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funkymbtifiction · 4 years

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Hi again, sorry to bother you.

I submitted this post because I have a few questions (I was typed ISFP 9w1).

I have doubts about Fi-Te.

▪Fe/Fi :

I mean, When I read Fi and Fe descriptions, I relate to low Fe better. I need your view on that.

I relate to the chamelion effect that is often associated with Fe.

Unlike Fi-doms who behave the same everywhere, my behavior changes from group/person to group/person, and the group dynamic and atmosphere indirectly affects me and my performance. <- 9 does this, also 3 fixers do this.

I’m usually reserved when alone, but with energetic people/groups I become more energetic, smile more and check myself less and get comfortable. While if I go into serious or cold groups, I become like that. And If I get uncomfortable vibes from a group, I may get uncomfortable as well, or I might think my presence is not desired or not important, so I try to minimize my interaction with that group. I try not to force myself upon people even though feeling excluded seriously bothers me. <-- mirroring the group this much again, suggests 9 (and 3?); you are deliberately avoiding conflict through changing to fit the group.

It’s like I have no specific personality or characteristics. I explain my personality with doubt but try to include all functions. I envy people who maintain the same personality and energy-level with everyone or stand up and rebel against things they don’t agree with even when they’re alone. <-- 963 or 936 tritype confirmed

On the other hand, I try to maintain the group harmony and not bother others even when I internally have problem with something or don’t agree with them. I don’t rebel against the majority unless I have no other choice. <- 9 core

I assume being liked or appreciated by others matters to me a lot. As a kid and teen, I acted on this need (indirectly) by getting good grades or doing my homework and being nice to teachers. I wasn’t aware of it much. As I grew up, I became more dependent on other people, their vibe, their motivation or inner thoughts and their views. I miss my teen years because of that. <- numbing out and ignoring things as a teen? again, 9

I am not social expert. I suck at manipulating others or changing the group dynamics. I can’t “MAKE” people think/do something. I can’t stand my ground really well. I don’t even know how to comfort people. <- sounds like Fi-dom, not Fe

My view on good or bad is also relative. I can say pros & cons for things and I rarely view something as pure good or pure bad (It happens but it’s rare).<- Fi-dom has more nuance, is willing to give more benefit of the doubt, and is not as quick to judge people as Fe, since... well, Fi is subjective, ruminating, and inward based.

I also have problem defining when I “should” hold my ground and when I should stay back and keep quiet. <- lack of boundary awareness, a 9 issue

I dislike selfish people who boss others, don’t do their share of work in the group or disturb the group harmony by bringing negativity or drama. <- personal assertion of an ethical preference + 9 hatred of drama and negativity

Unlike Fi-dom stereotypes, I try my best to avoid feelings or emotion. So I try my best not to bother others to avoid potentially nasty confrontations. Every type of feeling is toxic and unhealthy to me. I’d rather deal with data, impersonal facts and professional relations than complicated people, drama or feelings. I’d rather be around impersonal, just, uncomplicated and direct people. <- 9 to the max; let’s not be unpleasant, let’s not let in anything that makes me feel uncomfortable, let’s suppress and ignore feelings as much as possible, let’s not hang out with annoying or troublesome people... this is not Fe, this is a 9 refusing to engage with anything that makes them uncomfortable

Fe-like grips for me happen during three situations. a)Failure or being hopeless about major future goals (which I try to avoid), b)Loss of loved ones or being away from them for a long time, c)Feeling excluded or being in a toxic/complecated/dramatic/unjust environment <- the first sounds like inferior Te frustration

Being in grip makes me sensitive, hopeless and paranoid of other peopl’s intentions. I then wish I could have more social skills and more connections/friends. <- Fe envy + 6ish disintegration

In general, I’m not an F expert and try to avoid that realm. But every once in a while, I wish I had more social skills, could open up to people and be cool around them. <- Fi-dom seriousness and detachment from others

________________________________________

▪S/N:

I agree with Se and Ni over their counterparts. I would be witty/argumentative and also more flexible if I had Ne.

