MAjor civilizations do not have conscience or an inherent sense of ethics.

Individuals do.

But it can be suppressed, altered, denied, invalidated, or made inoperable by any number of dramatizations.

So it takes a certain personal fiber to retain any clarity in one's sense of ethics.

Just as it takes a certain fiber to defend one's intelligence against cultural swamps.

A man can go into a group organized toward moral goals and agreements with his conscience intact (because he wants to do things only a group can accomplish) or with it already subordinated to icons, myths, superstitions, or just cultural pressure.

In the final analysis though, any individual who lets his own conscience be eroded owns that responsibility.

You don't need a fabric of belief or a set of specialized vocabulary (such as "sin" or "God", for example) to speak truth.


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