Orders can be benign or malign, but the habit of obeying them can become ingrained.
Theodore DalrympleThe idea that man is a tabula rasa, or Mao's sheet of blank paper upon which the most beautiful characters can be written, is an old one with disastrous implications. I do not think though that the cults you mention could survive honest thought about human nature.
Theodore DalrympleThe need always to lie and always to avoid the truth stripped everyone of what Custine called 'the two greatest gifts of God-the soul and the speech which communicates it.' People became hypocritical, cunning, mistrustful, cynical, silent, cruel, and indifferent to the fate of others as a result of the destruction of their own souls.
Theodore DalrympleThere is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.
Theodore Dalrymple