But I still have trouble relating to Se, at least the stereotypes.

Sure, I wish I had more action, excitement and novelty in my life, and I might act on it some day (after reaching my professional goals), and I’m a visual/tactile learner and get bored by small details or impractical theories.

But still, I get uncomfortable dealing with the sensory (and social) realm for a long time and get sensory overload. I sometimes have trouble staying in the moment. Not to mention, I’m physically lazy and need someone more willful and energetic to initiate activities at first. And I’m somewhat of a homebody at the moment and bad which makes me relate to Se-aux even less.

Even my interests differ from stereotypical SP ones and look similar to Intuitive interests. I have little interest in watching team sports or car/F1 races on TV. I much prefer to learn about scientific facts, space, other cultures, different countries and their food/drinks and architecture, languages and different philosophical and psychological views and self-help stuffs. I often google things like that.

I do relate to Ni, as I have my goals/plans and, care about them and try to reach them (and would freak out if I couldn’t which means I lack flexibility about them).

Also, last minute changes of plans, or being kept in the dark about future or a project really bothers me. But I agree with you that having a cynical Ni might mean its position is not dom. Also, I’m not good at things like chess (find it boring), decision-making or guessing test questions (stereotypical Ni stuffs)

Based on the new info I added, Am I still Se-Ni?

... those are a lot of negative stereotypes about ISPs. An SP can sit at home on their butt and watch television all day long and never do anything creative with their hands, it does not disqualify them from being Se. An SP can be an avid reader and love learning about all kinds of things, it does not make them an intuitive. An ISP prefers to have a general idea of what they want and think before they act, it doesn’t make them an INJ. Basically, none of what you said disqualifies you from being an ISFP. I would look at Ne vs Se if you are still not sure, but I’m still seeing IFP 9.

________________________________________

▪T :

I do brainstorm things and read between the lines in my head. But I have little interest in sharing them with people or debating with people. Maybe I don’t debate much because of shyness. I also need time processing and analyzing the things being said, so I rarely challenge someone. <-- introvert, not a thinker tendency; high Ti knows what’s irrational without needing to process it, and will react accordingly by pointing out the illogical statement.

I’m more cynical than positive. If I doubt the truth of something or an statement or a program, I analyze and research about it if needed. I sometimes I argue with my family members or debate about social stuffs, taboo stuffs or some other stuffs. specially when I think what they think/believe is irrational. But I rarely target them directly or attack them about it, unless I know they’re thick-skinned and don’t make a big deal out of it. Also, I dislike it when people change a friendly debate into aggressive personal attacks. <- 9 avoidance of conflict / confrontation

When debating with my family, I use a mixture of facts and brainstorming results as debating tools. But In general I trust proven facts more than personal analysis and specially at school, I used to dislike too much theory, analysis and details. <- proven facts = Te, hatred of theory = Se/Ni

What makes me doubt being a thinker (or even a F-dom)? The fact that I rely on other people to describe myself and my self-worth. And the fact that A toxic atmosphere or exclusion can have impact on my mental health and performance. Also, my shyness and lack of assertiveness in social stuffs and being conflict-averse and fearing confrontations.

I think ISFP 9 is correct. Most of what you describe, as you’ve seen is simply being a 9, and you don’t have the kind of strong knowledge of Te/Ti that an ISTP or TJ would have.

#question #isfp #submission

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eretzyisrael · 4 years

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Dear Anti-Semite,

This one is for you. We know you. We know what you look like. We’ve been looking into your twisted eyes for thousands of years.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn about you. You are not rational. Your hate is not rational. It never was. It never will be.

Your hate is uneducated. It is boorish. It’s terribly short-sighted. And it is decidedly irrational.

You see, if you had a rational side, you would wonder why you are and have always been, obsessively focused on a people that represent 0.2% of the global population, 51% of whom will live in Israel by 2050.

If you were rational, a thinking person, you would ask what good Jews add to the world before you try and destroy us. With a little thought, a bit of research, you would learn that without the Jewish people, you wouldn’t have aspirin and Novocaine, or oxygen therapy to stopping blindness in infants, or vaccinations for polio, Hib and so many other medical discoveries that have benefitted your life.

