Help. I need to find a quote - "People never do evil so effectively or

[IndyOp]

happily as when they believe they are doing good."

I can't recall the quote accurately enough to pull it up using Google -

Help! :hi:

[malta blue]

1. Who said it?

That might help - or a context?:hi:

[IndyOp]

3. Yes - it would help, but I can't help...

I don't know. :dunce:

I am giving a lecture on social psychology tomorrow and we will talk about Stanley Milgram's experiment about obedience to immoral authority - inspired by comments of Nazi soldiers who said that they did what they did because they were "just following orders."

I want to relate the quote to video I have of Hitler's Personal Secretary Traudl Jung who talks about how much damage Hitler did in using/manipulating people's consciences, in getting them to believe that they had to do bad things to protect their nation.

So - I don't know if I am looking for a quote from a Nazi leader or Paster Niemoller or someone, anyone else...

:shrug:

[11 Bravo]

2. In the 17th century Blaise Pascal said,

\"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.\" Is that the one you\'re looking for?

[IndyOp]

4. That is very, very close. It may be the quote I am looking for -

I don't remember the term "religious conviction" being part of the quote though. I want to use the quote in a class on social psychology and want to make the case that obedience to an immoral authority is most likely when that authority convinces you that you are acting for the good. I don't want or need to bring formal religion into the discussion, although the more religious someone is, the more they may be at risk of having an immoral authority use their "need to be good" against them.

I am bookmarking this thread and will come back to the Pascal quote if I can't find another variation...

[China_cat]

6. I found this.

Slightly different wording but still attributed to Pascal. Maybe this is the one you're thinking of.


Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience. Pascal, Blaise

http://quotationsbook.com/quote/8087/

[IndyOp]

7. Yes! Score! Thanks China_cat - I knew DU could help. :-) (n/t)

[rock]

8. You remind me of another quote

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

[11 Bravo]

9. Now you\'ve got me intrigued.

I wonder how many variations on this particular theme are attributed to Pascal. I\'m going to have to do a little research. (Damn, this place is educational!)

:toast:

[IndyOp]

5. An interesting riff on Pascal from a psychoanalyst:

The universal human experience of helplessness and dependency during the long years of infancy and childhood, which all humans are born into, inevitably produces a sense of worthlessness and inferiority for which the personal ego demands compensation! The human's most desperate need is to feel good about himself. The more intense the inferiority complex, the more necessary is extreme absolutism. Religious certainty is the most universal and effective means of boosting the individual ego. To know with absolute certainty that an omnipotent, omniscient Supreme Being approves of and takes a personal interest in one's self is the most powerful ego compliment that can be imagined. There can be no other affirmation as pleasing to the ego as that of God. The total lack of empirical evidence supporting this belief is irrelevant as Tertullian in the second century said "I believe because it is absurd."

So Mr Pascal's observation would be more accurate if it read: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it under the compulsion to inflate their ego."

Ross Milner
Albuquerque, New Mexico

http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml8477.htm