplomatically engage such a preposterous position (who would be stupid enough to have such a position, after all the real truth is in the textbook), as a horrified teacher looks on. Then going home to find a fearful father waits silently in a chair, alongside man from 'the office of public order' (obsidian order). After questioning his motives in class (as it could be seen as an act of sedition, as seen on the video recording of the class), he placates the officer and then leaves. Then his father tells him to be quite as he checks the chair he was sitting on for more microphone bugs.

Incredulity that one could even consider disagreeing with an obvious position and its underlying assumptions? Perhaps even gentle laughter that such a divergent perspective could even exist? Pressure both subtle and overtly aggressive aimed at ensuring that you acquiesce to the consensus? Questioning of motives as the goalposts are continually moved to ensure that you are always on the defensive? The implicit reminder that you have no place in which to challenge the social narrative, which will be rewritten on a whim to keep the culture as it exists intact? The constant balance between reasonable tone/comfortable veneer of good intentions and something very nasty? The patient smiles concealing the warning? The reminders, overt or otherwise, that if you want people to like you (and social animal that you are, on some level you do), you will be good? The need to placate and grant concessions and prostrate in order to retain societal status?

Visit a campus or a classroom in a modern university setting.

The only 1984esque parts are the microphones and the fact that the government will have you disappeared - that is, that the societal patterns on display have reached an extreme where the vilified and discarded are not shunned or driven out but brutalized and likely killed. Where the state is not only serving the ideologues' purposes when called upon, it is now full-on running the show.

Where there exists a structured and deliberately maintained societal narrative, where ideology is in place and actively seeking influence, where there exists a defining sphere of thought underlying a social space, the truly independent thinker swiftly finds himself in a very precarious position. He has no real means of power, no direct influence on the social narrative, and if he strays from that narrative to any great extent, he’s in trouble. He spends his life engaged in a balancing act, caught between appeasing the group and speaking his mind. The threat of disapproval and being out of step with the group is a terror to the social animal. It paralyzes, at least among the vast majority who are not lone wolves with very thick emotional skins.

Someone like Rugal might fail to learn the lesson - he might allow his frustration and anger to get the better of him, in which case he failed to heed his fair warnings and can be vilified and dismissed entirely (in this scenario, the extreme scenario with a police state, disappeared), but it's hoped instead that rather than getting riled up and eventually denouncing the system, the lies, or the fact of what the society is doing to him, the very fact that he can’t make his thoughts compatible with the social narrative will begin to break him down. To survive socially, he has to sell out. To keep himself receiving the approval of his fellows -- which is nearly as important as food and water to a human, or a Cardassian, make no mistake -- he has to accept the lie, outwardly at least. Even on the level of simply agreeing not to dispute it openly. When the Big Unquestioned Lie - and truly effective propaganda needs one - that black is white, say, is spoken, the person knows that the force of social disapproval will be upon them if they point out that it’s the very opposite of true or rational.

The person’s own conscience therefore starts doing the work for you in breaking them down. It’s not the case that the difference between white and black is some particularly huge thing in their life, of course. It's not, most of the time and for most people, something they’re unable to hold their tongue on, something that they must protest. Very few are so invested. They’ll not stand passionately to defend it. But every time black or white are considered in open conversation, in any societal environment, one has to swallow their knowledge of the truth, or their distinct perspective on the issue; they have to hide from it. And every time, they’ll feel a little guilt about doing so. Some measure of their self-esteem begins to fail, eaten away by guilt and self-disgust. That’s the true point; it's not about convincing anyone, anymore than the point of torture is to make someone reveal information. The point of torture, of course, is intimidation and psychological restructuring, to break you down and make you pliable and malleable, to distort the narrative of your life and make it impossible to apply to your situation. This sort of social propaganda, this ideological stranglehold, is the same. It's intended to leave you off balance; to destroy your capacity to function as a social agent. It’s to make that little worm of guilt take up home inside of you and start growing. You’re bargaining with the lie, you’re negotiating with evil, and that makes you, in some small way, evil as well. You are complicit. Unless you want to lose all societal status - either by provoking the stick waiting in the rear or, in the more common "government isn't going to disappear you" scenarios, by being seen as the sort of lunatic who freaks out over trivial matters like white and black - you must allow some manner of assimilation to proceed. After all, no-one likes the bore who aggressively goes on and on about something, do they?

