Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.
Interpretation
Destiny is often used as an excuse for immoral actions, distancing the perpetrator from ethical accountability.
This quote by Steven Erikson critiques the concept of destiny, suggesting that it is a fabrication that allows individuals, particularly those who commit heinous acts, to justify their behavior. By labeling their actions as preordained, they evade moral responsibility, thus undermining ethical frameworks and social accountability. The quote challenges the notion of destiny by exposing its potential to rationalize atrocities and the lack of moral context it entails.
In practice
In a discussion on ethics, one might say, 'Remember, as Steven Erikson pointed out, destiny can often be a misleading justification for one's actions.'
Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish. -And we’re no different you’re saying- We are, soldier. We possess the privilege of choice. The gift of foresight. Though often we come too late in acknowledging responsibilities….
We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.
I've spoken often of how the fantasy genre is able to, with the greatest freedom among all the genres, take a metaphor and make it real. But of course that's only the starting point.
Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched behind one now stretches before him.
War has its necessities...and I have always understood that. Always known the cost. But, this day, by my own hand, I have realized something else. War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life.
Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant.
Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from.
I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.
Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger.
All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.
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