Creating scapegoats is not without its hazards to the perpetrators or community at large.
I believe that our young anti-authoritarians -- our potential heroes -- have far less of a need for hero courses in their schools than a need for help in battling against the systemic, authoritarian aspects of their schools.
Many of the ethical missteps we see in everyday life are made possible when we assign blame to other people ("The cashier gave me too much change, I didn't make her do it").
Trained in the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military interrogators and guards who tortured and dehumanized prisoners in U.S. custody after 9/11 were hardly without ethical bearings.
Violence and evil are no strangers to our world, and they are never going away. However, if we learn to recognize the sources of derelict behavior, we may be able to intervene and prevent good people from making tragic decisions.
As a child in Romania, I watched the Communist authorities come into our house and pull my grandfather from my grandmother's arms -- taking him to a prison where he was eventually kicked to death by a guard.
Evil is not simple and does not fit in a box; it manifests itself in many shapes and forms, from the victim who becomes a torturer, the Nazi who follows orders, and the psychopath who kills without remorse, to the bystander who remains silent in the face of terrible injustice.
We need to interconnect alternative stories so that they create a coherent whole -- a new, larger story, that will offer the requisite amount of social cohesion on the one hand, and openness and hope on the other.
If The Guardian and the BBC are to be believed, Daniel Kahnemann is the world's greatest living psychologist. This is quite a claim -- but is it true?
BYSTANDERS stand by and watch while other kids are bullied. HEROES don't let bullying happen: they intervene, get help. They are out to save the world, one kid at a time.
An avatar is a being of matchless integrity, and every culture has examples like Abraham, Moses, Miriam, Zoroaster, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, Fatimah, Chief Joseph, Nan'yehi.
Go for a walk. When you take a step with your left foot, breathe the word "Glory." When you take a step with your right foot, breathe the word "Amen."
We stand justified in asking our leaders to hold America to a higher standard -- to probe the decisions and decision-makers who led us to that darkened cell with its waterboards and bug boxes.
Without dispute, the Sandy Hook shootings were despicable and inhumane. But in light of this clear trend, can we reasonably call the shootings "unimaginable" or "unfathomable?"
