Farhad Ghanbari
Most of the people caught in “destructive ideologies” have not served that ideology with thinking, science and awareness, but have completely given their power of thinking and thought and effectiveness to the ideology and have been trained in such a way that their actions and deeds are a service to the ideology. They imagine a “great ideal” and a beautiful world. In order to achieve that great ideal (superior race, classless society, utopia, etc.), the subjects imagined in these ideologies justify all their violence and imagine that on the way to achieve such a great and sublime thing. These violences and killings are not a very important issue and will be forgotten in history. For example, the SS soldiers in Nazi Germany, or the executioner in Stalin’s purges, or the soldier who was in charge of the crematoria in Auschwitz, not with the purpose of committing a terrible crime, but with the purpose of serving the “great cause” that is involved in such actions. You will take the initiative. Most of these victims were soldiers who lost their power of thinking in front of the propaganda machine of ideology and did not have the ability to distinguish between good and evil. They were the victims of a false ideology that had instilled in them that the goodness and happiness of humanity lies in a world where the Jew, the black, the individualist, the libra, the passive and perish, and this is the duty of you, the chosen ones, to save humanity. Do such actions
The crisis that human society is facing is the loss of the power of thinking and subjectivity in front of ideological devices. Many masses of people lose their power of discernment in front of the great ideals presented by ideologies and completely serve that ideology and its crimes. Today, the jihadists who follow Al-Qaeda and ISIS may be family-friendly and compassionate people in their private lives, but the ideology has ordered them to enter the pit to save humanity and achieve salvation, and that which others can do. did not finish (He even killed his own child)
Adolf Eichmann, the main agent of the Nazi concentration camp, answered the question of the court about the crime of Auschwitz, that I was an agent and I had to obey, and that these killings were not for the purpose of committing a crime, but to serve our great cause, and there was no other way than that. we didn’t have
An important issue that occurs in totalitarian systems is the loss of the power of discernment and judgment of the masses. Hannah Arendt, a prominent political thinker and the author of the book “Roots of Totalitarianism”, considers the danger of the masses without the ability to judge and think more frightening than “professionals” and writes: “A cold-blooded criminal or a calculating liar is less dangerous than those who are thoughtless.” Or they commit crimes out of ignorance, because the former at least still understands that there is a difference between truth and lies, between good and evil, while the latter does not even understand this. Arguments in defense of this rule that it is better to lie to others than to cover your head must have made it clear that a cold-blooded liar is aware of the difference between truth and lies. Therefore, the truth that he hides from others has not yet been completely pushed out of the world; This truth has found its last refuge in that person.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a famous Russian writer and a prisoner of Stalin’s gulaks, says: “It is ideology that justifies terror and allows its perpetrators to be able to cope with themselves while committing crimes.”
In totalitarian systems, ideology is an opium and drug that calms the tormented conscience of the people and presents an image that when they look at their hands and face in the mirror, instead of the image of a bloodthirsty, they see the image and face of a savior and chosen one.
This post is written by RGonouie