Aesop, (620-564 BC), gave us the story of the 'The Eagle and the Arrow, in which the eagle was shot with an arrow equipped with his own feathers. The bird sadly lamented: "It is a double grief".
Many people behave exactly like the eagle. They are self-destruction prone, an innate tendency deeply rooted as feathers.
Newsweek cover, Dec. 4, 1978, illustrated a horrible scene: around 900 dead bodies. In that year, Rev. Jim Jones the leader of Peoples Temple, a cult, summoned his followers for the last communion. He said, 'Everyone has o die…' They walked to the poison vat and drank a full cup, 900, including babies!
We are familiar with infamous ideologies: Fascism, Communism, and Maoism. But there is a new reinvented ideology that has so far destroyed the lives of millions of people.
The followers of the revived ideology have the characteristics of antisocial criminals: failure to conform to social norms, deceitfulness, impulsiveness or failure to plan, irritability, aggressiveness, reckless disregard for safety, consistent irresponsibility, lack of remorse…
Unfortunately, the catastrophe is so deep that it cannot be dealt with a short passage like this. Perhaps, an isolated snap shot can provide a glimpse of the tragedy:
In most societies, people can have an innocent chat with the opposite sex over a cup of coffee. One feels safe when a policeman is patrolling outside, hired to serve and protect the citizens.
Now, imagine that you and your classmate decide to take two female relatives for a ride, not going to the coffee shop! The girls sitting in back are modestly dressed; no talking, no smiling, no giggling, no laughing, no touching...
All of a sudden a policeman, hiding behind a tree trunk emerges and signals to pull over. Your heart sinks, because you know the consequence. He brazenly approaches the car window, examines all faces, particularly the girls. Before he begins his formula, you step out of the car and very humbly drag him away to a safe hearing distance for the girls.
Based on told and retold stories, you need to resort to most detestable ingratiation, giving him false ranks and false social status. The criminal-turned policeman is either totally illiterate or an elementary school drop-out, but he take the gesture as a preliminary approach to the central objective. You might be his first victim of the day.
Now he opens his mouth, 'You all need to be taken to the 'crime and felonies compound'. You have violated the divine code of righteous behavior. Your car will be confiscated and passengers detained until the judge issues his verdict…'
What you do is fantastic. You offer to compensate in cash. He gives the price tag: the equivalent of $100 for each passenger, in local currency.' You pay and drive off the car. However, from that point on you are going to have a repeated nightmare of guilt, remorse, degradation for sometime until you a recover: that's the way it goes.