You would know that Jews have contributed 100 times our world population to the fields of chemistry, physiology & medicine, physics, literature, economics, and peace (as evidenced by the 20% of Nobel laureates in all categories that are Jewish).

But maybe that’s what galls you. You hate us when we are successful. You hate that we work hard and educate our kids and take care of our own as well as others. You hate that despite generations of people like you trying to shove us down, we fight our way back to the top in the end. You hate that, don’t you?

Your hate also blinds you to the generosity of the Jewish people. I wonder what you would say if you knew that although only one in 50 Americans are Jews, the Jewish community gives more to charity than any other ethnic or religious group in America. That 60% of Jewish households earning less than $50,000 a year donate to charity, compared with 46 percent of non-Jewish households in that income bracket.

Deep down you know that our generous tendencies are a direct result of the ingrained value of giving in the Jewish tradition. When Detective Joseph Seals was gunned down last week in Jersey City, our small community pulled together $48,249 overnight to support his widow and five kids even while three of our own families were destroyed in the same anti-Semitic act of violence, including a now motherless family of four.

But the irrationality doesn’t stop there.

Like in Jersey City last week when locals said ‘the Jews brought on their own deaths” because we moved into their ransacked neighborhood. Classic response of those blinded by their own ignorance and hatred. It was particularly ironic coming from the black community. Wouldn’t you think they’d be a bit more compassionate given their own history of slavery, persecution and irrational hatred by racists? It boggles the mind, really. Can you imagine if I said every black who was hung or beaten or ripped from his or her family brought it on themselves? And then said it on national television? Can you imagine how people would react? Was there non-Jewish outrage at these comments that the black community made towards the Jews? Of course not! Because we don’t count. No, in fact, worse than we don’t count. According to the anti-semites, we are a blight and the more of us you take, the better off the world is.

In all this, by the way, is a message for all the Jews out there trying to appease and placate and pretend you are something other than a Jew in the hopes of being loved and accepted by the anti-semites. You can defend the haters’ causes, you can fly their proverbial flags, you can deny any connection to your people, you can even come out against your own people, but if there is one lesson Hitler taught us, it’s that you can run but you can’t hide. Push comes to shove, not one of them will stand up for you in a time of need the way you stand up for them. And it will always be a Jews’ fault. The Jew who runs and hides is just as irrational, just as much in denial of world history, as the anti-semite.

Because here is the cold, hard truth. Like it or not.

How many anti-semites have come before you and how many have FAILED? ALL OF THEM! Why? Because heaven knows you can deal us a painful blow, and you have repeatedly over the centuries, BUT WE WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED.

Not by you.

Nor by any other anti-semite like you.

Don’t you ever stop to wonder why that is? Why we can be spread among the nations and persecuted to Kingdom Come for two thousand years and NOT DISAPPEAR? If you were rational, a thinking human being, that would give you pause for thought, would it not? Wouldn’t you start to think there is something highly unusual going on here? That maybe you are barking up the wrong tree to make your own miserable life better?

Did you not notice that every nation that has systematically attempted to destroy and oust its Jews has gone on to be destroyed themselves? Just when these nations thought they had found a solution to the ‘Jewish problem,’ down those nations went. Because in the end, the higher you climb against us, the further you will fall. History has never indicated otherwise. And it never will.

If your hate were rational you would know that every Jewish life you take weakens the soul of the world. But more importantly, it destroys yours. (You may want to revisit the Nuremberg trials as just one small illustration).

If you were rational, you would know that we are here to stay. That your hate and your terror and your violence and your destruction will only galvanize our community and make us stronger. We will fight back. We will prevail.

And you will be forgotten.

Atara Weisberger, 17 Kislev, 5780

#atara weisberger #dear anti-semite #jews #history #anti-semitism

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kitsumiekat · 6 years

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Defying the Rules, SCM (Zyglavis x OC) (6/8)

Category: Angst?

