A moral person will not kill.
A soldier, guided by ethical duty, may kill in combat.
A person with principles uses both morality and duty as foundations for action and judgment. Thus, a soldier may kill enemy combatants on the battlefield, but not treat captured prisoners the same way; in fact, he feeds them and gives first aid when they are wounded, including an honerable funeral if the person dies in line of duty!
We all begin life Idealistically.
As God’s children our minds are a clean slate, and humanism feels natural. Then experience reshapes us. We learn that the world is tilted - duniya sachme tedhi hai, and that trying to walk perfectly straight on a crooked street makes us stumble.
Our “lens” - the way we see and want to fix the world is fabricated by our past: our lineage, surrounding, and experiences.
From that lens, three broad responses typically emerge:
Idealist A (Centralist)
Some people cling stubbornly to that childlike moral straightness. They assume the world will follow the standards of fairness and equality. When faced with war or real conflict, they collapse: their idealistic offerings are unprepared for harsh realities. They fail to get it that they've left the kindergarten behind. Now, treating unequal as equals is itself unfair.
Often seen as impractical or misfits, they remain correct but ineffective, achieving far less than their potential.
Idealist B (Left of Centre)
They decide that the system itself is corrupt. They believe elites have compromised morals and dominate unfairly. To fix injustice, they favor bottom‑up upheaval and are willing to sacrifice some morals temporarily to mobilize the disenchanted.
Their aim is to destroy the existing order and rebuild a new ethical system. Short-lived revolutions often follow: they burn the old faster than they can create the new, and outcomes sometimes contradict their original ideals.
Idealist C (Right of Centre)
They conclude that they have had a raw deal due to the system that takes them for granted. To bring change, they require power.
They rise within the existing order, adopt its principles where useful, and then when they get hold of the levers of power, they show their true colors, and begin reform from above - pruning what weakens the system and consolidating authority.
They build disciplined institutions and enjoy long‑lasting structures, but their centralization can marginalize and silence the weak.
All three share a common goal -improving the system, but they differ in means.
Each has strengths and failure modes:
Category A often produces mediocrity as personal correctness is without any social impact with everyone else racing ahead of them, which in some cases leads to frustration, even despondency, and in extreme cases they become self‑destructive.
Category B can mobilize change rapidly, but extreme versions resort to mass violence; history shows revolutions and persecutions that cost millions of lives.
Category C creates durable systems; in excess, it breeds belligerence toward dissent and can justify extraordinary measures, sometimes overriding law in the name of a greater good.
One thing is certain: Utopia does not exist.
Across scriptures, history, and the present world, you will not find a single society untouched by sin, injustice, or violence.
Socrates was made to drink poison, Jesus was crucified, Galileo was condemned to spend his life under house arrest, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Gandhi was eliminated, and Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.
History reveals a recurring pattern: societies often punish most severely those who challenge established norms - whether philosophical, religious, scientific, political, or social.
The method changes with the age, but the resistance remains constant.
Why?
Morality has little chance of either instant acceptability or long-term survival on its own.
Whatever is on offer, it has to be skillfully offered in a manner that suits the existing sociocultural context and realpolitik conditions before it can be found acceptable by the general public.
Those who were killed, may have been right, but were obviously deemed unacceptable to whoever - thus, their offerings can be considered as beyond the prevalent knowledge, context, or even impractical on a societal scale.
We can conclude that depending on where one is on the timeline or moral scale, one needs to be appropriate before being right.
And so history offers mixed examples: radical leaders who destroyed as much as they claimed to save, and reformers who suspended norms to preserve a nation.
These are not merely political classifications; they are attitudes toward life, living, and liberty that one believes can be imposed through institutions and administrators.
Ask yourself the fundamental question: Main Aisa Kyun Hoon?
Which lens shapes your decisions - moral purity, revolutionary change, or principled consolidation?
