Undesirables eliminate themselves
Undesirables eliminate themselves. Long ago one of my psychology professors told me that. In fact, he told the whole class that. I believed him at the time. In fact, I believed him for many years. Too long I think.
Events of the current world situation would enforce this belief, what with suicide bombers who do the ultimate elimination of themselves. But they take out desirables too. And that’s what I’ve found to be truly unacceptable.
Maybe those who refuse to assimilate into a community or culture but instead create turmoil and unrest do eventually eliminate themselves, but at what cost? They appear to remove many others in the process: others who give back to the community, even to the world.
And what about the initial undesirable who is allowed to remain, and is found to have a better way, one the group can follow without compromising concrete convictions? And when does one determine if even a concrete conviction needs to be changed? At what point might someone change and become a desirable? Surely all good questions to ask?
If the undesirables don’t eliminate themselves, we are then faced with the question of how we should do that for them. The professor never mentioned the casualties from that process of waiting. I was too naive at the time to realize there were any. Surely we can speed up the process, perhaps reducing the expected loss. There doesn’t seem to be a good way to be successful all the way around with trying to remove them ahead of that time.
I think this is why the professor told me what he did. In essence he meant, don’t worry about those that don’t fit in and wreak havoc instead, there isn’t any good way to counter them; we can only learn to endure. Eventually, they will disappear on their own. Maybe he was right after all.