[quote=FlyerInHi] Where is free will and personal responsibility? … Were Nazis manipulated? Are Islamic terrorists manipulated or are they inherently evil? Are KKK klan members manipulated, or they evil?[/quote]
Those are excellent and fascinating questions. I don’t know the answers.
Consider this:
The people at Jonestown in South America who killed themselves. The branch davidians. The manson family. Or any other cult. I believe the general consensus is that those people were brainwashed. Which is just a stronger version of manipulated. I think it’s easier for us to accept that people do terrible things due to brainwashing (or manipulation) if it’s a smaller group with a clear leader. We can see exactly what happened. Well, maybe not exactly, but we can see that these people were brainwashed by this one super-charismatic leader and that that’s why they did those things. But if you have a larger and more diffuse group of brainwashed/manipulated people- fans of con man don, islamic terrorists, nazis – with a larger and more diffuse group of manipulators – right-wing media, radical imams, the nazi party and its propagandists – it seems like it’s a bit harder for us to accept that people do bad things because they’ve been manipulated. Maybe it’s hard for us to accept because it’s scary that such large groups of people can be tricked into doing terrible things. But maybe that scary possibility doesn’t make it any less likely.
(FTR, I’m not comparing the transgressions of con man don fans with those of islamic terrorists or nazis).