"What's that guy's problem? Weirdo who has some irrational obsession with black and white and keeps going on about them".

Maybe that will lead to conversion in the end. Sometimes, of course, torture does bring one information, though it’s a notoriously unreliable method. Likewise, sometimes that sense of complicity leads down the slope to full participation in the narrative, but again that’s not the point of it. The point is to leave you impotent. They don’t need to control you when you’re slowly destroying yourself through guilt and frustration.

The only difference between Rugal and someone like you or I is that in the latter case the state doesn't care enough to involve itself, to apply its monopoly on force in blanket and directly invested defence of the groupthink.

Holy cow, dude. I teach college and have done so for seven years now and do not recognize what you are talking about. American universities are not remotely comparable to dystopian surveillance states.

But then, I'm just a proponent of the Big Unquestioned Lie.

 

[Dukhat]

All I have to say is that this was one of the best Trek novels I've read in awhile. I highly recommend it.

 

[Jarvisimo]

I guess Nasat makes certain points that are true of micro- and macro-cultures at large: be they religious, educational, political, sporting or game-based, familial, societal, etc. There are ideologies, systems of rules and moral regimes at play in every sector of society. And yes, to challenge certain ideas in certain contexts do result in soft or harsh reprimands. It's what makes dystopian fiction so good sometimes, it can be so barely different from its actual contemporary society - or it can be vastly different.

Rugal's situation - visited by a social monitor figure, be it a counsellor or another kind of local authority figure - could be comparable to a secondary school child 20 years ago in the UK proclaiming themselves transgender and actively pursuing it; nowadays it would be for a schoolchild attacking another for this proclamation. At either point in time, the teenager would receive some kind of reprimand and an attempt to change their world view. It's social and ideological change, although I am, as a person of this generation, glad of this change (and shaped by it). I'm very glad we support the transgender person to the full extent possible nowadays - as long as we don't criminalize the latter, but aim to constructively widen their worldview! Does that make sense?

 

[Sci]

While Orwell's vision of a state with an overwhelming surveillance system certainly influenced the depiction of Cardassia, I think that Cardassian society has important differences from Nineteen Eighty-Four's Oceania. In particular, Orwell's depiction of Oceanian society is as a totalitarian regime under the control of a single political party (the English Socialist Party, or IngSoc Party, which came to power espousing seemingly egalitarian rhetoric, one is led to suppose) that has sought to freeze the process of historical development so as to prevent effective class conflict, with even the most "well-to-do" class kept in a state of near-destitution in pursuit of loyalty to the state ideology. Cardassian society, on the other hand, has clear class distinctions and economic inequalities, as well as obvious class conflicts. There are multiple well-developed dissident movements -- from the dissidents of the political class, who seize power after the fall of the Obsidian Order in 2372 only to turn out just as corrupt and anti-democratic as the Central Command; to the radical underground that Rugal aligns himself with when he leaves Pa'Daar's estate; to the reactionary True Way. And, of course, the Cardassian state itself is not under the control of any one political faction, but rather is characterized by conflict between the Detapa Council, the Central Command, and the Obsidian Order. Notably, there is no single dictator of the Cardassian Union a la Big Brother.

Personally, I find Cardassian society reminds me more of imperial Britain or Russia than Oceania.

 

[E-DUB]

I once heard someone say that in the US, we have the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court.

And in the Soviet Union, they had the Party, the Army, and the KGB. I never made the connection with Cardassia until reading your post just now, Sci.

The methodology of the police state is pretty much the same whether its underpinnings are leftist, rightist, theocratic, cult of personality, or some combination of the above.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

[Holy cow, dude. I teach college and have done so for seven years now and do not recognize what you are talking about. American universities are not remotely comparable to dystopian surveillance states.

Well, no. Like I said, in the case of higher education there's no state apparatus directly invested in what's being taught. It's a far more open environment, with rules and pressures applied from within and beneath rather than imposed top-down. Indeed, there's a form of competitiveness that wouldn't be tolerated in a police state, actual or analogous. Various ideologies and powers can jostle for space, and have to appeal to the people running things when they clash with one another. But any social institution is a target and a host for the political even if wasn't established to serve a political purpose (and the university system was, at that).

