Combatting Ghosts and Monsters for Fun a

Extremism begets extremism. Look at any prolonged social conflict (your neighbor’s divorce, the American Civil War, take your pick). The longer it lasts, the harder it becomes to differentiate the good from the bad. Evil behavior either genuinely forces opponents to behave the same in self-defense or simply overwhelms reason and deludes opponents into believing they have no choice. It also provides irresistible opportunities for mischief-makers. The politics of fear is very good business. 
 
The tragedy of the post-9/11 world is that the opportunities offered to mankind by the end of the Cold War have been submerged by a flood of Manichean assertions: all claim to be the Sons of Light battling to the death, with God on their side, against the Sons of Darkness. There seems almost to be a fatal genetic flaw in humans compelling them to throw themselves lemming-like over the cliff of reason into the sea of insane hatred of “the other side.” 
 
Such twilight zone battles cannot be won because they do not exist…except in the tortured minds of the self-deluded combatants. That is, they cannot be won unless you define victory as the creation of chaos. Those who combat “ghosts and monsters” either fight sick fantasies in their own minds or know exactly what they are doing and are consciously seeking chaos in the coldly rational calculation that they can benefit from it.

http://shadowedforest.blogspot.com