From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

Alone against the world There is a form of gaslighting that goes far beyond the personal. It is not the quiet distortion of truth within a relationship, but something far more pervasive—something structural. It occurs when institutions that are supposed to uphold truth instead reshape it, and when that reshaped version is repeated so often that it hardens into accepted reality. This kind of societal gaslighting can emerge when the police assert a version of events that does not align with lived experience or observable truth, when courts reinforce that narrative through official findings, and when the press amplifies it without sufficient scrutiny. Over time, repetition gives the illusion of legitimacy. What begins as an assertion becomes a “fact,” not because it is true, but because it has been authoritatively declared and widely echoed. For the individual who knows otherwise, this creates a profound tension. It is not simply a disagreement—it is a collision between inner certainty an...

The execution of Jesus Christ is often framed as a tragic misunderstanding, a collision between religious disagreement and political circumstance. Yet historically, it is something far more direct: an act of state violence. Jesus was executed by the authority of Rome, under the governance of Pontius Pilate, using crucifixion—a punishment reserved not for theological error, but for those perceived as threats to order. But why does the state respond in this way to certain individuals? A common explanation is necessity—that the state must preserve stability, that it acts reluctantly but rationally to maintain order. This view, however, assumes that the state is fundamentally neutral or even benevolent. There is another, darker interpretation, one articulated by M. Scott Peck in his work People of the Lie . Peck defines evil not primarily as aggression or violence, but as a refusal to acknowledge one’s own faults. Evil, in this framework, is the active avoidance of truth about onesel...