Plus ce la change....

Philalethes (in comments, over at Eschaton), proves to me what I've always known: that I simply don't read enough. This is from Leo Tolstoy's story, "Resurrection."

Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time - Christians, humanitarians or simply good-hearted people - into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth....It all comes down to the fact that men think there are circumstances when they may treat their fellow beings without love, but no such circumstances ever exist."

It puts me in mind of Ursula LeGuin's story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," which in turn was inspired by a reflection of Dostoevsky's on the logical outcome of accepting utilitarianism as the logical basis for society (I'll come back to that later, if need be). There is a zeitgeist in these matters, that men of the same nationality contemplate the same questions.

And we see, again, that the French are right: the more things change, they more they remain the same.