from Alice Miller's "For your own good".
When feelings are admitted into consciousness, the wall of silence disintegrates, and the truth can no longer be held back.
Even intellectualizing about whether "there is a truth per se," whether or not "everything is relative," etc., is recognized as a defense mechanism once the truth, no matter how painful, has been uncovered. (pg 76).
People with any sensitivity cannot be turned into mass murderers overnight.
But the men and women who carried out "the final solution" did not let their feelings stand in their way for the simple reason that they had been raised from infancy not to have any feelings of their own but to experience their parents' wishes as their own.
These were people who, as children, had been proud of being tough and not crying, of carrying out all their duties "gladly," of not being afraid-that is, at bottom, of not having an inner life at all. (pg 81).
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