Heroic scientists are substitutes for leaders who decree the abolition of sympathy

Evidence

Yet the great benefactors of mankind, whose scientific achievements have to be written up as acts of sympathy to give them an artificial human interest, are substitutes for the national leaders, who finally decree the abolition of sympathy and think they can prevent any recurrence when the last invalid has been exterminated. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 115

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Resonates with the sacrifice article’s theme: the ritual/structural substitution concealed beneath humane surface narratives.
• XREF: connects to: Competent humans who take without gratitude are destroyed by the species they misuse — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1250
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Competent humans who take without gratitude are destroyed by the species they misuse — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1250