Rating: PG-13… maybe NSFW in certain chapters?

Characters: Zyglavis, SCM

OC: Thalassa/Sugawara Riyo

Summary: Zyglavis had always been a fair, just god of the scales. He followed rules to a fault, and was spectacular at his job as the Minister of Punishments. Zyglavis was extremely dissatisfied when the King ruled in favor of the relationship between Leon, Minister of Wishes, with the human girl, even if she had been a former goddess.

Yet as he watched them together everyday, something tugs at him.

---

"Sugawara-san, can you please head over to the planetarium and loan their large telescope? We need it to see the JD star and observe the changes in its patterns tonight."

Riyo nodded at her supervisor's instructions, collecting her coat and her bag before heading out of the observatory. She had been quiet all day, and her usual demeanour was off ever since two days ago after Zyglavis had walked her back. Despite her telling herself that it was nothing, Riyo found herself disappointed that she's never seen him since then. She found herself eagerly looking up at the skies, wishing for something she wasn't even sure what it was. Why did she suddenly feel such a huge loss in her chest?

Thankful for the respite from the hustle and bustle within the office as she stepped out in to the late evening sky, a small smile curved her lips upwards as a soft breeze caressed her cheek, tossing her lose dark hair over her shoulders and across her soft yellow blouse. Tugging her red hoodie over her bare arms, she tucked her hands into her pockets before starting down the road towards the planetarium a couple of streets away.

It was only a 5 minute walk away, and before long Riyo's eyes fell upon the planetarium which served as a main tourist attraction in their little town in Japan. It's domed structure used to be a favorite of Riyo's when she first came here as a university student. Being away from home and all that was familiar to her, Riyo often sought refuge here, until she became a research assistant and had free access to the observatory in her university.

"Welcome!" the caramel haired girl at the counter grinned brightly at her as she entered, the bell signalling her entrance.

"Good evening," Riyo greeted, with a little bow of her head. She read the nametag with the name 'Haruka Kotami' printed upon it, and grinned as the girl asked what could she do to assist her. "My professor sent me here to pick up the telescope for our study tonight. He said he called ahead?"

"Ah, that is right. My colleague is packing it up right now. Hiyori, is it ready?" she asked a dark haired girl who just walked in. The girl smiled with her sweet disposition, and nodded.

"It's right in the theatre. Shall I-"

"It's okay Hiyori, you're almost off. I'll pick it up with Sugawara-san here and lock up. You can go. I know you have a date with your new boyfriend." the brunette grinned, laughing when Hiyori blushed and thanked her.

"You're awfully nice to your friend, that's a great thing to do for her." Riyo couldn't resist but commenting. The friendship between the two was obvious even to her naked eye. Kotami smiled over her shoulder at Riyo, leading her into the dim theatre of the planetarium.

"Hiyori's a great friend. She's awfully supportive of everything I do." Kotami headed down the corridor when the door she had left open swung close with a loud thud that reverberated. Both the girls froze, before Kotami gave a nervous laugh. "Might be the strong wind. Here, the telescope is just-"

Before she could finish the sentence, a sudden and mysterious gust of wind swirled, tossing the curtains and sheets that were used to cover the screen. Riyo's eyes widened when her coat was pulled off as if the wind was tugging at it, and she was unceremoniously knocked down the last few steps she had stopped on, rolling until Kotami managed to catch her before she rolled any further.

"What's happening?" Riyo asked as she scrambled up. The two girls held on to each other, but the wind only grew stronger, forcing them to bend their heads. Riyo managed to crack open her eyes just enough to see a dark force amassing in the centre of the theatre. Before long, an ominous cackle filled the theatre.

When the wind finally died down enough for both of them to look up, a long, dark haired figure was standing imposingly. He had pale white, almost alabaster skin. Dressed in a black and gold cloak, his looks reminded Riyo much of Zyglavis's long hair and lanky figure, but unlike the warm aura and protective eyes Zyglavis had looked at her with, the eyes that peered at them through the mask over the eyes was conniving, filled with a hatred so intense, Riyo felt herself and Kotami flinched when he flashed his eyes at them.

