62
The Lucifer Principle
Over 200 billion red blood cells a day die in the interests of keeping
you alive.162 Do you anguish over their demise? Like those red corpuscles,
you and I are cells in a social superorganism whose maintenance and growth
sometimes requires our pain or elimination, suppresses our individuality
and restricts our freedom. Why, then, is it of any value to us?
Because the superorganism nourishes every cell within it, allowing a
robustness none of its individual components could achieve on its own.
Take, for example, the Mediterranean superbeast known as the Roman
Empire. Rome was an evil creature with a despicable lust for cruelty. Julius
Caesar, according to Plutarch, "took by storm more than 800 cities, subdued
300 nations and fought pitched battles at various times with three million
men, of whom he destroyed one million in the actual fighting and took
another million prisoners."163 Caesar did not carry out these deeds with
kindliness. When he leveled enemy cities, he occasionally killed off every
man, woman and child164 just to teach would-be resisters a lesson.
The affluent folks back in the home city of Rome were even hungrier
for the sight of blood. Their favorite recreation was an afternoon at the
Coliseum watching desperate captives disembowel each other in the arena.
Roman sports fans took bets on which contestant would manage to live until
nightfall.
The governors sent out to rule the Roman provinces periodically lost
their tolerance for non-conformists. They crucified a back-country preacher
of peace and humility named Jesus because his views disagreed with the
standard-issue dogmas approved by imperial authority. But the former
carpenter was only one of thousands who twisted for hours, hanging by nails
from a crude wooden beam.
Rome stamped out or swallowed entire rival civilizations. She even
reduced the land she most revered-- Greece--to a sleepy, sycophantic
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