But the scene in the book doesn't really play out between Rugal and an "authority" at all. The scene is really about Rugal's interactions with his classmates. The teacher does little but stand there tense and terrified, because unlike the cheery students he fully understands what's at risk here, for him as much as anyone. There's your 1984 situation - this character is living 1984, knowing that he's monitored at all times and that dissident or politically incorrect speech is going to get people - him perhaps especially - in trouble with the government, trouble of the "off to a labour camp" variety. Rugal's schoolmates aren't tense or afraid. They're not the state, nor are they really aware of the world in which they live. This isn't 1984 to them, this is just school. They're simply people who have an acceptance and understanding of how the world works, and no experience to say otherwise. Why would they doubt what they "know" - what "everybody knows" - about, say, Bajor? When someone picks up the textbook and announces "lies, lies, lies!", what is their reaction going to be? Bemusement.

Rugal's experience is different from theirs, because he's from Bajor, and is (as he would insist) Bajoran. Without trying to be, the other students are a sheltered, insular circle. They're good-natured and not at all menacing. But Rugal's experience, which informs his approach and his perspective - and his tolerance or lack thereof for the standard narrative - has the unfortunate effect of challenging conventional acceptance. And they have no context for it, because they're constantly edged away from any perspective like it, they're sheltered from what's going on in the other circles of Union society, and when they hear of Bajoran sympathisers at all it's "those people who support terrorist insurgents that kill good Cardassian soldiers". Not that they'd think Rugal is that, just that he's rather misguided.

And it's not like the other students dislike Rugal - they're very patient with him, actually. They no doubt think he's a bit funny (oh, Rugal, off on one again), and possibly mildly annoying in his pointlessly aggressive contrariness - and they think he's simply wrong, of course, and that he needs - ironically - to learn more about how things work - but they're not living in a 1984 mindset. The teacher is, most definitely, but the students aren't. Except Rugal.

Even absent dystopian police states, there is the natural tendency to form shared "understandings" of how the world works, and somewhere in the backdrop are people who for various political or ideological reasons - as a natural outgrowth of group dynamics - are happy to encourage it, and steer it, or to normalise certain assumptions and memes about how things apparently work. It seems to me that people like to deny this, which is itself a mild example of the propaganda and manoeuvring we're talking about here. Things just happen, apparently, and the idea that people might have an agenda somewhere is derided and almost desperately mocked, when really you don't need to gather in shadowy silhouettes around a dark table grinning knowing malicious grins in order to be manipulative. Being manipulative is as natural as breathing to some social animals. Millions of years of evolution gift many people with a instinctual understanding of what they need to do to increase their security and social pull.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I guess Nasat makes certain points that are true of micro- and macro-cultures at large: be they religious, educational, political, sporting or game-based, familial, societal, etc. There are ideologies, systems of rules and moral regimes at play in every sector of society. And yes, to challenge certain ideas in certain contexts do result in soft or harsh reprimands. It's what makes dystopian fiction so good sometimes, it can be so barely different from its actual contemporary society - or it can be vastly different.

Indeed. Well said, Jarvisimo. Cardassia is a fascinating and (to me) provocative society, and there's a lot more to its function (and dysfunction) than the 1984esque extremes - like I said, Rugal's classroom scene actually keeps that part of the dynamic to the edge of what's transpiring, in my opinion. Obviously and undeniably there, of course, but the state doesn't need to intrude, either in-story or in how it's depicted, when normal social interaction does much of the work for them. They only need to make a low-key appearance at the end, in Rugal's home. To a large degree, Cardassia can run itself. And in reality, we already live in 1984, only absent the dystopian police state, if that makes sense.

I would say that those who think 1984 is relevant only in terms of its depiction of a dystopian police state are like those who think To Kill A Mockingbird is about race.

