Quote Originally Posted by DuB View Post
Absolutely.

These are not malevolent (or even well-meaning) mind control agents that hijack our thoughts and occasionally force us to behave in irrational or unethical ways. These are ideological constructions that people consciously choose to either embrace or reject. Irrational and/or unethical people are going to perform irrational and/or unethical actions as well as subscribe to irrational and/or unethical worldviews. Punting the blame onto some abstract, theoretical entity like "religion" or "fascism" gets us nowhere.
I agree on the whole that people should be held accountable for the actions. But in some cases there are exactly what you describe, "mind control agents" that cause us to act in unethical ways. The Nazis were a prime example, you can't tell me every Nazi that committed an atrocity was an inherently bad person. Some ideologies and systems have that affect on people; they fill them with absolute confidence in a position that is by nature completely anti-humanist and unethical, take militant Islam as an example.
You don't agree that some world views, ideologies, take advantage of people with weak minds and almost bend them to their will?
My opinion on it, is that you are an intelligent person who thinks things through and finds it hard to believe that people are weak enough to be controlled by ideology to the extent that it compromises their own previously held morals, however, there are millions of people worldwide weak enough to succumb to this sort of thing.