But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than
any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise
a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or
"reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as
everyone else.
Is it the kind of desperation one observes in, say, Christian apologists
or evangelicals? That they need love and reason to exist? Since they
aren't actually attached to any grounded fixed set of concepts (as with
law), they pour more and more into enforcing compliance with the
principles (which are still moving targets) that they do have? I'm not
sure this is the worst flaw in anarchist or pacifist visions of society,
but it is a vulnerability.
Marcus
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