Plenty of people devote their lives, and even more readily other people’s, to causes they believe are just.

That includes religious figures, politicians and cults: in other words, people who carry ideas.

When cults (the Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinrikyō, the Peoples Temple and so on) lead to human sacrifice, it’s for a shared belief, led by the guru. For the leader, those human beings are worth less than the ideas.

The same goes for every war in which leaders send young men to the front, their deaths justified by a casus belli, and rewarded with glory, a concept invented to bring the price down.

They fan the embers, tucked away in their comfort
Sing us the Marseillaise as long as death has no smell
They plan the war, but will never wear the fatigues
When we run out of cemeteries, they’ll flee the country
- Kery James, French rapper, Vivre ou Mourir Ensemble [Live or Die Together] (2016), our translation

You find the same thing with politicians and the bosses of big companies. Their decisions affect hundreds, thousands, even millions of people. But they will rarely be affected directly themselves.

And many of those affected say they are hostages to those decisions. And yet…