"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest."
Denis Diderot
I want to be clear that I am in no way encouraging or condoning violence. It is not violence that I take to be inspirational from the above quotation. It is a passion for freedom that strikes me the most. It is provocative and exaggerated but that, I do believe, was intended. It also is explicit in its application to both secular and religious sources of authority.
In effect, I see this as a call to action for all human beings to resist the urge to grant special status of any other individual or group. No one should ever be viewed as infallible or beyond question. No one should ever be seen as an absolute authority in anything. There is no legitimate excuse or circumstance that should allow any person or group of people to escape accountability or shirk responsibility. Such special status inevitably leads to corruption and to stripping others of their rights and freedom.
It is sad that today the institutions of Government and Religion (especially religion) are still routinely allowed to usurp authority that does not truly belong to them while dodging responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions.
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