Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.
- MAD, adj.
- Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.
If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome?
Duty... honor... morality... all constructs of convenience, when put to proof.
Ask any creature of this star or those above for answers, and they will tell you what suits their fancy.
And they would be right to do so. What meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone.
A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.