"Goddesses of Death and Fate... I will finally get my revenge today."

Before they could react at all, he waved his arm, and two figures, each cloaked in black and red appeared by his side. "Crow, Servillah, get them."

Neither girls had any opportunity to react, for the two figures darted forward and caught their arms in the back. With a touch on their bare skin, Riyo felt her head spin. Her vision went black, and her hearing rang.

---

Zyglavis felt the zing in his ear, along with an irrational fear of panic and steel gripping his chest, almost at the same time as loud voices started ringing in the foyer of the god's mansion. He first heard a loud thud on the floor above his, before several feet scurrying and loud voices yelling "Leon!"

He felt the cold sweat around his forehead, and his mind immediately jumped to the only soul that had been on his mind.

Zyglavis had spent the last two days researching about Sugawara Riyo. He knew she was in her mid twenties, moved away from her family home to work and study the stars. Already, her connection to the stars was a dead giveaway... but now Zyglavis wasn't even sure what to do. He had spent years simmering an anger at her for leaving him in the first place. Even if he knew why she did so, he couldn't help the hurt he felt that she chose to leave him.

Now that he had met her reincarnated form, he wasn't sure what to do. Did he speak to her again? Was Riyo anything like Thalassa? What if she didn't remember?

These thoughts had spent the past two days swirling around his head, so much so that Scorpio had had to remind him a few times to focus.

He was planning to ignore the ruckus outside the door, assuming the stupid lion was causing some sort of trouble again, when his door swung open and young Altair and Vega came running in looking quite in a panic. "Lord Zyglavis! Lord Zyglavis!"

Immediately, the long haired minister stepped away from his files to address the two young minor gods. "What is it?"

"Lord Leon is insistent that he'll go and defeat the Dark King himself!"

His eyes widened, and he felt his senses ring as if warning him of something bad about to happen. In his mind, he felt a painful zing, and his hands gripped tightly into fists as he tried to push the rising panic in him. What was going on? "What Dark King? Did the King not seal him away eons ago?"

"They got Lady Kotami and some other girl. According to Lord Leon, it is the ex Goddess of Dea-"

Before Altair could finish his sentence, Zyglavis all but knocked the two young ones out of the way as he dashed out of the room right into the foyer where he saw Teorus, Scorpio and Karno holding a raging Leon back, as he struggled.

"Would you listen to reason you stupid lion! You stand no chance to face off the Dark King! You'll be annihilated and Haruka Kotami will be defenseless!" Scorpio yelled, but his words seemingly fell on deaf ears. Leon looked almost posessed as he struggled to get to his love.

"Enough!" Zyglavis's voice ringing as usual with authority, echoed throughout the foyer, as he hurried down the stairwell. "Leon, show me."

With a snap of his fingers, Zyglavis made his private reflecting pool appear in the foyer. Leon scowled and waved his hand, and in that instant, Zyglavis felt his blood turn to ice in his veins.

In a dark cave which he could not identify its location, he saw the limp form of Haruka Kotami... and Riyo. Her dark hair was damp, her yellow blouse rumpled. There were scratches on her legs and arms, and her breathing appeared shallow, with a pale complexion that made a furious anger stir in Zyglavis immediately.

"The goddess of death?" he heard Huedhaut next to him murmur in surprise. He could see the girls stir, but very weakly.

"Do you know where they are, Leon?" Zyglavis asked, in a tight voice.

Leon nodded. "I can detect where Kotami is."

"I'm coming with you."

Surprised gasps collective went up around the room. Zyglavis had always been a law abiding god who followed the rules. And the rules for situations like this dictated gods like them immediately notify the King, and that they were not to initiate fights under any circumstances. None of them expected Zyglavis to actually agree with Leon, especially not when they were always at odds with each other.

But he acted as if he didn't hear any of it, and instead turned to Scorpio. "Scorpio, get the King immediately. You and Karno both go. You'll be able to sense our location. Notify him and follow his instructions." And then, Zyglavis turned to Leon, who for once did not gloat, eager as he was to go and save his love. "Leon, let's go."

