A well-crafted, carefully tended and viable illusion could be useful, even moral. Now, I am not referring to telling lies. Normally and typically, to lie is to grow evil, and to tell the truth is to grow good. Yet, the natural law of moderation informs us that the exception to the rule proves the rule; therefore there are wholesome illusions to protect and nurture, for at leas that time when the human is ready to accept and deal with what the illusion hides, head on.
Unending change is, for the most part desirable and inevitable, but the illusions of comfort, company, and continuity help us change a little at a time, steadily over time.
To change the people brutally and utterly as the Bolsheviks attempted in Russia makes them today, 100 years later, still dictatorial, still not a free economy, still corrupt, still group-living, still empire-building.
Illusions buffet the people against overreacting to harsh truth and harsh change. Propagating illusions and diversions might seem foolish and sinful, but often they are required, wise and useful tranquilizers for nonindividuating, frightened masses hurling forward into a Brave New World.
The well-crafted illusion is like the wine not to be drunk, with the cork popped, before its time. The illusion is often moral, necessary and sensible.
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