In a discussion of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, my fellow Patheos blogger Anthony Costello quotes philosopher Charles Taylor:
Then there is the victim scenario. This can colonize the Left. All evil is projected onto the others; they alone are the victimizers; we are pure victims. The liberal self feels relatively innocent, because (a) it sees the whole picture clearly, and (b) it is part of the solution….The victim scenario…a kind of deviant, secularized Christianity, achieves total innocence, at the cost of projecting total evil on the other. This can justify Bolshevik-type ruthlessness, as well as titanic action. We can see how this carries out in both processes, which distance us from evil: we are part of the solution, and we are utterly other than those who inflict harm. We have no part with them.
Taylor, A Secular Age, 683-684
Discuss.
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