#zyglavis x riyo #zyglavis x oc #zyglavis #star crossed myth #scm fanfic #voltage fanfic #voltage otome #voltage fanfiction #voltage #otome fanfiction #star crossed myth fanfiction

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tvdas · 5 years

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Banning Evil

In the Shadow of Christchurch, Quasi-Religious Myths Can Lead Us Astray

written by Michael Shermer

On March 15, a 28-year old an Australian gunman named Brenton Tarrant allegedly opened fire in two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, killing 50 and wounding 50 more. It was the worst mass shooting in the history of that country. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was rightly praised for her response to the murders, declared: “While the nation grapples with a form of grief and anger that we have not experienced before, we are seeking answers.”

One answer took form a week later, when Ms. Ardern announced legislation that would ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Will such gun-control measures work to reduce gun crime? Maybe. They did in Australia following a 1996 mass shooting in Tasmania in which 35 people were murdered. A 2006 follow-up study showed that in the 18 years prior to the ban, there had been 13 mass shootings. But in the decade following, there had been none. Gun culture is different in every country. But there is at least an arguable case to be made that the newly announced controls will make New Zealand a safer country.

But banning certain tools that may be used to commit murder is one thing. Tarrant’s rampage also has led to calls to block ideas that allegedly fuel murderous extremism. In the immediate aftermath of tragedy, it is understandable that every conceivable means should be employed to prevent a recurrence. But censorship is almost invariably the wrong response to evil actions. You cannot ban evil.

Before the killings, Tarrant authored a rambling 74-page manifesto titled The Great Replacement. The document is difficult to find online, as most platforms took to blocking it as soon as its appearance was flagged. I was quick to grab a copy early on, however, because such documents inform my longstanding research into extremist groups and ideologies.

The Great Replacement was inspired by a 2012 book of the same title by the French author Renaud Camus—a right-wing conspiracy theorist who claims that white French Catholics in particular, and white Christian Europeans in general, are being systematically replaced by people of non-European descent, especially from Africa and the Middle East, through immigration and higher birth rates. The manifesto is filled with white supremacist fearmongering. “If there is one thing I want you to remember from these writings, it’s that the birthrates must change,” the author tells his audience (whom he presumes to be white). “Even if we were to deport all Non-Europeans from our lands tomorrow, the European people would still be spiraling into decay and eventual death.” The result, he concludes apocalyptically, is “white genocide.”

Like many cranks and haters of this type, Tarrant has a weakness for codes and slogans. He references the number 14 to indicate the 14-word slogan originally coined by white supremacist David Lane while imprisoned for his role in the 1984 murder of Jewish radio talk show host Alan Berg: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Lane, for his part, explicitly extolled the writings of white supremacist William Pierce, who in turn inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.

Accusations of racism and white supremacism are thrown around so casually these days that the meaning of these terms has become diluted and ambiguous. So, for clarity, I will state the obvious by emphasizing that the writings of Tarrant, Lane and Pierce all reflect attitudes that are completely racist and hateful, as such terms are properly used.

And yes, there is a connection with Nazism. The number 14 is sometimes rendered as 14/88, with the 8’s representing the eighth letter of the alphabet—H—and 88 or HH standing for Heil Hitler. Lane, who died in 2007, was inspired by Mein Kampf, in which the Nazi Party leader declared: “What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe.”

But even here, the bibliographical trail of hatred doesn’t end—because Hitler copied much of his anti-Semitic conspiracism from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a tragically popular hoaxed document purporting to record the proceedings of a secret meeting of Jews plotting global domination. Nor was the Protocols itself conceived out of thin air: It was plagiarized from Biarritz, a luridly anti-Semitic 19th-century novel; and a propaganda tract called Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, which had been written by a French lawyer as an act of protest against Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte; both of which, in turn, drew on anti-Semitic tropes going back to Roman times. So if you’re looking to root out and ban the political ideology that produces Jew hatred, you’re going to have to purge whole library shelves. The same goes for Islamophobia, anti-black racism, and virtually every other kind of bigotry you could name.

And yet, there are those who argue that mass censorship is justified in the name of heading off hateful indoctrination. That group apparently would include leaders of the Whitcoulls bookstore chain in New Zealand. Late last week, the company announced it was banning one popular book, “in light of some extremely disturbing material being circulated prior, during and after the Christchurch attacks.” Yet the book wasn’t Mein Kampf, which you can still buy on the company’s site for $44.95—or anything of its ilk. Rather, the chain is boycotting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, a self-help book that has no connection at all with the mosque attacks or their perpetrator.

What is the “extremely disturbing material” in Peterson’s book? Whitcoulls doesn’t say. I’ve read the entire book, along with much of the University of Toronto professor’s 1999 massive first book, Maps of Meaning. And I’ve watched many of his YouTube videos and media interviews. I have yet to find anything remotely reminiscent of white supremacy, racism, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

On Twitter, I suggested that those who think Peterson is the ideological culprit behind the New Zealand massacre have lost their minds. I added that I’m no toady for Jordan Peterson, inasmuch as I disagree with him on many subjects—including his theory of truth, and his largely uncritical endorsement of religious myths as an organizing principle for human cultures. But the banning of Peterson on any theory related to preventing mass murder doesn’t even rise to the level of wrong: It’s demonstrably absurd—akin to banning spoons and skateboards as a strategy to stave off prospective arsonists.

When I asked my social-media followers for examples of anything Peterson had said or done that could be construed as inviting mass murder, the only remotely relevant responses I got pointed to photos that random fans had taken with Peterson, one of which featured a guy sporting a t-shirt proclaiming himself to be an “Islamaphobe,” and another (more ambiguous) example of someone holding a Pepe the Frog banner. But this proves nothing. Peterson has taken photos with tens of thousands of people at public events in recent years. In a typical fan-photo cattle call, fans are cycled into frame with a celebrity roughly every five or six seconds—typically by handlers, not the celebrity acting in his or her personal capacity. I’ve done a number of these during book tours and can attest to the fact that it’s completely unrealistic to think that Peterson could screen the clothes worn by all these legions of photo seekers for ideological purity—even if this were something he aspired to do.

On March 23, I received an email from Change.org, the left-leaning political action group whose stated mission is to “empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see.” In this case, the change users wanted to see in response to the New Zealand massacre was… to ban PewDiePie from YouTube. “One of the largest platforms for white supremacist content is PewDiePie’s YouTube channel,” the petition informs us. “PewDiePie has on many occasions proven once and again to promote and affiliate himself with white supremacist and Nazi ideologies.” The petitioners then list the YouTuber’s alleged sins, including using the N-word, playing videos of Adolf Hitler’s speeches, and giving the Nazi heil in a video.

For those unaware, PewDiePie is a Swedish comedian and video game player named Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, whose YouTube channel has a massive following and whom Tarrant referenced in his manifesto (along with Candace Owens, Donald Trump and others). It is true that PewDiePie once used the N-word during a video game competition (and then apologized profusely for doing so). He also has used brief audio and video snippets of Nazi imagery as part of satirical responses to attacks against him that he lampooned as melodramatic. The idea that any of this betrays PewDiePie as a closet white supremicist is absurd. Even without Change.org’s urging, YouTube already has demonetized the videos of such avowedly anti-racist and anti-supremacist moderates as Dave Rubin and Gad Saad, as well as anti-anti-Semite conservatives such as Dennis Prager. YouTube is acting on an ideological hair trigger: If there were any evidence whatsoever that PewDiePie had expressed real Nazi sympathies, he would have been axed from the platform long ago.

Responding to evil by banning random controversial authors or YouTubers is completely irrational. But that doesn’t make it inexplicable. Manifestations of great evil provoke a desire to do something—anything—to reestablish moral order. Remember when millions of people tweeted #BringBackOurGirls after the terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped dozens of Nigerian students in 2014? Murderous rapists don’t give a fig about being mobbed on Twitter. But it made people feel useful for an instant—as if they had done something. We all entertain some version of this instinct in times of tragedy—a reflex satirized by The Onion in the days after 9/11 with the headline Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake.

Intertwined with this instinct is the idea that there is some abstract force called evil that exists in the cosmos, a force that we are all called upon to confront and defeat. As I argued in my 2003 book, The Science of Good and Evil, this belief—that pure evil exists separately from individuals—is a myth. “Evil” makes literal sense as an adjective, but not as a noun (except in a figurative sense), because there is no quantum of something called “evil” that exists in human hearts, or, indeed, anywhere else.

Thus concluded social psychologist Roy Baumeister, as reported in his 1997 book about serial killers and other career criminals, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. Ironically, Baumeister found that the myth of evil existing as a standalone force may, itself, lead societies to become more violent: “The myth encourages people to believe that they are good and will remain good no matter what, even if they perpetrate severe harm on their opponents. Thus, the myth of pure evil confers a kind of moral immunity on people who believe in it…belief in the myth is itself one recipe for evil, because it allows people to justify violent and oppressive actions. It allows evil to masquerade as good.”

This helps explain the grimly bizarre manner by which violent criminals and terrorists find ways to justify even the most horrifying and nihilistic acts. Consider this 1994 police record of Frederick Treesh, a spree killer from the Midwest who explained, “Other than the two we killed, the two we wounded, the woman we pistol-whipped, and the light bulbs we stuck in people’s mouths, [my accomplice and I] didn’t really hurt anybody.” After killing 33 boys the serial killer John Wayne Gacy explained: “I see myself more as a victim than as a perpetrator. I was cheated out of my childhood.”

Modern campaigns aimed at shutting down this or that speaker implicitly present evil as something that may be communicated from one person to another, like bacteria. By this model, censorship is akin to quarantine. But Baumeister tells us “you do not have to give people reasons to be violent, because they already have plenty of reasons. All you have to do is take away their reasons to restrain themselves.” It is absolutely true that some extremist ideologies can encourage adherents to abandon the sense of restraint that Baumeister describes. But the campaign to ban the likes of Jordan Peterson and PewDiePie—individuals whose work bears no relationship at all to the extreme forms of hatred we should be most concerned about—suggests that censors aren’t actually thinking through such propositions. Instead, they seem to be operating on the idea of evil as a quasi-mystical force akin to Satan. In this conception, Peterson and PewDiePie are seen as carriers of evil, much like witches channeling demons from below, no matter that they never actually say or do anything evil in nature.

As Baumeister argued, this mythical idealization of evil as being an actual force in our universe, rather than a descriptor of human motivations, isn’t merely harmless ersatz spiritualism: It causes people to act worse, sometimes murderously so, by allowing them to imagine the locus of evil as lying completely outside their own intentions and actions.

Which gets to the (necessarily political) question of who should be identified, stigmatized, and even punished for being a “carrier” of evil? Who gets to define that class of people? Me? You? The majority? An evil-thought committee? The government? Social-media companies? We already have law enforcement and the military to deal with evil deeds. Controlling evil thoughts is far more problematic.

Campaigns aimed at banning evil in its own (mythical) right almost always include efforts to ban evil speech—or even, as in the aftermath of the New Zealand mass murder, speech from someone who has not said anything remotely evil, but is seen, in some vague sense, to be contaminated by evil. When western societies were religious, evil speech was tantamount to anti-Christian speech. In a secular age, we call it “hate speech,” a reformulation that does nothing to solve the always contentious issue of distinguishing between evil speech and free speech, and the problem of who gets to decide where one ends and the other begins.

It is my contention that we must protect speech no matter how hateful it may seem. The solution to hate speech is more speech. The counter to bad ideas is good ideas. The rebuttal to pseudoscience is better science. The answer to fake news is real news. The best way to refute alternative facts is with actual facts. This is just as true now as it was in the moment before 50 innocent Muslim lives were taken in New Zealand—even if our emotionally felt need to put a name and form to evil now makes this truth harder to see.

Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine, a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and the author of The Moral Arc.

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