Rugal's situation - visited by a social monitor figure, be it a counsellor or another kind of local authority figure - could be comparable to a secondary school child 20 years ago in the UK proclaiming themselves transgender and actively pursuing it; nowadays it would be for a schoolchild attacking another for this proclamation. At either point in time, the teenager would receive some kind of reprimand and an attempt to change their world view.

I often say that many of the people who loudly and zealously attack homophobia today would, 50 years ago, have been the exact same people loudly and zealously attacking homosexuality. A lot of people seem sceptical of this, but I stand by it.

 

[Idran]

I often say that many of the people who loudly and zealously attack homophobia today would, 50 years ago, have been the exact same people loudly and zealously attacking homosexuality. A lot of people seem sceptical of this, but I stand by it.

Define "the exact same people". Because if this is nothing more than "people are shaped by their experiences" in a provocative form, then, well...duh. But I wouldn't call them the same people except in a vague biological sense that isn't really relevant; if two people have completely divergent sets of experiences then I don't see how there's any reasonable sense that you can call them "the same people". And if you're saying that given exactly the same set of experiences they would proceed to do so, then that's just ridiculous, as people hold their opinions based on prior experience and merely being dumped into a new context alone wouldn't be enough to flip those opinions once they're formed, or it'd be much easier to change people's minds.

(And I don't mean this to quibble over semantics, but because I literally have no idea what you mean by "the people that do X now would be the exact same people that would have done Y then".)

 

[Deranged Nasat]

What I mean is that the motive in terms of social dynamics and psychological needs met is the same in both incidents. It's the exact same behaviour. A desire to both strengthen the group and to gain personal status relative to others within it through moralizing attacks on those judged as legitimate targets for aggression due to their subversion of accepted moral norms. One boosts one's own status and wins points through loud displays of intolerance toward those judged dangerous to the integrity of the group. Who those dangerous people are might change over time, as what is considered "good" for society changes and moral positions switch as new or altered ethical assumptions come into play. What is on the flag doesn't matter to many people, what matters is that there is a flag, and they can wave it. Or, at least, if it does matter what's on the flag it's because it - whatever it is - is their flag. It's the equivalent of loyalty to the institution or the position and not to whichever individual is currently leading or holding it. Those given to making condemnations based in a justification of defence of moral standards will do so. Once you might have thrown rocks to drive away an imposing stranger with a different skin colour, because this person is not kin and is a potential threat to the society of which you are part. More recently, you would aggressively denounce a racist who expressed mistrust or violent intent toward another due to their skin colour, because racist attitudes are a threat to the society of which you are part.

 

[Idran]

Then it seems like part of the reason people might be skeptical is because of the "exact same people" part, as though if you took a fervent believer of one thing and dropped them into a new environment they'd be guaranteed to be a fervent believer of something entirely different in that environment. Yes, every generation and every movement and every concept will have fervent believers, but the way you phrased it implies that there's some biological factor that causes one person to be fervent about some belief (whatever that may be) and one person to not be fervent about any belief.

That is, if you took a group of 10,000 random people today, and you somehow caused those people to be raised from birth in a different context or a different era, you wouldn't see that the people that held fervent beliefs in the first case would necessarily be the same people that held fervent beliefs in the second case.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Then it seems like part of the reason people might be skeptical is because of the "exact same people" part, as though if you took a fervent believer of one thing and dropped them into a new environment they'd be guaranteed to be a fervent believer of something entirely different in that environment.

Then I apologise for what was evidently unclear expression (it is definitely a problem of mine).

If you took a fervent believer and dropped them into a new environment, they'd likely double-down and become even more of a believer. When the psyche is challenged by new information, it raises its shields and clutches tighter to its content.

My comment, poorly phrased as it likely was, can really boil down to "ethical belief systems and perspectives are clothing over the body of social instinct; people are best understood in terms of what they are doing, not what they are saying about why they're doing it".

Which isn't to say, of course, that from a subjective ethical perspective certain behaviours aren't "different" when exhibited in different ways. As Surak says: "Even surgery is violence, but violence harnessed to the cause of healing. If one can wage war, how much more logical is it to wage peace?"

 

[Doom Shepherd]

implies that there's some biological factor that causes one person to be fervent about some belief (whatever that may be) and one person to not be fervent about any belief.

There might be. "The God Gene," anyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene