If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.
John BrunnerRead
Extremism. It is an almost infallible sign — a kind of death-rattle — when a human institution is forced by its members into stressing those and only those factors which are identificatory, at the expense of others which it necessarily shares with competing institutions because human beings belong to all of them.
Interpretation
Extremism in institutions tends to highlight divisive traits, neglecting shared humanity.
This quote by John Brunner highlights the danger of extremism within human institutions, suggesting that when members of these institutions focus solely on what differentiates them from others, they risk disregarding the commonalities that unite all human beings. This obsession with identification at the expense of understanding and cooperation fosters division and can mark the decline of healthy discourse and relationships among groups.
In practice
During a community forum on tolerance, someone could use this quote to emphasize the need for understanding amidst differences.
If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.
Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their faces, by something in their faces.
The message of psychedelics is that culture can be re-engineered as a set of emotional and spiritual values rather than products. This is terrifying news.
The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of thingsstop being a glass. Become a lake.
It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it.
If you don't see God in the next person you meet, look no further.
In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void.
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