Friday, January 2, 2015

Issue 497 Anti-idols January 2, 2015

Well, we all have people we idolize right.  People who have lived and inspired us.  Basically people like Jesus, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many more.  But do we need an anti-idol?  Someone to spurn and for us to strive to never be?  Let us discuss.

The concept:  The idea is fairly simple.  In the same way we pick heroes for us to idolize, we pick someone to despise for their misdeeds and their evil ways.  Basically, people like Mao, Hitler, members of the Black Hand, Osama Bin Laden and other nasty people like Charles Manson, the Unabomber, and Timothy McVey.  So while we would try to emulate people like Jesus and Dr. King, we would actively seek to avoid or to not do what these anti-idols would do.  So we would thus study their behavior, where they went astray and thus try to insure we would not go down a similar path of destruction.  Basically, this is a thought exercise for people, and even for students of history and psychology. 

Conclusion:  So what would be my own anti-idol?  I would think Chairman Mao.  He sacrificed hundreds of thousands in his five year all for the sake of his version of progress. Basically he was a totalitarian dictator who killed people or worked them to death (literally) in order to achieve his selfish goals.  To further his atrocities, he brainwashed kids to rat out their parents if they even dared to complain about his regime.  And he even destroyed thousands of years’ worth of Chinese history to "reset" China to his communist rule.  So what about you?  I chose Mao because he trampled over everything in his ends justify the means approach.  But you can choose anyone to be your anti-idol.  So pick the one person you would never ever want to become.


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