Or it could go down this way: Person X thinks of himself as an agent of all that is good and holy. Person Y either confronts X, or (if X is especially intolerant) merely entertains an opposing viewpoint to X.Charles_Odinforce wrote:All that said, I recognize this. Those who tend to think of themselves as "Light" and "Good" mystically refuse to do "evil" and "dark" things...
Till they are pushed... then they are about 90X more dangerous, vicious, unrelenting, and masochistic than anyone else. This simply put is because once they stop believing they are the "Good" guy all that pent up aggression comes out....
If X thinks all opponents are agents of evil, he might feel no compunction whatsoever about trying to exterminate Y and his opposing viewpoint, and the more decisively, the better. X might be able to internally justify his behavior, no matter how heinous, by declaring that he HAD to exterminate evil by any means necessary.
At which point, though X might still consider himself an agent of the good and holy, the REST of us may or may not objectively agree with him. It depends on what Y was actually doing, and what X did or didn't do in response.