Marc Andreessen Profile picture
Feb 7 12 tweets 2 min read
"A moral entrepreneur is an individual, group, or formal organization that seeks to influence a group to adopt or maintain a norm; altering the boundaries of altruism, deviance, duty or compassion."
"The moral entrepreneur may press for the creation or enforcement of a norm for any number of reasons, altruistic or selfish. Such individuals or groups also hold the power to generate moral panic."
"He is interested in the content of rules. The existing rules do not satisfy him because there is some evil which profoundly disturbs him. He feels that nothing can be right in the world until rules are made to correct it."
"He operates with an absolute ethic; what he sees is truly and totally evil with no qualification. Any means is justified to do away with it. The crusader is fervent and righteous, often self-righteous."
"Successful moral crusades are generally dominated by those in the upper social strata of society."
"'Rule enforcers' are compelled by two drives: need to justify their own role, and need to win respect in interactions. They are in a bind; if they show too much effectiveness one might say they are not needed, and if they show too little one might say they are failing."
"Creation & application of explicit moral rules are characteristics of moralism, or the tendency to treat people as enemies. The sources of moralism are status superiority and social remoteness between the agents of social control and the people whose behavior they regulate."
"The most likely targets of both moral rule creators and moral rule enforcers are those who are socially inferior, culturally different, and personally unknown."
"Those individuals with social power, wealth, high status, or large public support bases are the most likely to assert this power and to act as a moral entrepreneur."
"Moral entrepreneurs mix appeals to self-interest with emotional appeals that bypass our rational calculating faculty and stir inarticulable feelings... They teach us to love or hate whom they love or hate."

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More from @pmarca

Feb 9
"Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed toward an object or person that one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration."
"The sense of weakness, inferiority complex, and jealousy in the face of the 'cause' generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration."
"This value system is then used as a means of justifying one's own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws."
Read 24 tweets
Feb 7
"A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society."
"It is 'the process of arousing social concern over an issue,' usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers."
"Moral panic happens when 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values & interests.'  While the issues identified may be real, the claims 'exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm.'"
Read 25 tweets
Feb 7
"An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance carried out of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning."
"Ferdinand II and Isabella I received permission from Pope Sixtus IV to name inquisitors throughout their domains. Autos-da-fé became quite popular throughout the Spanish realm, competing with bullfights for the public's attention and attended by royalty."
"Once granted permission from the Pope to conduct inquisitions, the monarchs began establishing permanent trials and developing bureaucracies to carry out investigations in most of the cities and communities in their empire."
Read 12 tweets
Feb 7
"Salem witch trials: a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. More 200 people accused. 30 found guilty, 19 executed by hanging (14 women and 5 men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead."
"The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process."
"It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe."
Read 21 tweets
Feb 7
"Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors."
"Human sacrifice has been practiced in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is typically intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods."
"Human sacrifice may be practiced in a stable society, may even be conducive to enhance societal unity, creating a bond unifying the community -- and combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, removing individuals that have a negative effect on societal stability."
Read 6 tweets
Feb 7
"A witch hunt is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft."
"In current language, 'witch hunt' metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents."
"Witch hunts can also involve elements of moral panic and mass hysteria."
Read 9 tweets

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